The Silent Deceivers

Chapter 14

The Counsellor

That week went by pretty fast. For once I was not paralysed by time. Friday morning came around quicker than usual. Don’t you always find the days you dread come the fastest and last the longest but the days you love come the slowest and are the shortest? Why can’t it be the other way around? It was a warm, pleasant morning, and the sun was already shining high in the sky when I stepped outside just after nine o’clock. Today was the day, the day to find out what was actually wrong with me, the day that could either make me feel better or worse. No pressure. Deep breath, I pulled open the car door and climbed in. We had half an hour before my appointment. I didn’t know why we were leaving so early, Lisa had already told me she knew where she was going and that this meeting was going to be really helpful. Lots of people had been telling me that in the days leading up to my ‘appointment’, and others things like “it will help you” and “maybe it’s what you need to make them understand”. Other people like Martha gave me reassurance or advice such as “trust me they are really good” and “you’ll be fine just tell them the truth, they’ll handle it from there”. I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t really want a meeting in the first place. As we drove along through the high street, Lisa kept on trying to talk to me about it, but I ignored her and stared blankly out the window. After a while she gave up, defeated and turned up the radio. I groaned as Take That’s Greatest Day filtered from the speakers to my ears.

SO NOT HELPING!!!!!

I quietly kept my thoughts to myself as she continued to sing away at the top of her voice. The drive to hospital was quick and easy. There was hardly any traffic on the roads, apparently we had just missed morning rush hour. As we parked in the car park the clock read seventeen minuets past nine. We were thirteen minutes early.

(Sarcasm) Let’s create a good impression by turning up early. I never wanted a stupid bloody appointment anyway. Why do I need it? There is nothing wrong with me!

I trailed behind Lisa as we walked up the path and through the white, glass doors. In my hand I was clutching the envelope with my appointment details in it and the questionnaires that both Lisa and I were given to fill out. As I went and sat down on the far side of the waiting room, I combed back through what the information websites had said. I had been a very good girl and done my homework, but like most of my work I didn’t really take the information in. Lisa came over to join me. All smiles. I think the aim was to relax and reassure me but it had not been successful. We sat anxiously in the half empty waiting room. Butterflies had begun to fly around my stomach, my hands were shaking. My eyes darted from poster to poster on the wall, skimming over them; depression, substance abuse and eating disorders. Yes, no, maybe. One train of thought was rushing around the tracks in my head, ‘what if they can’t help me?’     Worry spread through me like a wild bush fire, I had spent so long telling myself to shut up and not think about it but now it was the only thought in my head. I looked across to Lisa in hope of some reassurance but she was too engrossed in her Hello magazine.

(Sarcasm again) Thanks for your support.

I felt the buzz of my phone vibrating in my pocket. I slowly pulled it out and drew my password onto the screen. It was a snapchat notification, new snap from Abby Schaller. I smiled and opened the snap to find her smiling at me, hands forming a heart shape with the caption ‘I love you! Stay smiling xx’. I take a quick selfie of me smiling and fired it back to her. My attention was captured when a women wearing a smart black suit and a white blouse called out ‘Luke Rays’, I looked up from my phone. She smiled as a boy sitting opposite me slowly rose from his seat. His eyes were wide with fear and as he walked across the room his head fell, towards the floor. As he passes me, he lifts his head to look forward and I manage to catch his eye. I muttered stay strong as he passed and flashed him a heartfelt smile which he weakly returned politely. His smile stayed trapped in my mind long after he had walked through the wooden double doors to my left. I recognised something in him, something I’d seen in myself when I stood in front of the mirror earlier that morning criticizing every piece of me. He had no light in his eyes, they were dull, lifeless and burned out. His smile was fake, it was like an elastic band stretching and pinging back into place once you’re finished with it. He walks with his head down because he doesn’t want to be recognised, he’s cool with being the nobody in the background. He knows that it’s hard for others to be around him. I sat there dwelling on those thoughts.