Maybe This Is Love, |✔️

Chapter 1

It's a dull Friday morning. The smell of wet leaves is seeping in through the window and the air is cold and windy.

Instead of sitting in a classroom full of overachievers, debating whether or not I truly belong there, I am here. Sitting like a duck in this tiny peach coloured office, waiting to be told I'm not actually as crazy as I feel.

Although it was pretty gloomy outside, I can still sense summer lingering by. So close that I can taste it. I don't want to let go of the sunny days yet. Maybe, I'm depending on summer for happiness.

I've given up on listening to the words being spoken at me rather than to me and instead I'm focusing on the little rose-shaped scar on the back of my hand. I've forgotten how I got it. Was it a burn or an old picked at scab?

I've always hated attending these therapy sessions. It makes me feel much less sane than I usually feel. I refuse to believe that 'talking it out' is going to fix me.

It doesn't help that it's on the other side of town which subsequently makes me late back to the sixth form every single week.

One of the other reasons I hate coming here is Dr. 'Please call me Tracy'.

Tracy is my psychologist, my therapist, my counsellor or whatever you call it. She's the woman my brother hired to find out why I stopped talking.

Her wavy ginger hair reminds me of that Disney movie, Brave. The deep dark rings under her eyes that she tries to cover up with cheap concealer makes me believe that she's having as much of a hard time as I am.

I can see she's trying her best to understand me and I'll admit, it does slightly hurt me knowing I'm not the easiest person to help.

"Harley? You need to answer the question," she asks calmly, her pale skinny fingers clench around that silly little clipboard of hers.
Her voice is soothing and slow as though she's trying to coax a baby to crawl to her.

I fiddle with my tight sweater sleeves before finally working up the courage to answer the question.

"Huh?" is all I can manage to get out.

I kiss my teeth in frustration. This is my third session with this new therapist so I'm still trying to get used to feeling comfortable speaking to her.

My old therapist tried and tried for months to get me to talk to her but I didn't budge. There was just something off about her that couldn't get me to open. I always felt like she was judging me somehow. Eventually, she gave up and referred me to another specialist. Tracy is meant to be much better and I'll admit she is better than the others but it is still early days.

She watches me closely before she skims through her notes, "I said have you made any attempt, since our last session, to speak to anyone new?"
She purses her lips together tightly and her red lipstick cracks under the pressure.
A little bit like I am now.

I swiftly shake my head as she continues to purse her lips and briskly write away on that damn clipboard. I wish I could just snatch that thing out of her hands and break it in half. But, of course, I have self-control.

The truth is I haven't tried to talk to anyone new. Why should I? What's the point? No one listens anyway. They never do.

I've barely even made eye contact with anyone outside of my family and the thought of doing so makes my stomach lurch. Just imagine, stuttering and spluttering trying to get a simple sentence out and then the other person realises that they don't actually want to talk to you after all.

I'd rather not, thanks.

She finally looks up at me through her white bottle-rimmed glasses and sighs. "Look, Harley, I know this is hard for you but the only way to work through this is to talk about it. That's why you're here, so why don't you let me help you."