Words, Words, Words

My therapist’s office is always cold.

Every time I walk in, it feels like I have just thrown my body into a pile of newly fallen, soft snow, without my hefty coat and snow boots. Goosebumps form instantly, the hairs rising as I rub them slowly, trying to gain as much heat as possible. But it’s hard, when the old lady stares at me with a cold gaze.

I wonder what got Mrs. Cottworth to be the way she is; with her glasses on the tip of her nose and her eyes, constantly tight and judge-mental, glaring at the person across from her table. I figure it’s because she’s lonely – she wears no jewelery. But it could be an affect of all the patients she’s been through in her twenty years of studying and working in the subject of psychology.

Imagine, having to deal with up to nearly twenty-five ‘crazy people’ a week. You’d listen to their rants, their problems, their epitomes, give them a piece of advice made up solely from your ass and then go home. And while you look at yourself in your full-length mirror, all your patients’ words would come pouring back at you. And all those surreal thoughts and flaws you had never noticed on yourself or in another human being before seem so true, so alive.

All those thoughts that sent those people to you form week after week to make a whole. They morph into a human being made up of realistic thoughts that shatter happiness and flaws that make you cringe. And it follows you everywhere. So as you look in the mirror, you see things you’ve never seen before. That human being that you created in your own head, with the thanks of all the people who surround yourself with, is staring back at your reflection. And it’s laughing. It’s laughing at you because you’ve been oblivious all this time to everything that’s around you. You’ve gone on with your days, looking like an absolute fool with such an unpleasant exterior and your ignorant mind. Now, wherever you go, that human goes too and it reminds you of all the things you wish you never knew. And you know what? You become even more problemed than your most severe-cased patient.

As I stare at Mrs. Cottworth, who is busying herself with my paperwork, I watch as the human of negative thoughts and horrible flaws leans over her shoulder, a smug smirk on it’s face. It whispers cruel things in her ear as she scans over what I know are letters from my family and friends that she and I have already read; letters that told me the truth of how they felt every time they were around me, what they saw when I entered the room.

We read one letter a day, starting from my mother and ending with Lydia. She was still studying abroad in Italy but took the time to write a three page letter on the past times I had shared with her before school had interrupted. Each person said relatively the same thing. Everyone was worried, scared I’d break and finally kill myself off from starvation. They wanted to help me, try to save me, but they knew that would only drive me away. I laughed and told Mrs. Cottworth, “They don’t mean what they say. They didn’t want to help me because they were afraid of me and the way my mind worked, not because of what I might have done.”

Mrs. Cottworth numbly replied, “Amelia, don’t think so negatively. These people loved yeh. They only wanted wha’ was best for yeh,” as she packed the letters into a folder. I watched as she set them into one of her filing cabinets, wondering if that was all.

“What are you doing?” I had asked. She glanced at me, her brow furrowed. But I explained, “We still have thirty minutes left. That’s enough time for a letter.”

“There aren’t any letters left,” She said hastily. But that couldn’t have been right. We had been through my mother and father, Tom, each one of the boys in the band, Mr. and Mrs. Sykes and Lydia. But there was still one person missing from the group.

“Are you sure? You could have missed one. There could be one left,” I pushed, my eyes staring at her desk with pleading eyes. I was hoping with all of my heart that she would check and find a white envelope with bulky, sloppy handwriting addressed to me.

“No, Amelia, there isn’t. That was the last one,” She shook me off, grabbing other papers and flipping through them. And all at once, I was crushed. He hadn’t written a letter. He didn’t want to explain his feelings, put them down on paper so that they were crystal clear. It hurt, but I shrugged it off so Mrs. Cottworth wouldn’t ask about the pained look in my eyes and stared at my hands.

She always looked over those letters and as I watch her look over them again, I see her human-being thinking up nasty things for her to go into detail with – things I’m not going to be able to answer. Why am I so attached to Tom, who is both younger and less wiser than I? Why did I tend to stay as far away as the band as possible, when they are close friends with Tom? And though she had only heard the out-linings of the affect Oliver Sykeshad has on me, she’ll ask me, undoubtedly: what is so intriguing about Oliver Scott Sykes that gets me so riled up, gets me so confused and irritated all at the same time?

While picking the scabs that had formed on my arms, I ponder on what to say. And what comes to me surprises me. Because finally, as I forcefully form scars upon my body, staring at a lady who claims she can help me when she has more issues than I do, the one answer, honest and true, come to me all at once.

And this bright epitome brings a smile on my face because I know that the healing process has begun and all I had to do was tell myself that Oliver Sykes is nothing. He is a part of England that I’m going to leave behind. He’s a part of my life that will stay in the past and never follow me as I journey on into my future. And maybe I’m lying to myself when I say that I never did love Oliver and never will care about his opinions. Maybe I’m lying when I think that he’s the center of my problem. But the truth of the matter was:

Oliver Sykes isn’t in California. And soon, he isn’t going to be able to do anything about the lies I plan to feed myself when the blazing sun seems to be too much.