Maybe Then...

Chapter 40: if I don't give in

If I don't give in to the thoughts

Maybe then, I actually will be in control of something in my life

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"You look tired," Dolan comments.

I brush past him and let myself into his house "Shut up, I already know."

"Wow, someone's a morning person," he mumbles.

As soon as I get downstairs, Kyle joins in on poking fun of the bags under my eyes. "You look tired."

I glare at him. "At you look ugly, but I'm not complaining."

I can see Cooper sitting on a stool at his keyboard, biting back a laugh. Dan doesn't even try to contain his chuckles.

"Okay, enough chit chat. Let's get to work, now," Cooper directed.

Kyle held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, pushy!"

"Y'all wanted me to enact my zero tolerance policy, so you brought it upon yourselves. Now let's get to work!"

Just like the day before, we worked on reviewing the songs we already learned over time. After we reviewed all four of the songs we knew by heart, we worked on thoroughly learning the three songs that we never got the hang of before the band split apart.

By the time the practice session was over, we'd almost gotten them down. But there were still small parts in each of the newer songs that needed some tweaking on. We all seemed to realize those parts, but none of us brought attention to them. Cooper was the one who wrote most of them, and it was he and Dan who called the shots for how the songs would be put together.

Being the perfectionist that he was, he rarely threw caution to the wind when it came to music. So of course it struck me as odd that he wouldn't say a single word about those parts of the songs. Neither of the composers spoke up, and the rest of us didn't feel it was our place to interfere with their creative process, or whatever you want to call it.

Who am I to judge how the song sounds?

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I looked at the clock, hoping it'd magically be one hour later. I wanted that French narrator from Spongebob to intervene and say One long hour later, letting me leave that overly air-conditioned therapist's office.

Granted, it was hot outside, but I was wearing overalls and a t-shirt for a reason, and that was not to get goosebumps from the AC of a place I didn't want to be at.

"So how has your week been?" Dr. Dobson asked, his stubbed fingers fiddling around with a pen in his hand.

"Okay," I say non-chalantly.

"Okay? What does an okay week look like to you?"

"This week."

He let out a sigh, his whole demeanor changing to something that seemed a little more authentic. "Amelia, could you please be real with me here?"

"I am," I scowled with defensiveness. "I just don't think I should be here."

"And why is that?" he pried. He didn't seem to have that gentle tone to his questions anymore. Instead, it was replaced with straightforwardness.

"Because, I don't think I'm messed up enough to be in here!"

"And what do you think is 'messed up enough to be in here' is?" he said using air quotations.