I've Got the Guts to Say Anything

It was just past midday when I stumbled through the door of the apartment I shared with Joseph. I say stumbled because to open the door you had to push it with the entirety of your body weight, which made it swing open and lead you to fall through. I remember the first time I had to open it that way; I’d fallen flat on my face and split my lip open – I still had the small scar on my top lip to prove it.

I carelessly threw the keys to the door into the bowl on the kitchen island that held many other random bits and bobs, like old store cards and heaps of broken keys that our door lock seemed to create.

I slipped my grey coat from my arms and slung it over the back of one of the tall chairs at the breakfast island before I flicked the switch on the kettle to boil some water. My lunchtime always consisted of a cup of tea and nothing else. I rarely ate through the day – I barely ate at all – but throughout the day I just didn’t have an appetite at all.

I made some tea and settled down in front of the television for an hour or so, before I would have to leave to get to my therapy session. As I sat and watched the mind-numbing television I honestly thought about skipping my session this week – like I did every week – there was just something in the back of my mind that told me today was going to be something different.

It had was gone 2 o clock when I decided that staying home instead of going to my therapy session was probably one of the worst idea’s I could have had. I knew that if I stayed home I’d regret it, and more so, if I stayed at home, my therapist would think there was something hugely wrong and probably call the police or something absurd like that, so at 2:16pm, I found myself in my car, sighing to myself as I pulled from the apartment car park on the way to my weekly two hours of pure hell.



“You’re late.” Were the first words from her mouth as I stepped into the room.

“Genius.” I muttered under my breath, followed by a, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“What was that?” She asked, as I took my coat from my shoulders and set it on the floor with my bag.

“Oh, nothing.” I smiled as she sat down opposite me and took out her notepad and pen.

“How have things been this week?” She asked, scribbling a few things down.

“Oh, they’ve been fine.” I said, “Nothing new.”

“Well, since you’ve got nothing new to enlighten me with, I’d like to touch on something you said last week.” She spoke, putting her pen and notepad down in her lap, “You told me that you feel empty in your life, like something was missing but you didn’t go into any detail, I wondered if we could open that up a little.”

I nodded, settling back into my seat, “I just feel like there’s a space in my life for something new, something exciting and fun.” I told her, which seemed to be of such significance that she had to write it down in her notepad.

“Why do you need something new and exciting in your life?” She asked.

“I’m stuck in a big fucking rut, that’s why.” I told her, “I do everything by routine, which is fine, I know, I’m used to it, but I just need something exciting for once, I’m almost fed up of waking up in the morning, going to work, working my ass off for no credit, coming home, making dinner for my asshole of a fiancé and then going to bed to wake up and do the exact same all over again.”

“Well, it does seem like you’re stuck, but you also said last week that you were perfectly happy with where you were in your life.”

“Am I not allowed to lie anymore?” I asked.

“Well, lying is surely counter-productive when you come to therapy, Paige.” She said, raising an eyebrow, “You come here to tell me the truth because I’m the only person that will listen.”

“And how can you be so sure that you’re the only person that will listen?” I challenged.

“Because you’ve said yourself that you have no friends and your fiancé won’t listen to you.” She smiled at me, trying to come across as kind, but doing nothing more than coming across as a pretentious bitch.

“You know, I pay you good money to help me with my problems, not call me out and make me out to be the one that won’t co-operate.”

It was the first time that I’d had any kind of confrontation with my therapist. It wasn’t like me at all to pick a fight about anything she said, usually when she was being a patronising bitch, I just sat back and took it, but today I’d had enough, and after calling her out for being such a bitch, I put my coat back on my shoulders, followed by my bag and left, an hour and a half earlier than I should have.

I got into my car and drove into town without even thinking about what I’d done. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might just have made the biggest mistake of my life. I’d made confrontation with someone who was only trying to help me, granted she was going about helping me in the worst possible way she could, but she was still trying to help, and I’d pushed her away, just like I’d pushed everyone else away who had ever tried to help me. I admitted to myself then and there, in my car, in my usual parking spot in the multi-story car park in town, that I hated it when people got close to me, and to stop them getting close to me, I’d push them away, it was what I did best. I just never seemed to care before. This was the first time that I’d looked back on something I’d done like this and really regretted it and I’d have to have it plaguing my mind for the next week before I could even think about fixing it.