She's pacing back and forth in her head while her eyes distantly drift all around the small, well-furnished room. It's her fifth session and she's already thought up a few dozen new defenses to give when the cold eyes glared at her once again. People and their habits of not understanding and not attempting to, how many times did she have to humor them before it was enough? With her chin resting in her hands and her elbows leaning forward on her knees, she glances to each person who walks through the doors. The idle, nervous chitchat they each exchange, it always makes her so curious. There is this new man who sits across the room, wearing a stained dark green shirt, and swallowing nervously as he slowly scribbles against the paper-fed clipboard. When he pauses to review his work, she catches him nervously scratch at his arm, and suddenly he rises and approaches the sliding window at the front desk. The pale, raw skin was the doing of his nervous tick, and there was such a self-deprecating expression that fell on his face when he thought no one was watching him. From head to toe, he was rather dirty, construction worker, she supposes. He seems like a strong, independent man. His desperation is as clear as the dried sweat stains that hang under his arms. She guesses that the issue must have been severe anger issues, yet judging by the condition of his clean, polished wedding ring and how it is clinging to a dirt-covered hand, it's obvious he's put immense effort in changing and cares deeply for his wife, but she supposes he still must have lost her regardless. He anxiously shuffles in place as a well-dressed man with a fake smile sifts out from behind the heavy door. There is hesitance from the filthy man's part, until his hand is taken in a welcoming shake, and a firm arm slips behind him and guides him through the door, making it all seem so voluntary that he's entering. One unintentional glance is given to her as he disappears past it, and she decides that she must remind him of someone he used to know, yet to her his worn, sad face will just be another she'll remember sometime later. He is someone new to her eyes, someone innocent, and she can only imagine how this place will destroy all the progress he's made.
"Good luck to you." She whispers, and presses her lips tightly together.
She continues to evaluates each individual that passes through the front entrance and then to the creaking door, and she finds herself attempting to wish each one of them well. Though she knows it's inevitable. They will be led through the door, seated down on a suspiciously fancy couch and addressed by a calm, patronizing voice. Before they know anything their money will be spent away talking out issues that were ignored and left unresolved for "next time". Yet each exchanged glance she has in the moments they walk through that door, are almost as if they know better, and she could see how trapped they felt.
All too soon, a plastic-faced woman slides away the front desk window and calls her name in a patronizingly cheery voice. There is a settling nausea that always comes in the pit of her stomach as she walks up to that wide, pearly smile.
"Why, hello!" beamed the teeth. "Ms. Pond, how are you on this beautiful day?"
She musters a polite smile, and immediately looks to the forms. Today she has no patience for Mrs. Albrite. With a quick glance to the bright yellow forms to confirm they were still correct, she slides them back to the receptionist and musters another polite smile.
"Well, all righty then." The sing-songy tone escapes her mouth and the pair of chubby cheeks rise as the viciously-tame teeth are hidden by the pressing together of her fat, red lips. "I've just give Dr. Rathborne a ring, and he'll be out in a moment."
"E-Excuse me?" She utters before the bloated pantsuit waddles away. "Mr. Rathborne? I-Isn't the appointment scheduled with Ms. Duncan?"
Ms. Duncan was a thin, dull, old widow whom always had their session with a cup of tea. Literally. Precisely six minutes into their session her assistant, a nervous blond freckled-face girl, would timidly place the cup and saucer beside the beady-eyed crow and made it her mission to escape before she was disapprovingly barked at. For all intents and purposes, she didn't like Ms. Duncan at all. But she had reached a point with her where that was openly known and reciprocated in its entirety. She didn't miss her in any of the seconds they spent apart. But she was….comfortable, she supposed.
"Oh," The insufferable woman glances back and forth around the blatantly empty room. "Didn't you hear, dear? Dr. Duncan has gone to see the Lord, I'm afraid."
Amy internally scoffs, "As if He'd ever let that bitch through the gates."
"Oh." She murmurs neutrally. "I see."
With a jiggling nod, the pantsuit turns again and waddles off. Amy stands hanging over the counter, and she finds herself anxious with the telling of a new psychiatrist….or therapist as her parents first said when they coddled her with the "suggestion".
"Number four." Her thoughts quietly utter, and in the quick moment of the silence, she replays the others.
Mr. Gates; mid-60s, squatty fellow with a thick, tan mustache. It was their twelfth session she discovered what a low tolerance he truly had. But she was only nine when they first began, and he was boasted as the best child psychiatrist in Leadworth. It was her fault for believing such childish fantasies and by their fourteenth session, he had suggested, in the moment she challenged his suppressed anger issues, that she required a "different" type of a mental health professional, and he would be no help.
Mrs. Knoles; late-50s, very tall woman with a long, sad face. Their eighth session regarded depression, and Amy inquired what it was that depressed her. Without a word, the woman burst into tears and cry-talked about her husband and the vicious affair he was having against her. She was such an unstable creature, that the thirteen-year old ended up handing tissue after tissue as she continued her breakdown and then delved into the tragic events of her childhood. She was soon asked to resign.
And Ms. Duncan; mid-70s, average height of a shriveled, bitter lady. In their third session, Amy decided to test a theory and in the moment Ms. Duncan turned her back from the cup of tea, she slipped in a few sleeping pills into the steaming drink, and returned to her seat without notice. It took about twenty-one minutes for them to….take effect.
Though perhaps not so much in the last account, she found herself unrightfully hated in some way by each one.
"She's too stubborn." said the irritable man. "And she bit me."
"Very insensitive." said the vulnerable woman. "And she bit me."
"Entirely bitter." said the old shrew. "And she bit me."
Despite anything, their opinions of her always ended with the same phrase. "In my professional opinion, it's possible she requires someone else who is specialized to her-" a quiet, disapproving sniff, "needs."
Thrown away, ran away, and dead. She feeds a strand of her red hair behind her ear thoughtfully at how her fourth could end. Sixth sessions, she decides, until she has this Rathborne transferring. Inevitably, she's anxious at the start of each new psychiatrist, all as if they were her first. But before she starts to prep for the dreary expectations of the fourth, the blimpy woman returns and tells her that Dr. Rathborne will be out in quick a moment.
Her eyes glance to her favored chair, and slowly she allows herself to drift to it for comfort. Her hand brushes against its fabric and immediately the heavy door swings open. She holds its gaze for a few more seconds before she turns to the approaching footsteps. Bald, broad, and cold, is what she guesses and she turns around and her brows lightly furrow out of confusion. There stood a decently tall man, dark brown hair, scruffy face, and she tilts her head curiously as his eyes remain staring down intently at a clipboard in his hand as he scratches his jawline with the other. Apart from the first glance when everything is taken in all at once, her eyes are quickly caught on the long, white lab coat wrapped around his shoulders. To her, he seems so young. Less than ten years her senior, if she has to guess.
"Ms. Pond, is it?" He murmurs, and then quickly glances up at her, and she feels something strange in his bright-eyed stare that immediately puts her on edge. The white smile that spread on his face was infectious, and yet something else. Sincere, it seems. "Hello, my name is Matthew Rathborne." He politely reaches his arm to hers and she pauses to stare at it with a confused expression, yet it only makes him smile more. "That's all right." He retracts, yet his friendly composure doesn't lose one step. "I'm all ready," He watches her as she fixates on the floor tiles, "if you are."
She's flooded with several different aspects, and her reflex immediately overtakes her, causing her to quickly analyze whatever she can and what exactly they meant, and perhaps what they meant to her.
His gentle, kind tone. The way he patiently holds the clipboard in his hands. His eyes, how bright and green and sincere. (How damn attractive he is. No wait, forget that.) But it's something else that is leaving her analytical thoughts frozen in the blinding headlights. Something that is only brought to realization with the next words.
The soft, attentive voice murmurs again, "Is everything all right, Ms. Pond?"
Then it hits her.
Scottish. Damn.