Healing the heart

Chapter 1

 David and Wendy have been dating for about 3 years now, Wendy, who works at a psychiatric hospital wakes up suddenly to the sound of the doorbell, "who is it this time, Its supposed to be my day off". Opening the door her best friends Kate and Jake rush in, "Wendy don't panic but I'm about to tell you something important" Kate says, "what is it this time" Wendy replies looking from Kate to Jake with a confused look on her face, "I mean did someone die ,why are you looking at me like that" she asks when they both just stand there, Kate and Jake exchange similar looks on their faces, she realizes that they look worried so she asks again what happened, and Jake finally spills the beans "we saw David kissing someone else" Kate continues "at first we thought it was you but then I remembered that we just talked on the phone and you were still at the hospital, we're sorry we should have told you sooner" Wendy plops down on the white couch, "what do you mean" she finally manages to say "we're so sorry darling, we should've told you sooner but we figured you'd be busy " says Kate while Jake comforts her.

At noon, Wendy stands in front of his apartment, she rings the doorbell, he opens the door a while later, "hey" he greets her and motions for her to come in, which she does she sits on the couch and looks around remembering the times he had managed to convince her he was innocent before but this time she's got solid evidence against him.

Once he comes back into the room and sits with her she starts to talk "where were you last night" she inquires which he finds weird and then answers "babe, I told you I was home sick last night, what is this about, you're being weird babe" "okay then I don't suppose it's your twin in this video" she plays a video on her phone showing him kissing some other girl and telling her he loved her. She put the phone back in her bag" what do you have to say for yourself this time David" he's about to defend himself but she cuts in, "you know what, just save it I've had enough of you, you can tell it to your next girlfriend " she says and storms out of there.

Wendy's never been the one to make a scene which is why she always tolerated him when he mistreated her, but she was done with him now, she had stayed at his place for a while and it was past seven now she got home took a shower and then went to bed, she had another long day of work ahead of her.

When she got to work and clocked In the next day, heading into the locker room the head nurse came to her "Wendy, how are you today" "oh Mrs. Brookes I'm good, you?" "yes same here, this is Tony, he'll be under you from now on please take good care of him" she says to Wendy "hello I'm Tony and I'll be under you from now on please treat me well" Wendy nods and turns back to the nurse "sure" she says "well then I'm off" says the nurse and she leaves.

Wendy turns to Tony and gestures for him to follow her, he follows without complain as they head to one of the patients room "all the patients are out right now so we search their rooms for anything that could be used to physically harm themselves" she says to him and they both proceed to search the room . by the time they've finished searching the rooms they go to the reception to drop the items, then they go outside. As Wendy also studied psychology, she is also a counsellor for the patients, in fact that's her main job here.

One of the patients walking around approach her as they walk outside, saying they want to talk to her, so she tells Tony to keep an eye on the rest of the patients as she leaves for her office with the one who approached her. As they get there she gestures for him to sit "make yourself comfortable Matthew" she says "I'm ready when you're ready".

Matthew is a new patient, he's stayed for 2 months now but has refused to talk to anyone about his problems. When Matthew requested to talk to her she was quite taken aback because she thought with his behavior it will take him more time to be comfortable with others. She looks at him with an expression that indicates that she's listening to him, he hesitates a little but starts talking anyways "as you know I was admitted because of panic attacks" he pauses, then continues "the truth is these panic attacks started back in middle school when we had a car accident and my mum died. After that my dad always came back home drunk and beat me up, kids in my school would bully me because I had no mother, I dropped out of school because the bullying was too much, they'd burn my skin and cut me with sharp objects and all the teachers feigned ignorance, but my dad didn't like that I dropped out ad he beat me up more, I've ended up in the hospital almost every time after that. Dad didn't know about the attacks and I didn't plan on telling him, but the abuse was too much, it even came to the point where he stabbed me once and I had to get kidney transplant, I lied to the hospital because I thought it wasn't my dad's fault and that it was because of the alcohol but then I started to panic and I fainted every time I had one. And here I am now" he finished.