All That Glitters

“So your flashbacks and nightmares have been getting worse?” Dr. Bergman asked in her detached voice. Braylen sat back into the couch, slouching down while crossing her legs. She stared at the dreary weather outside of the massive window behind Dr. Bergman, perched on her rolling office chair. All Braylen could do was nod, terrified that there was another pill going to be prescribed or just simply that there was no hope at all.

She was dazed throughout the whole session, barely listening to Dr. Bergman speak in her psychology jargon and suggesting new tracks to take. She stared awkwardly at the clock on the wall, watching the small hand rotate until their time was up. Dr Bergman cleared her throat and gave Braylen an obligated smile, “I’ll see you next week Braylen.”

“Thanks, bye,” Braylen stated coldly before walking out of the designer decorated waiting room, gave a small smile to Amy, the receptionist who was always kind to her and stood waiting for the elevator until light over the metal doors lit up. She looked inside to see an old woman slouched over her cane. She had a peculiar aura about her, but despite the woman’s odd presence Braylen stood next to her while soft elevator music played.

“How old are you dear?” The old woman asked in a sweet, but aged voice. Braylen was taken back, normally strangers in the elevator never spoke to one another.

“Seventeen,” Braylen responded, her face revealing her surprise.

“You don’t need to be taking so many medications,” The old woman asked before chuckling softly. Braylen straightened up, did she have a prescription note peaking out of her purse or something? She simply remained silent as the woman continued, “Memories often come back when one doesn’t live in the present, all the mind has is the past. You need closure.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Braylen asked, feeling oddly violated. There was no way this woman could know this about her without reading her medical file or a police report. She hid her uncomfortableness with a slight anger on her face.

“Oh I’m just an old woman, if I told you I was psychic you would probably call me crazy. Oh, but everyone is crazy these days,” The old woman said jokingly before laughing. “Hmm, you’ll get closure soon. I see there is a boy in your life, I see true love in your sights.”

Braylen just stared at the woman with her jaw on the floor, but before she could speak the elevator bell rang and the aluminum doors slid open. The old woman began walking out of the elevator with a soft “goodbye and good luck”, as if they had been talking about the weather and not the personal details of Braylen’s life.

“Wait! Who are you?” Braylen called out after the woman, chasing her down wasn’t hard at the pace she was walking.

“You’ll have questions soon, here,” The old woman gave a kind smile before handing Braylen a plain white card that read “Jolene Tyler. Life & Future Consultant.” Braylen read over the black text over and over again. Before she knew it the old woman was gone. She was ripped her curiosity with her phone ringing loudly.

“Hello?” She answered.

“So?! How’d it go! Come to O’Malley’s, we’ll wait for you!” Caitlin’s voice came pouring through her phone. Braylen shook the thoughts of the woman out of her mind and smiled.

“Sure, I’ll be there in five,” Braylen smiled. The girls said goodbye and Braylen climbed into her car and her body moved automatically, she didn’t remember pulling into a parking spot outside of O’Malley’s, but she didn’t really mind. She fixed her blouse underneath a charcoal grey hoodie layered with a wool coat. Her light blue skinny jeans were tucked into brown boots, it was starting to get cold, but today it was particularly cold.

She walked through the bar and into the restaurant, scanning the dark wooden booths for her cousin, but was surprised to see three boys with her. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed since she wanted to tell Caitlin all about what had happened in the elevator. She put on a fake smile that she was used to and walked over to the booth.

“Braylen!” John and Sterling called out in their football voices, she couldn’t but smile and give a small wave. She saw Caitlin and Jared turn around and give her big smiles. For the first time in a long time, she felt incredibly happy and loved. She pushed Sterling and John over to have enough room to sit down. A waiter came over and took her drink & food over. She hastily ordered a grilled roast beef sandwich at the urging of all her friends even though she wasn’t entirely hungry.

“So what is everybody up to?” Braylen asked, looking around the table and finding herself having to avoid John’s green eyes. Her chest tightened and her mind was shocked at her body’s involuntary response. She rested her chin on her hand, sipping her iced tea as everyone went around the table.

“So we’re going back to the house later! Since it’s definitely hot tub weather,” Caitlin smiled looking up at the still grey sky, everyone nodded in agreement. Braylen took another gulp of tea until the waiter came up and dispensed food. She must have taken four bites before she felt unusually full. Perhaps it was all the boys around her scarfing food in their faces as if they would never eat again. Caitlin and Braylen gave each other with a smirk.

“Please don’t tell me that’s all your going to eat!” John stared at her then her plate, “You don’t strike me as one of those girls who call four grapes a meal!” John said in a playfully mocking tone, Braylen narrowed her eyes at him and took a dramatic sip of her tea.

“Well, you shouldn’t judge someone, but just so you know I ate a bunch of jalepeno chips before I came and I’m taking this home for a midnight snack,” Braylen state in a slightly condescending tone. He let out a raspy laugh, but Braylen simply smiled again before shying away back to her tea.

“Fine, point taken, but I have one very important question,” John spoke slowly and intensely that made Braylen blush.

“Yeah?” She asked, trying to conceal the fact she was embarrassed or something. It was hard to explain what she was feeling, but whatever it was she didn’t want anyone to know.

“Are you going to eat your fries?” John stared just as intensely, but then a mischievous smile spread across his face. Braylen rolled her eyes before pushing her plate of garlic fries towards John while trying to disguise her smile. Soon enough she started laughing along with Caitlin and Jared.

After they were done eating and both girls were able to get to-go boxes, everyone piled into their cars and agreed to meet up at the Huntington house, Braylen sat back into the soft seats of her Land Rover LR2, she was just needed a second to breathe before she drove home. It was astounding the fact she had been so happy and completely forgotten everything that happened at Dr. Bergman’s or that old woman afterwards. The only way to forget the past was to live in the present, Braylen supposed that she hadn’t done that before.

She jumped when someone behind her honked, but smiled upon seeing a her cousin and her boyfriend smiling and waving obnoxiously. She backed up and started driving to back home, looking before merging onto I-10. She saw John in a truck smiling at her with a suspicious grin. She looked at the road ahead of her and soon pulled up into her driveway past a basketball hoop and hummed along to whatever song was on the radio until her cousin pulled up next to her in her sedan BMW smiling.

Braylen ran into her room to change into her floral strapless two-piece and put on a cream button-down shirt before walking out into kitchen to see everyone else changed. She wondered how long she had actually taken and sighed before walking over to the fridge and pulling out a beer.

“What! There’s beer? Don’t be selfish!” Sterling ran over to the fridge and grabbing what was left of the twelve-pack, Braylen laughed before looking at Caitlin with her eyebrows raised.

“Did you get some towels?” Braylen asked, but judging on everyone’s innocent smiles she assumed not. She grabbed a handful of towels not counting for sure, but she kept walking to see everyone already dipped into the hot tub. She placed the towels on the table by the pool before taking off her cream shirt and joining her friends. Sterling gave a wolf-whistle and Braylen raised her middle finger to him and climbed into perfectly steamy tub.

“Anyways, we should all hang out more often. My family’s got a beach house down in Rocky Point, if you wanna go next week for the four day weekend?” John asked, looking at Braylen. Even though she knew he was speaking to everyone, she couldn’t help but get excited. She loved Mexico, she loved the four day weekends and she loved her friends, it was a good situation.

“Definitely, dude this is going to be awesome! You can’t say no,” Caitlin jumped excitedly before staring down Braylen. Little did Caitlin know she had no intention of saying no.

“Fine, I guess if you’re going to make me go,” Braylen rolled her eyes playing off her initial feeling, she couldn’t wait to go. She took sip of her beer before sitting back letting the jets massage her back.

“Bray! Caitlin! Where in the hell is my beer?!” Her Uncle Red called out with a strange look on his face. Braylen started cracking up before he came down and snatched his beers away from where Sterling had put them and took the one Sterling was working on. “Damn kids! You gals owe me a new twelve pack!” He called out behind his shoulder with a slight twang in his voice. “By the way, Dinner should be ready soon, who’s staying for dinner?”

“Oh sh-oot, I gotta go, see you later Mr. Huntington!” Sterling climbed out of the pool grabbing a towel quickly, “You coming O’Callaghan? I got Call of Duty and food, you’re invited too Jared,” Sterling called out in a loving voice. All the boys needed to hear was video games and food and they cleared out of the hot tub so quickly Braylen and Caitlin were astounded by the three boys walking towards the fence gate waving to them.

“So, I have to tell you something totally crazy!” Braylen spouted excited after waiting to tell Caitlin since she had left the elevator, she had an excited smile on her face as she tied up her brown hair into a bun.

“You’re madly in love with John Oh!” Caitlin sang like an annoying sibling, Braylen splashed her as a light blush tinted her cheeks.

“Uh, no, let me finish my story, woman!” Braylen laughed as Caitlin sent her little splash back. After getting most of the hot tub water out of her nose and the cessation of the burning, Braylen told her cousin everything that had happened in the elevator.

“I don’t know Bray, part of me thinks that could actually happen, but the other half thinks that lady was just saying things that could apply to everything you know?” Caitlin explained with an unsure expression and her arms crossed as they leaned down into the hot tub.

“I don’t know it was just weird, like, she knew about my medications and about the weird flashbacks, you know?” Braylen tried to convince Caitlin. Even though Braylen wasn’t even sure about validity of this woman either. Maybe she wanted to believe that there was some kind of cure or closure. Especially since the old woman had said something, Braylen hadn’t even had one flashback or day dream. “Oh and she gave me a card,” Braylen said looking around until she realized her purse was inside.

“Oh! A card! Why didn’t you just say so! Everyone who has a card is super legit,” Caitlin said sarcastically before climbing out of the hot tub and running for the towel since it was cool outside. Braylen followed suit and pulled on her shirt, “Bray, I don’t wanna be a Debbie Downer, but I think you should be careful about it because people will try to steal your money by giving you hope,” Caitlin admitted trying explain.

Braylen waited behind and continued drying off her legs and smelled dinner cooking inside. She did have questions, but for now she heard her stomach grumble and ran inside with her family.