Scars and Souvenirs

One

This still needs to be edited but yeah, I hope you enjoy and thank you so much for taking the time to read this, means a lot.

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"How are you feeling today, Taylor?" Dr Grace Watkins asked the dark haired girl with something close to motherly concern lacing her words. She was a chunky woman, with more chins than Taylor had friends, and hair so dry she was surprised the gardener hadn't tried to strip it to feed the horses. The doctor's eyes were small, piglike; always desperate to find out her patient's deepest, darkest secrets. She knew none of Taylor's, and that obviously annoyed her more than she let on. But Taylor didn't mind, the less Grace knew, the better.

"I'm fine," the dark haired girl, Taylor, lied easily. She'd have to start paying 5p to the government for the bags developing under her eyes, most mornings she'd wake up and think her one year old husky, Jareth, had head-butted her while she was sleeping. So it was only obvious when Grace shot her a disbelieving look.

"It's not good to bottle things up, Taylor," the woman's voice never changed, and that irritated Taylor, though not as much as the line that was repeated every session. Taylor knew it wasn't good to bottle things up, but she didn't know anything different. The last doctor who knew the truth refused to see her again, claiming Taylor was "too damaged to help." She drank bleach that night. Unfortunately, they managed to save her before the chemicals did anything significant, apparently they'd been anticipating the attempt sooner rather than later.

"I know," was all Taylor said, the same every day. The sessions were meant to last an hour, and from what Taylor had heard, most other patients loved to unload their problems in complete confidence to someone who was payed to listen, but Taylor didn't. She'd avoid talking about herself as much as possible, it was easier to lie that way. Keep it simple. Not even Grace knew who she really was, and Taylor was okay with that. She didn't want people to know.

"Are you taking your medication?" Grace asked after a few moments of silence. She couldn't stand silence, Taylor had noticed, the longest they'd managed to last was three minutes, and that was on her first session. Apparently, since she'd been with the practice for nearly two years, silence wasn't acceptable.

"Yes," the lie was simple, rolling off her tongue as easily as her own name, well, the name she'd chosen.

"Taylor, you need to be honest with me," Taylor hated the way Grace kept saying her name. It made her feel that the doctor was onto her, that she knew the truth. That her name wasn't Taylor and her hair wasn't black and that her vision was perfect, even without the thick framed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose.

"I haven't taken my medication today, Grace," her voice was quiet, her emotion masked. She didn't feel guilty about not taking her medication, she never did. She liked to save it for when things got too much. And since the pharmacy never gave her more than three days worth of medication at a time, she had to save it. Three tablets wouldn't be enough to do what she wanted them to. She'd need much, much more for that.

"Why is that, Taylor?" The question made her heart clench, and she raised her eyes, the colour of whiskey in sunlight, and locked them onto the clock just over the blonde woman's left shoulder. Half ten. It felt later.

"Forgot," lies. Grace knew. She always knew. She'd made Taylor take her saved tablets to the surgery the last time, and watched as she flushed each of them down the toilet, commenting on how proud she was when the last white tablet was gone in a swirl of bleach stained water.

"Why did you forget?"

Grace already knew, though. She knew Taylor was saving them for when she couldn't take it anymore. For when she couldn't take the guilt of leaving her younger brother behind, alone, with parents so strict Taylor refused to talk about them. For when she couldn't take the flashbacks of what her ex boyfriend had done to her. Little did Grace know that Taylor's parents were as relaxed as parents could be, and her ex boyfriend, her only boyfriend, had loved her more than anything in the world. They were going to get married, have kids. But then he left. And her family was torn out from under her.