Chapter: 10 Aftermath: Part 3

Well, I got out of the hospital about a day after… let's just call it "the incident", and after about five meals, I was back to being physically normal. But Hades had a point, what I did was awful. I needed help. So, for the past week, Hades put it upon himself to look for the best mortal therapists his money can buy. And he's the god of wealth, so his money's pretty good. But, while I appreciated his efforts to help me, I wasn't too sure. I've heard a lot of crap about how bad some therapists are and how they only care about their patients' money. I was only doing this to avoid being confined in the Underworld for the rest of my life.

And so, there I stood outside a simple home in Athens where vines and small asphodel bushes decorated the exterior, fitting for this so-called floral therapist. The building itself looked nice, but even the nicest buildings can be home to the most heartless of maniacs. Okay, yeah, so maybe I've been both spending way too much time around Panic and been having depressing thoughts ever since Mom died, but the skepticism is still there. I was nervous about meeting this therapist, especially since I felt that she'd treat my problems like a joke just so she could keep getting paid.

Fortunately, I had two someones standing there with me to help ease my worries. Or at least repress them long enough so I wouldn't crack under the pressure of bottling up my emotions.

Panic stared up at the building with a tilted head. "Is this the place?"

I looked down at the note with the building's address. "It says it is."

"What kinda therapist is this lady, anyway?" Pain asked me.

"Floral therapist." I answered. "She implements arranging flowers and conversation to help her patients be open and honest about their problems while they get to be at peace with the flowers they arrange."

"It's kinda weird." Pain gave an unsure shrug.

"You want us to go in with you?" Panic asked me before he started jumping to conclusions. "What if it won't be all that it's cracked up to be? W-what if this therapist actually sucks at her job?"

"Then Hades is wasting 200 drachmae for each session." I told him. "Look, I'll be fine. This is supposed to help me and my mental health."

Pain folded his arms. "I thought that was our job?"

"Your job is to keep me comforted, and I love that you guys do that," I tousled his hair. "But this is a little different than what you're used to doing."

"We still wanna help though." Panic stated with a sad pout.

"Well, maybe you can help by picking me up after my session so we could get food later?" I suggested.

The imps looked at each other for a minute before giving each other matching grins.

"Throw in some hot gossip about your therapist, and you got yourself a deal, sister." Pain told me.

Works for me.

"I'll be finished in about two hours." I gave them each a hug before heading into the building. "Don't be late."

"Good luck." the imps waved me off.

I took one last deep breath before entering the building. The moment I did, I was amazed at all I saw. The open, one-floor interior of the building was completely decorated with a vast assortment of some of the most beautiful flower arrangements I've ever seen. I'm talking floral combinations of roses, orchids, lilies, and even small plants like wild foxtails or mint. And despite the abundance of flowers, the building itself still looked nice and tidy like whoever lived here was as much of a neat freak as she was a florist. It felt like walking into the cleanest greenhouse I've ever seen.

"Welcome in." a kind voice said to me.

I looked up from the flowers, and saw a woman sitting at a kitchen table with another arrangement of flowers in a vase right next to her. This woman looked like she was in her mid forties to early fifties, at best, but she looked gorgeous! She had dusty blonde hair that was tied in a low ponytail, wore a single-strapped white dress with a thick brown belt on her waist and a small embroidered leaf batten on the collar and sleeve. She had matching brown wrist cuffs on her wrists and wore a small green necklace with a pink flower charm around her neck. The woman also had the kindest purple eyes I've ever seen.

"You must be Aria." the woman stood up to come over and shake my hand. "My name is Kore. It's very nice to meet you."

"You too." I said, still amazed by her own beauty and the beauty of her office. "This place is amazing. Did you do all of these, yourself?"

"Some of them." Miss Kore said as she admired the flora. "But most of them are done by my other patients. I've been meaning to ask them to pick theirs up. My own little beauties are starting to get a little cramped with the extra company."

"Wow." I said with starry eyes.

"Well, don't just stand there all slack-jawed and buggy-eyed, sweetie. Come on in," Miss Kore then led me to the table. "Let's make something beautiful, shall we?"

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Can I offer you anything to drink? Uh, water? Tea?" she asked me as she headed into her kitchenette.

"Tea, please." I said as I put my satchel on the chair and sat down.

"Any preference?" Miss Kore asked.

"Do you have any Chai?" I asked her. "It's my favorite."

"One Chai coming up." Miss Kore said as she started prepping the tea. "In the meantime, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself? I've only gotten a few bits of information from your caretaker, but I'd like to hear what you have to say."

"Well, uh, I'm seventeen-years-old, I'm a senior at Prometheus Academy," I took a deep breath before saying one last thing. "And, as my caretaker probably mentioned, I'm currently struggling to deal with the loss of my mother."

"He did mention that." she said as she got a sad look on her face. "I was a frequent customer at your mother's shop. She was a kind woman, and my most sincere condolences to you."

"Thank you." it hurt me to say that, but it was nice that she cared.

"Here." she handed me my Chai and a few anemone flowers and foxtails to arrange. "Losing a parent is never easy. Y'know, I lost my father when I was not much older than you, and I certainly did not take his death well."

I took a sip of my tea and gave her a sad look. "Really?"

"Yeah," she admitted as she gently picked up a rose from another arrangement. "But then I took comfort in the flowers. Arranging them to make them beautiful, using their oils and essences as healing properties, and I was able to look inside myself and understand that his death was beyond my control."

"That's what I'm still struggling to accept." I admitted while I started putting some of the foxtails in an empty vase. "I know Mom's death wasn't my fault, but I've done a lot of bad stuff since I was sent here about a year ago. I guess all that bad stuff I did made me question whether or not I really was the reason she couldn't get the help she needed when she got sick."

"It can be difficult to cope with certain choices or actions made that you aren't proud of, especially if you think they ended up inadvertently hurting the ones you love." Miss Kore told me. "If I may be blunt, you screwed up, sure. You're flawed. But hey, who in this crazy world isn't?"

I looked up at Miss Kore. She was a little too blunt in her statement, if you ask me, but she did have a point. Who isn't flawed in this ancient world, or any world for that matter? That's kind of what Pain told me the day after the incident. How, yeah, I screwed up big time, but so does he and Panic. So does everyone. Why should I feel guilty about what happened a year ago if everyone else does awful things they're not proud of doing too? But then again, it was with who I used to work for back then that didn't even tell me about Mom dying.

"My friend said something similar like that to me a little while ago." I thought out loud about Pain's words. "He's not the smartest guy in the world, but he has his moments."

"He must really care about you." Miss Kore stated.

"He and his brother do." I explained. "They're my best friends."

"So, you tell each other everything?" Miss Kore asked me.

"Well, only when I'm not going through things." I admitted. "I just don't want to burden them."

I know what you're all thinking 'Didn't you just talk to the imps about your problems a chapter ago? Why are you repeating all this? Geez, this is poor character development!'. Well, first off, rude. And secondly, just because I've talked about my problems to the imps doesn't mean I ever wanted to. I get that they want to help me, but I don't want them to feel guilty, themselves, about not knowing what to do to help me and having them just do whatever they can to make me feel better even if they're uncomfortable. I would never want them to feel that way.

"You said these are your best friends, and they always tell you everything?" Miss Kore then asked me.

"Yes." I answered.

"Have you ever once thought that the things on their minds would burden you?" she continued.

"No. Or, well, I…" I paused to tell the truth as simply as I could. "No."

Miss Kore took a sip of her own cup of tea and gave a supportive smile. "Well, then what's the problem?"

"The guy we worked for was the reason I did so many bad things, the reason I feel all this guilt and hatred." I told her as I placed some purple anemone flowers in with the foxtails. "I'm worried that if I tell my friends my problems with all that's happened, they'll treat it as a joke or won't really understand. I know that they wouldn't, but… the fear's still there."

"Well, it seems to me that the three of you are tighter than a bushel of roses being planted together." Miss Kore told me. "And aren't they important to you?"

"More than anything." I nodded.

"Then maybe these boys wanna do what they can to help you." she told me.

"They know better than anyone about handling painful and fearful emotions, but…" I paused, struggling to find the right words before submitting to defeat with a sigh. "It's complicated."

"Hey," Miss Kore continued. "Admitting that something's complicated, something that's beyond your control, that's a good first step."

I arched my brow at her. "First step into what?"

"Into wanting and accepting help." she said before noticing something. "And, hey, look what you've made when doing so."

I looked over at the arrangement I had made. It wasn't much, just a few purple anemones in the midst of a lot of foxtails. I just took it as showing that while I'm practically cursed to hurt those around me -since foxtails are extremely dangerous when ingested- I scatter my feelings away for the safety of pretty much everyone I care about -which is what anemones, especially the purple ones, represent- so I don't hurt or burden them further.

I shrugged it off. "It's not much."

"Not much?" Miss Kore gave a small chuckle as she admired the arrangement. "Sweetie, this tells all."

I gave her a confused look. "It does?"

"Yep. This tells me that, yeah, you're afraid to be this vulnerable to people and you want to protect them from your feelings." she explained to me. "This tells me that you, despite all that you've done and all the blame and guilt you've put on yourself, you want to do better. Not just for yourself, but for those you care about."

I don't know how or why, but her words made sense. I was only looking on the negative side of my feelings when making that arrangement because all I've been focusing on within the week were negative feelings. But, the way Miss Kore looked at my problems, despite them being horrible, she saw a way to talk to me about them and try to put it on a lighter note. Acknowledging the fact that, yeah, I've done bad things, but she sees that I want to be better and want to help the ones I love, but only when talking about and not bottling up my emotions will I start to feel better about myself.

"And besides, if there's anything I've learned, it's that words are cheap," Miss Kore continued as she gently held up one of the flowers. "But actions, even small ones like this, they speak the truth."

Two Hours Later

I walked out of Miss Kore's office with a calm, yet happier, disposition. I can't really explain it, but arranging all those flowers and talking about my problems to a therapist who actually cares about her patients just felt good to me. Maybe this whole therapy thing wasn't such a bad idea as I initially thought. Weird. About a week ago I would've objected numerous times about seeing a therapist because I was too much of a coward to trauma dump on people, and after doing it with someone who's literal job is to listen to other people's problems and help them out, I feel a little bit better. I still blame myself for Mom's death, but at least I'm getting a little closure on that and all my other problems.

Anyway, back to the story.

I made it past the front gate, where I saw the imps waiting on me in the exact same spots I'd left them in before my session started. Had they been here the whole time? Their loyalty really knows no bounds, doesn't it? In fact, Panic was the first out of the two to see me, and immediately got off of his resting spot on the boulder I last saw him on to check up on how the session went for me and whether or not my therapist actually did her job.

"How'd it go?" the teal imp asked me.

"Better than I thought." I gave him and Pain the good news before changing the subject. "So, how about that dinner?"

"Hey, whoa, not so fast!" Pain stopped me. "What about your therapist? You promised us hot gossip."

"Aria!"

I turned around before I could answer Pain's question to see Miss Kore leaving her office and holding my school bag. "You forgot your satchel."

I completely forgot I left it on the back of my chair during the session.

"Oh, thank you, Miss Kore!" I smiled in relief as she gave me my satchel back.

Miss Kore nodded before she noticed the imps. "And who are these?"

"These were the friends I told you about." I introduced her to the imps. "Pain and Panic."

The imps, however, didn't greet her and just stared at Miss Kore with open jaws and starstruck looks. I'm betting they thought only Aphrodite was the only most beautiful woman they ever saw up until now. But then again, they don't get out much. And that's coming from someone who spent the past fifteen years of her life being an introverted social outcast, so you know that is saying a whole lot.

"Wow…" Panic finally uttered something.

"Y-you're hot." Pain said with a crooked smile.

"Boys!" I scolded them for their first impressions of my therapist.

Miss Kore, however, immediately chuckled at their admiration and picked them up in a big hug. "Well, aren't you two just the cutest little charmers?"

"I am so sorry about them." I apologized on the imps' earlier statements. "Social interaction isn't really their strong suit."

"It's not yours either." Pain retorted at me.

I gave him a mean look.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you two, nonetheless." Miss Kore told the imps as she put them down on the ground. "Do me a favor, and keep an eye on Aria until our next session, okay?"

"Y-yes, ma'am!" both imps saluted with heart-eyed trances.

Miss Kore gave them both kisses on the cheek before standing up and giving me one last kind smile. "I'll see you next week, Aria."

"See you next week, Miss Kore." I waved her goodbye as she returned to her office.

With Miss Kore now back in her building, I was left outside while the imps just swayed in lovestruck ways, even stumbling about as they tried to keep balance. I've never once seen either one of them act so silly whenever I gave them little kisses, but then again, I've known them my whole life and see them as my best friends while they just see me as their best friend. They've never really gotten affection from any other older woman. Even, admittedly, hot older women.

"You guys still want hot gossip on her?" I asked them with a smirk.

They both immediately shook their heads, still stuck in their daze, and supported goofy grins. "We're good."