Therapy Chapter 1: Opening Up, a pokémon fanfic

Ash/Gary: 18

Misty: 17

Brock/Tracey: 21

Daisy/Violet/Lily: 22

May: 16

Chapter 1 – Opening Up

Misty clasped her hands together in anticipation and anxiety. She reached up absent mindedly and began to fiddle around with her spiky bangs that always seemed to come to rest right over her eyes. She sighed and let herself slide down further onto the comfy leather couch. It felt like she had been waiting for hours. Still playing with her hair, she glanced up at the clock. A quarter past three it read, already fifteen minutes had been wasted on waiting. She slid even further down the couch, now exasperated at how bored she was becoming. It was a mistake to come here in the first place. She hated everything about it. Suddenly, she heard the door creak open and the previous client stepped out and laughed loudly at some kind of stupid joke that had been made in attempt to cover up the unwelcoming atmosphere. Sighing for the last time, she propped herself up onto her elbows, gathered her thoughts and things, and pushed herself onto her feet.

"Misty?"

She turned around and smiled a fake but faint smile towards the voice. "Hello."

The lady smiled. "I'm so sorry for the delay, please make yourself comfortable and
I'll be right in. I need to visit the little girl's room!" She then brushed past Misty, who scrunched her face in disgust at the thought of a therapist referring to a bathroom as "the little girl's room".

She made her way into the room, taking in the surroundings and the scent of the cramped room that had obviously been hastily put together to make it appear as though it were a real room. It smelled like a cross between a hospital and mothballs. The stench made Misty shudder as she sat down, attempting to not take in as much oxygen as possible throughout the session until it was possible to breathe in purer air.

"Hello again Misty, I hope your week is going well?" The therapist made her way into her room, closed the door quietly and moved towards a file cabinet to collect her notebook.

Misty frowned. "It's been the same as usual. Pointless and annoying. The same damn thing everyday."

The shrink furrowed her brows and began scribbling on the notebook while trying to look interested in what her client meant. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Misty smirked and tried not to laugh. "Well, that's what I'm here for, isn't it?" she replied sarcastically. "It's the same damn things I've been talking to you about for the past few weeks, every single time I meet with you, so either you aren't paying attention or you really don't give a shit what I'm talking about." She slumped back into her seat while looking the woman straight in the eyes.

The therapist looked at Misty over her glasses with a look of exasperation and began to scrawl down things again on her notebook. There was an uncomfortable silence between them. Finally, the lady spoke in a harsh tone.

"Look Misty, if you think that I'm not helping you then why bother coming here in the first place? You obviously don't want help and apparently you aren't taking any of my suggestions into consideration, so why waste the money?"

"To be honest, I don't even know. It is a waste of time and money to come here when I don't want help. But my sisters insisted on it, because I have 'like major issues' that I should talk to someone about. Evidently, not them. They don't need to be bothered by my problems when they have their own crises in their lives, like breaking a nail, or getting too fat for a photo shoot. Yea, I guess that's why I came. I guess I thought bitching out my problems to a woman I barely know might help me." Misty sat back and smiled sweetly.

Now it was the therapist's turn to sigh. "Look, Misty, I do want to help you to feel better about your life but I can't do anything if you won't listen! You need to try the things I ask of you to do, but if you really think that even that isn't going to help you, then maybe we should take a break for awhile. How's that sound to you?"

"Sounds fine to me." She got up from the couch, collected her things, and walked as fast as she could without even looking back. Once she reached her car, she stopped to breathe. She felt like crying, but what a waste of time it would be to do that now. It wasn't safe to cry and drive anyway. 'Save it for later' she thought to herself. "Just get your ass home to the gym where there's probably some kid waiting for challenge you. Yea, that'll take things off my mind for awhile. A good gym battle to beat the hell out of some cocky kid's ego." She smiled to herself and started the engine, backed out, and began driving home.

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Misty screeched out of that parking lot and drove onto the road like a crazy woman. She turned on some music and blasted it so that she could focus her thoughts on something else. Noticing the small droplets of water appearing on her windshield, she smiled for the first time and hastily rolled down her window, then let her arm hang out the window whilst letting the wind enter twine between her fingers. She opened up her palm and felt the rain drops pelting into her skin like small knives. Anybody else might think that she was crazy, but this was something that she and had sisters had started long ago when Daisy had gotten her drivers license first out of the tree triplets. They would blast the heat in the car and roll down the windows on frigid days, getting the best of both temperatures. It was only a faint memory now, but she had thoroughly enjoyed it at the time and now it was something she did almost absentmindedly. Humming to the music as she stopped at a red stoplight, she took a look around her. Even though it was raining, she still would have preferred to walk and enjoy the beautiful autumn foliage, but the drive to the therapist's was too far away. Damn, she had gotten the therapist on her mind which was not exactly was she was attempting to do.

"Who does she think she is to tell me what to do? She's not my guardian, and even if I was, I wouldn't listen to her anyway" She stated out loud with a grunt. "How similar they are in the fact that neither of them would care about me anyway." Her mood darkened. She didn't want to go home. She hated being home. Her attitude had changed so much in the past few years and amazingly her sisters took notice, probably because she acted so pessimistic all the time. She sighed for about the hundredth time that day and slowly came to a stop as she pulled into the driveway on the side of the gym. As she got out, she looked up at the tall, circular building. She had been proud of herself for going through with her idea to change the paint colors from neon to a nice, soothing aqua outlined in black and grey. Her sisters had complained and whined about the gym looking so dark and dreary, but Misty said that the old colors made the gym look like some kind of clown carousel complete with a huge Seal on the front for children to ride on. That shut them up.

"Now it has the colors of the sea," she said smiling at the thought of being near the ocean. It had been about 6 months since she last was able to take a small break from being the Cerulean Gym Leader and go down to the Orange Islands to relax. She placed the key in the lock and prepared to be bombarded with questions from her sister, such as—

"Misty! Like, why are you home so early? I thought you sessions were for an hour!" The tone in Violet's voice didn't sound concerned at all, but rather uncomfortable and hasty. Misty rolled her eyes and walked over to Violet.

"It ended early. I had no need to waste my precious time with a woman who doesn't know her shit."

"So, like, you ended it early, not her. You know, we're paying for this out of the kindness of our hearts and the money we make so that you can get like better!"

Misty glared at her. "Shut it Violet. You only want me to get better so people don't talk about us behind our backs and your reputation doesn't become tarnished. Like you give a crap anyway, darling. Now run off, I think I hear a male fan calling you!"

Violet sneered at her and then oddly backed off smiling cunningly to herself. Now that was weird. She shrugged it off. She had seen her sisters act stranger. She was about to go into the kitchen for a drink when Lily appeared out of nowhere and placed her hands around Misty's eyes, while she felt another pair grab her arms and placed them behind her back. Frustrated and angry, she began a tirade of profanities and struggled to get her insane sisters off of her.

"Misty, like, stop moving around so much! We have a surprise for you!" Lily said happily.

"I suppose it involves tying and gagging me then throwing me into a ditch?"

"We wish" muttered Violet.

"I heard that!"

"Don't over react lil' sis, we just want to show you something that we know you'll love!" Misty grunted again and felt herself being maneuvered into the hallway, past the front door and into the living room. They all then stopped and she felt her hands being released at the same time she heard Daisy and Violet's shuffled footsteps and suppressed giggles.

Misty was quite annoyed as she didn't like surprises. She had been surprised before by her sisters and the end result was always her feeling humiliated and stupid for falling for a trick of theirs.

"Lily, get the hell off me, I need to go do some chores that I know you won't do for the gym, so let's hurry up with this please!!!"

Lily laughed happily and prepared to let her hands loose. As she did she yelled, "TA DA!"

Misty prepared for the worse. She opened her eyes slowly and they widened at the site that was in front of her. Her mouth dropped at least two inches in shock and she heard herself gasp.

Four familiar faces stared back at her as she scanned the room. Four faces that she hadn't seen in three years. Four faces she had tried to forget, especially that one face she felt her eyes come to rest upon.

He smiled at her. "Surprise, Misty!"

"SURPRISE!!!" chimed in Brock, Gary, Tracey and May cheerfully. Misty was oblivious to their speaking. She just stood there, her eyes glued to the face of Ash Ketchum. She felt some repressed emotions stirring up inside of her, reaching her brain in the quickest of fashions. Her immediate response should have been an eager one, pleased at the fact that her closest friends now sat in her living room. But they were just the opposite. She began to feel angry.

"A-a-Ash…" she stated bluntly. She couldn't stop staring at his eyes, those eyes she hadn't seen in three years. Why was he here? Wasn't he supposed to be in Hoenn? Confused, she tore her eyes away from him. She felt everyone's eyes looking at her, still grinning at the fact that their little scheme had worked. She gave a weak smile to the rest of the gang, turned around as fast as she could, grabbed her keys from the table and ran out the door remembering to slam it shut.

After getting into her car, she felt herself breathing extremely fast. What the hell had she just done?! No time to think about that now, she could hear the front door opening as the sound of voices grew closer. Putting the car in reverse, she sped down the driveway as fast as she could, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible not knowing she was doing or where exactly she planned on going. She looked into her rear view mirror and saw seven very confused faces. Her eyes made contact with his. He looked concerned and baffled at the same time. She scoffed at the possibly of that, and broke their contact as she drove away. She now had an idea of where she wanted to go as she pressed down harder onto the gas and sped away.

A million and one thoughts raced through her head as she raced through the streets. What had she just done? Why had she run away like that? Why was Ash there? Why had her sisters tricked her again? They knew she didn't want to see them, she had specifically told them not to invite them over at any time. She felt so stupid for just running away like that. She ran away from all her problems. She felt like she could never talk to anyone about her problems, ever since she was little. Nobody understood or cared. Her sisters still didn't understand or care. They just couldn't comprehend the fact that she had issues and wasn't perfect at just about everything like them. There was nobody to talk to.

Except…

No. She couldn't go back. Her conscious offered advice that she vainly tried to ignore.

"Perhaps your therapist is listening to you. I think the problem is that you aren't listening to her because you don't want to hear her offer good advice. You just want to sit and wallow away in self pity."

Misty groaned in response to her thoughts. Her conscious was right; she needed to get so many things off her chest, off her mind, things that had been there for years. She noticed it was still raining as she pulled into the parking lot of the office she had been to about 15 minutes prior. She felt very stupid as she climbed out of the car and made her way back into the office and sat oddly in the same comfy couch. The door was closed so she figured somebody else was in session. How wrong she was. Instead, her therapist popped her head out of another room and called out to a much surprised Misty. She therapist also looked surprised.

"Misty? Why are you back here?" she cocked her head and studied the girl quietly.

"I… need to get some things of my mind… and… well… I figured you were the best person to do it with… and… I wanted to apologize… about—"

"Misty, you don't have to apologize!" said the woman, laughing. "Do you know how many people I work with who are ten times worse than yourself? You have to be one of the most amiable girls I work with!"

Misty was stunned. "But… I've acted really rudely to you…"

The woman interrupted. "But you are still one of the nicest" she repeated. "Now come on, I have a little bit of time before my next appointment. Let's talk!"

Misty followed her silently into the run, sat herself back down on the cold leather couch. She shifted slightly as she began to feel uncomfortable yet again. She reached up again and played with her bangs nervously. Where should she start? Racking her brain for the right words, she finally settled on three.

"He came back" she said simply.

"Who came back?"

"Ash."

"You've never mentioned him before at previous sessions—"

"That's because I've been trying to block him out of my life" Misty said, interrupting. "I… I used to like him when I was younger. We traveled together for a long, long time, but we parted three years ago when I became the leader of the Cerulean Gym."

"And why have you been blocking him out, Misty?"

Misty made eye contact with the woman and smiled sadly.

"Boys don't mature quickly enough… they don't understand feelings the way girls do… and it's frustrating. They're forgetful, like him. They overlook things and people. In this case, me. And I won't forgive him for that, even if he doesn't recognize it." She looked out the window and stared hard into the forest.

"So, you're saying he forgot about you when you parted ways?"

Misty nodded. "It's like he completely wrote me out of his life. He was too preoccupied with other things. I thought our friendship was special and that even though we were apart we would still be in contact. It was about that time when I started feeling so alone and emotionally unstable. Like the way I used to feel before I met him when my sisters constantly teased me and humiliated me. I just feel so alone… and if he had stayed in touch with me this wouldn't have happened," she finished both bitterly and sadly.

"So… you blame your current unhappiness on Ash" said the therapist.

Misty looked blankly at her. "There are a number of reasons, obviously, but he happens to be a main factor in it." She looked out the window again, deep in thought.

"Misty… I hate to say this, but my next appointment will be starting in about 5 minutes… could we continue this conversation another day?" the woman cut in.

Misty looked up and smiled slightly. Nodding her head, she listened as the therapist told her to remember to listen to what would be going on over the next few days so that she could share it with her. Misty really didn't know where she was going, but somehow her legs directed her towards her car and she sat down in the seat. She sat there for awhile, thinking about what she was going to say to them when she got home. She tried to think of excuses to use as she attempted to explain her unexpected behavior. She wondered what her sisters had told them. Probably the truth, they didn't give a shit if her acquaintances thought she was crazy.

She started feeling anxious. Why couldn't she act normal? She had to stop running away from her problems, and she was going to try and stop now. It was all she could do.