The Sound of Glass Hearts {Kellin Quinn} (Watty Awards 2013)

1 - Too Shy to Scream

    The building I’m standing in front of isn’t your average structure and the fact that I’m here at all is a freakin miracle…or a sign of the apocalypse.  Take your pick.  I’d never had that moment of feeling on the line of insanity until my mom had pointed out that it had been a week since I’d showered and perhaps I needed to see a psychologist.  My mom didn’t even live in the same town as me so the fact that she either had super human smell or psychic abilities astounded me.  

    She had been right on the money.

    My head had itched that day and I showered just to show her up but she had sent me a message on Facebook the next day to give me the number of a shrink she was good friends with up here in Colorado.  I was in Veterinary school up here and had tried to hide my misery by burying it in mounds of paperwork, homework and notes that I read and reread over and over again.  The teaching hospital was another of my distractions, but when you’re not exactly sterile, people tend to kick you out of surgeries.  Mom knew I was miserable, moms always know, but the fact that she had suggested a therapist had caught me completely off guard.  My grades weren’t slipping, but my classmates tried to stay far away from me.  I had earned the “she’s the smelly girl who cries a lot” title but in all honesty I really didn’t give a flying rat’s ass what they thought of me.  

    They didn’t know what I’d been through.

    My mom had though.  She had come up here while I was moving in because I had been too depressed to even try to unpack boxes.  See…it had been almost two years since my boyfriend broke up with me after…after what had happened.  It was mostly my fault, I shouldn‘t have been so excited or so needy after it had occurred, but how could I help myself?  When you undergo the unexpected the way I had, you don‘t really know how you‘re going to react until it‘s all said and done.  Maybe part of it had been his constant touring, the fan girls screaming his name from the crowd and the like.  I hadn’t expected him to receive so much fame and instead of the fame going to his head, it went to mine.  I was jealous and worried and after the incident, the self esteem in me deflated like a balloon.

    Well I paid the price for it, that’s for damn sure.  I didn’t even want to think about it right now because I was stepping through the doors of the shrink’s office with complete and utter apprehension.  Only crazy, incoherent, imbeciles spoke to therapists and hired them to deal with their problems.  Was that who I had turned into?

    It didn’t matter at this point.  I wasn’t paying the bills because my mom had insisted and had even made the appointment for me; she made me promise to show up after forking up the cash for the expedition.

    My black Vans with white siding squeaked on the shiny ebony and ivory marble flooring that had been waxed way too many times this week.  Snowy walls reminded me of the typical doctor’s office and the smell of it made me wrinkle my nose but it made no sense as to why this place smelled sterilized.  The multitude of fichus trees was cliché and ridiculous, the feeling reminiscent of your classic soap opera.  Chairs were wooden with azure upholstery which was also cliché doctor and the marble flooring only led to the receptionist before blue carpeting began to cover the ground in an oddly patchwork way.  The color suited the chairs, but was bizarrely different from the black and white tile; their decorator made a mistake somewhere.  It was strange to say the least, like they’d purposely done this to confuse the shit out of people.  Maybe it was to bring the crazy out in the folk who came to this place.

    I walked up to the receptionist and smiled.

    She was a little heavy set with black hair that curled and pulled up into a slight bun on the back of her head.  Bright red lipstick, black eyeliner, brown eye shadow and a bit of a snaggle tooth with a bad sense of style managed to make her look more out of sorts as a human being let alone a professional receptionist in a doctor‘s office.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to be nicer, chastising myself for being so mean to her in my head.  I tended to be a lot harsher when I was upset or forced into things; sadly for her, today was one of those days where I was forced to be here and was still blatantly distressed.