SHAMEFUL INSTINCTS: THE OTHER HALF OF ECHO

CHAPTER ONE

NE

Cassie strolled towards the Brinton Counselling Centro. Focusing on her steps, she moved determinedly towards the four-story building across the lane.

She frowned at the ridiculous building whose outer decor contrasts with the elegant surrounding buildings and their perfectly groomed occupants. Cassie stopped for a second, surveyed her surroundings, and made a mental road track on the flat and bumpy grounds which could lead to an embarrassing fall, and chose to avoid them.

She blinked from the visual whiplash and the sudden sting from the blatant display of bright primary colors.

Every time she sees this bizarre decoration furnished with green, pink, and a lot of pink, she's always perplexed how on Earth a person with a Barbie complex like Brenda was allowed to decorate and design a serious office building. She thought derisively. Well...the same way she was tricked into participating in her dress-up experiment a year ago. Cassie shivered at the resurfacing memory she had sworn to forget about and the promise she made to herself never near Brenda in a shopping mall again.

Finally... she sighed, relaxed her tense muscles, and smiled stiffly at the burly security guard, Joe. Who was looking at her like a strung-up dad watching his toddling child intently... on alert to catch her if she fell. Recalling the numerous falls, slips, and stumbles in front of this building, she doesn't blame him.

I didn't fall and embarrass myself. She triumphed mentally. She looked at the reception area and winced from the sting of the brightly colored walls and the sparkle

from the overly bleached teeth of the smiling receptionist, Suzy.

'Hi! Cassie.' She smiled brightly...well... a little too brightly, which made Cassie's chaotic emotions fluctuate darkly. She must've seen something on Cassie's face because

her enthusiastic smile faltered. And in no mood to butter to someone's emotional changes, she chose to ignore it.

'Cindy is waiting in her office.'

'Thanks.' Cassie nodded quietly and proceeded to the elevator. She glanced surreptitiously at the décor in the waiting area and frowned. Whoever consented to this offensive decoration in a building designated to treat people with volatile moods and problematic psychology has to be annoyingly cheerful and unsympathetically bright, if this result was what he was going for. She thought.

The clarity of the room made Cassie's morbid and gloomy mood more prominent. She felt irritable...like a contented solitary dark ice whose sanctuary was suddenly encroached upon by an irritating white flame. She just wants a quiet place to soothe her wounded confidence and battered sanity. The destruction of such contented tranquility made

her angry with anything bright right now. Moving to the last office on the third floor, she stumbled and fell, scraping her hands and knees in the process.

'Well... someone knows how to make an entrance.' A statuesque brunette with a black Madonna-style jumper, a highly unfeminine ponytail, and outrageously high-inched stilettos, whose dark shade perfectly matched the shadows under her eyes, stood stiffly at the door and scowled at Cassie in the doorway. She glanced surreptitiously at Cassie, rolled her eyes, and strolled towards the desk in unreasonably high-inched stilettos.

Cassie stared speechlessly at the lady-man in front of her and sighed. Her amused grin was met with a leave me alone glare. Everybody does weird sometimes. At least, Cindy never comes to work when she's in one of her mood swings. Cassie frowned, apologetic for disturbing Cindy with her problems, with the notice of the... I'm-stressed-but- pretending-to-be-fine attitude she's showing.

At least, she's not twiddling with strange flowers and plants this time. She sighed ruefully.

Although nondescript, it is also a way to vent frustrations and release stress.