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☀︎ We ended up falling asleep watching Mulan. Well, I did, and apparently that set off a chain reaction. When I woke up it was early and everyone was still here, sprawled where they dropped. I got my workout in with an hour to spare which feels illegal but I'm not questioning it.
I'm standing there doing the most normal human thing possible making myself cereal, when I feel Hala staring holes into the side of my skull. I turn and yep, she's got the look. The I'm about to ruin your morning look. It's way too early for this.
"Alex," she says all soft, like she's about to tell me I tested positive for something tragic. She even sits down slowly, hands folded, voice lowered, fully committing to the don't startle the broken child routine. I already want to walk into the ocean.
"What is it this time," I mutter under my breath, shaking cereal into the bowl.
"How's uni been? Studying from home and all?" Translation: You're definitely not going in person because you're just not ready to go in person and you don't get a say. I side-eye her, hard, but she keeps going.
"Are you considering a gap year? I can make that happen if you're getting overwhelmed." Overwhelmed? Girl, I literally nanny three kids, two being teens just like me. My face ends up on social media more than I like, and strangers ask me for photos in public. I know overwhelmed and im not it. Instead of saying that I just shrug and grab the milk. thats when she decides to go personal.
"How's therapy been? Is it working?" My fingers with my whole body actually freeze. Then she hits me with: "Is your medication fine, or should we... increase support?" Increase support?? Ma'am. I'm standing here in pyjama shorts. Standing. And then she pulls out the final boss of questions.
"Are you feeling stable?" Stable? At this given moment not really because my brain and heart are fighting over whether to cry, scream or punch the absolute bullshit out of her rn or do all in the wrong order. I stop mid-pour, milk jug hovering, brain buffering. I swivel to her slowly.
"Hala, what... is happening right now?" She gives me that soft, painful smile, the one you give a stray injured animal that hisses when you try to help. Her eyes do that gentle, pity flicker like she's replaying every vulnerable moment she's ever seen from me, every night I cried myself to sleep, every moment I pushed through something I shouldn't have had to. The worst part is, she promised she'd never look at me like that and yet here we are.
