wanted | mystal

middle schoolers

Eighteen

Crystal

"How was therapy?" I asked Rowan as she came into my office after her session.

"Good,"

"Helpful?"

"Kind of," she shrugged. "Can we go home?"

"One more hour," I reassured her and she nodded. "I'm gonna go finish up, can you read for a little?"

"Yeah," she nodded. I kissed the top of her head, then left to check on some patients so I could get off soon.

"Hey, Crys," I turned to see Ashton rushing over, "I've been looking for you,"

"What's up?"

"Didn't Rowan tell you to come to my office?" he asked, making me shake my head. "Figures," he chuckled. "Could we talk about her appointment a little?"

"Yeah, of course," I nodded. The two of us went to his office and sat down. I could feel my nerves kicking in as he pulled out a folder, briefly reading through it. Rowan wasn't a bad kid, but if she didn't want to do something she would reign hell, and this was something she went back and forth about a lot. I didn't blame her, for two years she was told she couldn't talk about her problems, and that definitely strained our relationship. Fortunately, we're getting back to where we used to be, but that was only us, everything else was a struggle.

"I didn't get much out of her," he admitted with a slight chuckle, "she's stubborn,"

"She is," I nodded with a sigh, "and that's what worries me a lot,"

"We'll get there, I mean she hasn't really had a lot of time to get back to normalcy, and that's the goal here,"

"Is there anything I should be doing?"

"Trying to push a routine on her. I understand there are a lot of changes right now with school, and now Michael, but kids strive to have functionality in their lives, and the more the routine is broken, the harder it'll be to adjust to anything, everything will feel like a battle to here,"

"I'll start one then," I nodded. "I'm sorry if she caused you any difficulty-"

"She's a good kid, I promise," he cut me off. "It's not difficult, it's just breaking her out of her mindset that'll be hard. Right now she feels everyone is against her, so she doesn't want this help. You're doing a great job, I promise, just give her time,"

"I will, thank you Ashton," I smiled gratefully at him. We both got up to leave and get back to work, but he stopped me before we could go our separate ways.

"I'm having some people over this weekend, just for a cookout. If you and Rowan want to come, you're more than welcome to,"

"That would be great thank you,"

"No problem, I know Michael is coming," he sent me a wink, making me roll my eyes.

"Oh whatever,"

"Just saying,"

"You guys act like middle schoolers,"

"Can't argue that,"