Maybe Then...

Chapter 34: if I would have been honest to begin with

If I would have been honest to begin with,

And told someone what happened,

Maybe then, I wouldn't have hurt them so much

---------------------------------------------

I rested my chin in my hand, my eyes skimming the motivational posters along a wall, squinting to try and read each one. For some reason, those cheap tricks to lighten a mood rarely affect me like they do other people. It didn't smell like a doctors waiting room, and it certainly didn't have the same apprehensive feeling from it, but it did look sort of similar to a doctors waiting room. My attempts at reading the posters was stopped short by a man opening a door. He didn't look like a normal doctor, but I reminded myself that he wasn't a normal doctor, and I wasn't a normal kind of patient.

"Amelia," he smiled politely. "Come on back."

I took a deep breath and sat of from my chair.

"Do we go back, too?" uncle Jason asked.

"For the first session, yes, we ask that both the parents and the patient are present." He held the door open for us to walk through. We walked through a hallway with various doors that each had their own name next to them in bold, black lettering. We stopped at one with the name Leonard Dobson next to it, and shuffled into the room.

"Please, take a seat," he said to us. We did so silently. "So, Amelia, how are you?"

"Pretty good," I said flatly.

"Okay, and how are you really?"

"Tired," I shrugged.

"Did you not get enough sleep last night?"

"No, not really."

He nodded understandingly, then turned his attention to aunt Ruby and uncle Jason. "I reckon you're her parents?"

"No, aunt and uncle," uncle Jason said.

"Ah, then I suppose you're her father," he said to grandpa.

"No, I'm her grandfather."

I decided to speed up the process by filling him in. "My dad is God-knows-who, God-knows-where, and my mom is dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Eh, I never met her." I picked at my fingernails out of boredom.

"She passed away when Amelia was a baby," grandpa added on.

"Oh, I see," he nodded. "So, Amelia, why are you here today?"

"Just read my charts."

"Amelia!" grandpa scolded.

"I meant, why do you think you're here?" he clarified.

"Because I haven't been eating well," I answered. "And my cousin walked in on me making myself throw up."

"Why did you make yourself throw up?"

I shrugged.

"Are you trying to change the person that you see in the mirror?"

My head shot up at that accusation. "What?"

"Are you trying to lose weight?"

"I don't give a rats ass about how I look," I laughed humorously.

"Language!" grandpa warned.

"Sorry."

"So if you're not trying to lose weight," Dr. Dobson continued, "what is your motive for throwing up and not eating properly?"