Thank You; Carl Howell/Emma Pillsbury, 166 words; rated: G
Ever since she was a child, Emma saw herself as someone beyond fixing. Her childhood therapist listened, scratched notes onto a clipboard, and asked, "see you next Tuesday?" at the end of every session.
Not very helpful.
She meticulously washed her food before she ate it; she obsessed over the cleanliness of her living spaces. Fastidious was the best word to describe her.
Her flaws scared away Will, the man she thought she loved.
It was in the strangest of places, her dentist's chair, where she found those flaws accepted. Accepted and loved, and slowly, under Carl's watchful eyes, she found herself changing, evolving, able to ignore the small things like crusts on the edges of sandwiches or a wrinkled pillowcase in the morning.
She'd never be perfectly fixed, but maybe, just maybe, she could be better.
"Thank you," she found herself whispering to him one night, as they watched television at his place, and if he replied, she didn't hear it. She didn't have to.