His Little Puppet

04| therapy

I couldn't write a single sentence for my paragraph. My leg bounced up and down as I bit my lip. My mind won't stop replaying the events of last night. I was in history and was supposed to write a paragraph about the cold war and I only wrote the heading.

A notification on my phone popped up and I looked at my teacher before I checked it.

Unknown number
-meet me outside.

As soon as I read the text. I know who it was. I raised my hand and the teacher looked up. "I need to use the bathroom," I said. "It's almost lunch. You can hold it." He replied.

"You see Mr. Hunt, I really can't hold something like this. If you don't send me to the bathroom this class would be a bloodbath." I said internally laughing at his expression.

"You can go." I took up my bag and books and walked out of class. I saw Asher leaning against a locker.

There was a cut under his eye and I frowned. "What happened to your eye?" I questioned him reaching to touch the cut. He grabbed my hands and I winced.

"What happened to your hand?" He asked examining the cuts. "I was um, unpacking some boxes and a mirror broke." I lied. He was watching me and I avoided his gaze. He squeezes my knuckles and I cried out.

"Don't lie to me!" I jerked my hand away from him. "Okay, I punched a mirror!" I shouted, the pain in my hands getting worse.

"Come on." He said. He led me to the girl's washroom and ran out of the girls that were there. "Out!" He shouted and the poor girls ran out with the face smeared of makeup.

He held my waist and lift me up on the counter. He pulled something out of his back pocket and it was a bandaid and a small bottle of vodka.

He stood between my legs and held my hands. "Do you walk around with whiskey and bandaid all the time?"

He didn't answer instead he held my hands over the sink and poured the vodka on my wounds. My screams and cries echoed along the walls of the bathroom.

He wrapped the bands around my knuckles. Asher held me as I climbed off the counter. My feet touch the ground and my face buried in his neck. He smelts like cinnamon and aftershave. The pain from the vodka on my still hurting me.

He hugged me as I calmed down. "I'm sorry." He whispering in my ears.

"Why me?" I asked my voice low and non-threatening. I don't want to set him off. I remain docile, although he doesn't seem dangerous as Calla said, looks always prove to be deceiving.

"Your here." It takes a few moments for his words to register.

Huh?

I pulled back looking at him confused, but instead of explaining he held my hand carefully and led me out of the bathroom.

•°•°•

I walked around the room bouncing the stress ball in my hand. The yellow walls of the therapist's office somehow made me calm. My mom started to send me to therapy after she saw my room yesterday morning.

I didn't argue with her, because I didn't feel the need to.

"What brings you here today?" Coleen asked. She asked me to address her by her first name. She was in her mid-twenties, brown hair, and brown eyes. She was a real beauty.

"I'm here because I was almost raped ten months ago." I squeezed the stress ball. She gave it to me to stop me from breaking anything.

"Have you ever seen a counselor before?" She questioned writing down my first answer.

"No, I didn't need to. I feel fine." I lied.

If you were fine you wouldn't be here.

"What do you expect from the counseling process?" Coleen asked.

"I expect to cure my PTSD and sleep without nightmares," I responded. Those were my main problems, the nightmares, and my PTSD.

"Explain your symptoms of PTSD."

"Extreme physical reactions to reminders of trauma such as pounding heart, nausea, and throwing things," I described. She wrote down my symptoms on paper.

"Any more?"

"Nightmares of either frightening things or of the event... Loss of interest in life."

"Explain that last one to me." She said. "Well, I used to party, like a lot. But then after the accident, I just stopped. Stopped hanging out with friends I just went to school and back home."

"How about you try something. Something that would cure one of your symptoms." I looked at her and she was smiling her dimples deep in her cheeks.

"Something like what?"

"I want you to go to the party."

________________________________