Rose Tattoo | tattoo artist/single dad!calum

chapter 10

a/n: this chapter is heavy! TW for suicidal thoughts, anxiety, mentions of self-harm, mentions of past abuse, mentions of death and mental illness. (None which are graphic but something to be aware of)

The chair that Stevie had been stuck in for nearly an hour had been comfortable at first. It was plush, cushioned and roomy enough for her to not feel constricted, but as she fidgeted anxiously, it grew increasingly uncomfortable. She couldn't find a position that worked for her, nothing made her feel at ease, so she settled for sitting with one leg beneath her and bouncing her other knee as she stared at the clock on the wall.

She found herself all too aware of her surroundings. The ticking of the clock thundered in her ears, each second passing felt like a lifetime and seemed to mock her as it melted away. The hiss of the heater, the metallic screech of the vent above her head, sent goosebumps erupting across her skin. The unbearable heat of the office felt suffocating and made it that much harder for her to breathe as she sat and waited for her appointment to begin.

She hadn't been to a therapist since high school and she felt a bit of residual resentment as she glanced around the office. She had been forced then, dragged against her will to sit and talk to a stranger after her mother spotted new scars on her thighs and didn't know how to handle it, and hated every moment of it. She felt alone, misunderstood, and didn't want the rationality that her therapist offered her. She wanted to wallow, to live in her misery and let it drown her, but not this time.

This time, she went willingly.

After her first visit to her therapist as a teenager, Stevie was medicated. She was given something she considered an all-purpose drug meant to tackle her anxiety and all of the nasty things that came with it and, for a while, she was fine with it. She had long since stopped caring what anyone thought of her and if medication made her mind a safer place for her to be, she knew that she could tune out the stigma surrounding it. However, when the medication made her feel like a stranger in her own skin, uncomfortable and more anxious than before, she made the decision to stop taking it and no one fought her.

Her doctor declared that someone so young - she was barely sixteen at the time - shouldn't be on such a heavy medication. Her mother, a woman who had been on medication more than half her life for her own bipolar disorder, didn't want Stevie to endure the same fate. They decided that she seemed fine, over the teen angst that resulted in her harming herself, and in a better state of mind after only six months on medication so they let it go.

She stopped taking her medicine and stopped seeing her therapist and learned how to hide her suffering a little better.

If you'd asked her, she would have told you that she was fine during that period and, for some parts of it, she was. She was functional, able to maintain high enough grades to earn academic scholarships and breeze through college. She made friends, she made memories, she lived; however, it often felt as though she were an outsider looking in. She kept her struggle hidden, only commenting on her lack of sleep or appetite when she was busy enough to cover it all up with a reasonable excuse, and felt that she was managing it adequately.

In the rough waters of depression and anxiety, Stevie had become a professional swimmer.

However, Angela's death was something that she couldn't manage, not even somewhat. She was the only person that Stevie confided in, the only one that knew from the hazy look in her eyes or the bouts of silence Stevie sometimes lapsed into just how deep in her head she was, and Stevie had returned that favor for her. But when Angela got sick, Stevie no longer had anyone to talk to. She couldn't tell Angela how her illness was effecting her life. She couldn't tell her that she was afraid of what would happen if she died.