Ephemeral //H.S

Chapter 36

-Lucy Urbinati-

Flashback November 2018

"We only have 20 minutes left Lucy, are you sure you don't want to talk?"

She says as I keep on looking down at my fingers, my purple nail polish was peeling off because most of my nails were broken. I like this nail polish, it's like a light pastel purple, it's Alice's but she let me borrow it.

Maybe if I had cut my nails, they wouldn't be broken now.

"Lucy?" She says again and I look up when she finally catches my attention.

She sits there with her legs crossed, her fingers intertwined as she rests her hands on top of her notepad, looking at me with soft eyes through her cat-eye shaped clear glasses, it suits her well. She has dirty blond hair and curtain bangs that frame her face, but not the unkept and messy kind, I can tell she blow dried her hair this morning, it looks soft and shiny. She seems like a nice person, but I think that she's just supposed to seem nice considering her job.

"Huh?"

"What were you thinking about?" She asks and I shrug, looking back down at my hands.

"Nail polish."

"Did you get your nails done recently?" She asks and I shake my head.

"They're broken, does it look like I got my nails done?" I say with a cold tone, colder than I intended and look back up at her with an unimpressed look.

"What happened to your nails?" She asks with a condescending tone, like if she already knew but wanted me to say it.

"I don't know, I don't remember." I say, looking away from her and towards the door of her office, it's a pretty big office, the expensive looking kind with a big window with a view of the city. It's pretty sunny outside, but it's San Francisco so I guess it's pretty much always sunny, but the weather is the last thing I could care about right now, I could care less about a lot of things at this moment. She sits in a big leather chair, and I'm in a similar looking sofa that's actually pretty comfortable, considering my body doesn't hurt that bad right now.

"I think you know what happened, Lucy."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I say, still not looking at her.

She sighs, leaning her elbows on her knees while looking at my side profile.

"Lucy, you know what happened." She says with a soft voice and I feel bile rising in my throat, I clench my jaw, my hands closing into fists as my heartbeat picks up.

"I don't remember it." I say through closed teeth, unable to look anywhere near her.

"You're nails are broken because I think you tried to fight back, you are a strong person but I think that it was too much for you to take, so your brain made the decision to lock the memory away for you."

"Stop talking." I say, feeling my stomach turning with nausea the longer she keeps talking. She needs to stop talking.

"It happens more than you think. When someone goes through a traumatic experience, something that's simply too much to handle the only way to go on is to push it away." My chest rise and falls rapidly as my breathing accelerates, my heart pounding against my ribcage.

"Just shut up!" I shout, looking at her through my blurry eyes as I breathe rapidly and she flinches back slightly, trying to not make it noticeable.