Bitter

One

It was raining. Something he looked forward to, the greyness. Rain is classified as gloomy, depressing weather. He sees it as a cleansing. The sweet droplets falling upon everything around him, the pitter patter of substance landing on anything in sight. Not only are rain drops beautiful, their lives are short lived. They fall from lifeless, puffy clouds, crashing to Earth. Exploding their magnificent glimmer of water.

"What are you thinking about?" The voice next to him asked. He just yawned to himself, his cheek was pressed against the glass of the car window. His eyes were trailing lifelessly down the glass, following moving raindrops.

"Nothing." He mumbled. Which was, of course, a total lie. Tired, he picked up his head up a turned his direction to his left.

There, concentrating, was his mom. Her dirty blond hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, her short bangs were falling in her eyes. His mom was always tense when she drove after being in a terrible car accident a very long time ago.

"James?" She asked him. He didn't even realize his gaze had turned to the floor. How long had he been staring?

"Did you even hear a word I just said?" She laughed. James sucked in a breath and turned his head towards her. They were at a stop light. Her hazel eyes were searching him, her mouth slightly open.

"What did you say?" He mumbled, not really in the mood to talk.

The light turned green and she turned her head forward once more.

"I asked if you were nervous for the session." Her voice strained a bit at the end as she craned her neck to look over the steering wheel.

James thought about that question thoroughly. Was he nervous? He couldn't tell. Maybe he was, he's never met this man before.

James tried not to think about it. In fact, he tried not to think about a lot of things. Thinking seemed to be his enemy nowadays.

"Not really." He shrugged, trying to shove his mother's attempts at conversation away. Thinking about if he was nervous led to him thinking about his past. And that was something he didn't feel like wallowing over right now.

But regardless of his wants, the memories came flooding anyway. The pills, the crying, his self worth plummeting. Was that really him last year?

He just sighed. His mind could only take so much. He was a danger to himself and he didn't want to fuel that fire even more.

"Are we almost there?" He asked, wandering where that sudden urge to talk came from.

"Yes, actually. His house is really only ten minutes from our house." James nodded, understanding. He exhaled, leaning his head on the seat, his eyes wandering towards the ceiling. He liked to daydream. In fact, maybe he liked it a little too much.

The thought of dreaming about scenarios better than your life now seemed like pure bliss. But he didn't feel like day dreaming right now. His mind was made up, he was nervous.

He sat forward now, his eyes looking at the road in front of him.

His mom drove slower, her head turned to her left, looking for something. A street with a very steep hill came into view.

His mom turned her head in James's direction and looked down into the cup holders of the car. She moved her head around until she found what she was looking for. She quickly lifted up a crumbled piece of paper and smoothed the creases on her lap.

"Well I guess this is Forest Road." She muttered to no one in particular. She crumbled the directions and threw them back into the same cup holder. She turned up the hill, raising her body off the seat so that she could see if any cars were coming by.