𓈊 A Poppy By Any Other Name

Epilogue [Petal's Diary Teaser]

"You'll do great, sweetie," Amanda said as she came to a stop in front of a rather tall building.

I sighed. "You make it sound like I'm taking some kind of test," I grumbled.

"Come on, Scott, you'll be fine," she insisted. "Besides, you met Dr. Pixl last week at the intake. You know he's sweet, he won't judge you or anything."

I couldn't help but not trust her on that. I knew logically she was telling the truth; his job was literally not to judge people. Even still, part of me didn't want to believe that. Part of me wanted to run away, get out of there before it was too late. But then I was saying my goodbyes to Amanda and my feet were moving in the exact opposite direction of away.

The lobby was just was white and boring as it was the previous week I had been there. It made no sense how an out-patient therapy and psychiatric crisis facility was plain white. Where was the colour and the mental stimulation? These people were professionals, didn't they know boring white rooms make people go batshit crazy?

The lady at the front desk was nice enough, though. She was super smiley, kind of like Jimmy. She was pretty, too. She had long, black hair and really pretty brown eyes. Her name was Katherine.

It took a while for Dr. Pixl to come out and get me. Something about a resident patient on one of the upper floors having a PTSD attack.

Eventually, he did come out into the waiting to call me up for my appointment.

"My apologies for the wait," he said as he let me inside his office. It was very... blue. I liked it.

I shrugged and sat down on the sofa. "It's fine." I bit tongue, fighting the urge to tell him that I wished he'd taken so long that the appointment would only be five minutes.

Dr. Pixl smiled at me. "How was your day, Scott?" he asked me.

Starting off slow, I see. I couldn't help but sigh. "It was... okay, I guess," I answered. It wasn't really okay, it was miserable. The anxiety leading up to this appointment was anything but worth it.

"Do anything special?"

I shrugged again. "Not really," I said. I threw up my breakfast, but that's pretty normal at this point.

He nodded. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" he asked. He could probably tell he wasn't going to get very far with small talk.

I shook my head, then glanced down at my bag in my lap, remembering that I brought my diary with me. Amanda advised I bring it in case I couldn't bring myself to talk about my past with my family and Zach... Before I knew it, I was handing Dr. Pixl the book, telling him, "I wrote about my trauma in here." I immediately cringed at the way I worded that sentence. "Er, uh... I wrote about my feelings and stuff..." I sighed. That sounds even more awkward somehow. "Just... just read it."

Dr. Pixl chuckled. "This sounds like a great place to start."