The Paintbrush

The anomaly

"I looked like an idiot, I sounded like an idiot. I made a fool of myself but I didn't hide in the corner of my bedroom this time. I felt like I couldn't look at everyone in the eye again. It's not like I looked them in the eye anyway," I explained, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees. She was attentive yet relaxed, like this was expected from me.
"Well, aren't you going to say something?" I confusingly asked. She scribbled something down in her notepad and then paused. Still looking down at the paper she asked me:
"Have you been feeling unusual amounts of anger lately?" She questioned, resting her pen in her mouth. The pen was long and sleek, the kind you buy from a souvenir shop for over £5. It had a small tag on with some writing on, with a tiny UK flag in the corner. I was noticing the intricate detail because I wanted to ignore the anger boiling inside of me. Of course I had been unusually angry. Wasn't she listening? Because of my silence she switched her gaze onto me, almost looking frightening. My blood boiled due to the fact I would have to repeat this entire half an hour session again to prove how I'm unnecessarily feeling angry. I'm never angry.
"Have you not been listening for the past 30 minutes? Have you not been hearing how I'm taking out anger on the most weirdest situations? Have you just been scribbling away unnecessary words on that pathetic notebook of yours? Are you even listening to the words that are coming out of my mouth?" I was mortified, she just looked at me blankly with the pen out of her mouth now. It was stained by the deep pink lipstick she was wearing, the pattern was different yet perfectly aligned. I don't know why I notice these things. With a blink of an eye, I looked over at my canvas at the end of the room.
...It was filled with strokes. I'm pretty sure it was only slightly filled. Yesterday, I added my fifth stroke, gliding from the top left corner to the bunch of strokes near the centre. It wasn't thick, it was pretty faint because I didn't want to mark a stain on the canvas. But the canvas now was full of countless colours, all of different depth, width and length. I looked back at the therapist, now looking angry and somewhat different. She placed down her notepad onto the side of her desk and stood up onto her wobbly heels. I didn't know what to expect nor did I know what to do. My mind was aching and my vision was breaking. I couldn't focus on her features that seemed all too familiar to me.
"Ok listen here girl, I asked you a simple question just to confirm what you were talking about. No I wasn't scribbling some shit on my 'pathetic' notepad, I was writing down word for word how you express everything to measure the abnormalities in your behaviour. You don't need to take out the anger on me from you tragic past! It's not my fault that your mother died! Maybe it's just YOUR bad luck! Maybe you deserve everything that happened to you! Maybe all those curse words people call you are true!"
She spat out the words like they were venomous. Every insult pushed me further into the weak zone. For a second I couldn't decide whether she was being professional or personal. Was she allowed to talk to me that way? Am I really so worthless and time-consuming that even a professional couldn't handle me? Was I really that...annoying? I was right next to tears; I could feel the tears almost breaking the barriers in my tear duct. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I trusted this person with my life and I felt the knives that I shared with her, used to stab my back. The same pain infected every living cell in my body, spreading weakness like a virus. I stepped back even further, not looking at what was behind me as I fell on my back. My eyes were drenched with pain and guilt. I can't believe I even got comfortable with my therapist. Does she really mean what she said? Am I really everything that people say?
"Do you really mean that?" I whispered, looking down at the floor. I didn't really want to know the answer even though their was a 50% chance of making this situation worse. I closed my eyes and took out the paintbrush that was enveloped inside my blazer pocket. I was holding it like it would take away the throbbing taking place in multiple places in my body. I still hadn't changed out from my school clothes because my unusualness today had been bothering me, causing me to come to my therapist. I wanted to fight back in the argument and there was no way I would sit back and agree on the words spitting out of her mouth. But was she even meaning what she said? I still hadn't had a reply and I honestly didn't want one. But I just needed to know.
"Of course I mean it! I get tormented by strangers every single day because they know that I interact with a loser like you! I'm surprised you haven't been convinced to commit suicide yet! There is no way of helping you so your wasting my time right this second. I can't even believe I'm wasting my breath on you. What everyone says about you is true! You are a brat! You are a bitch! You're worthless! You're hopeless! You're dead to everyone!"
I kept my eyes closed when she said all of that. Tears escaped my eyes every syllable that was spat out. I was broken, there's no doubt in that. I didn't dare look up to my therapist yet, I was too fragile. I was afraid her deathly eyes would see right through me. But once I opened my eyes, the pain stopped, my palms were resting on the floor, my breath irregular, my forehead dripping with sweat, and the therapist?
She was sitting back, on her red spinner chair, her fingers curled around her pen, crossing her legs and focusing on her notepad, acting as if nothing had happened...