A Thing of Beauty - A Hozier Fanfiction

Chapter Five

6 May, 2020

Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Positive COVID-19 Cases: 22,248

Deaths: 1,375

"And how are you managing the isolation?" Debbie asked, writing something in her notebook. "Are you chatting with friends and keeping up with your family?"

Andrew leaned back a little and scratched his jaw through his thick beard. "Ehm, yeah. I guess so. You know Alex is still here, which is nice." He straightened a picture frame on his desk.

His therapist tilted her head. "You didn't answer my question."

He sighed. "I mean, kind of. They're all busy working and all that. So its not really like they have a lot of time to talk during the days." He shifted in his chair. "I talk to a few of them, but really just one."

"And who's that?" Debbie asked without looking up.

Andrew bit his lip, remembering why he got into therapy. It was supposed to help him, but recently it felt like he was pulling his own teeth out by hand. His therapist was prying far more than he was comfortable with and each week's session felt a little more intrusive. He knew she was doing her job and that therapy wasn't supposed to be comfortable, but sometimes he would have actually preferred to get a public cavity search at Dublin airport than have a session with Dr. Morrisey.

"Cassie," he answered, rolling his fingertip on the cuticle on his thumb nail.

"And how did you meet her?" Debbie asked.

"On Instagram," he said.

Debbie's eyes flitted up from her notebook and Andy could feel her judgement through his laptop screen. "And how do you feel about her?" Her tone was carefully-picked, an attempt to remain neutral. She was failing.

Andrew blinked. "Ehm...I mean we're just friends. We chat and all that, but we're just friends." Why is it so hard to believe that a man and a woman can be friends? he found himself thinking. "She's got a child, so I don't really see anything happening there. I'm not ready for that type of thing."

The older woman nodded. "So she's truly just a friend to you, then? You don't feel anything toward her?"

He shrugged. "I mean, she's really pretty, and we get on really well. I'm not dead," he chuckled lightly. "But I just think we're at two different places in life, you know? I feel bad for her though. She's young - like twenty-five or something. And her son is two or three. Her husband was killed. She recently moved here. I just...I guess I feel a bit protective of her, maybe? Like I want her to be OK?"

"Why do you think you feel that way?" she asked.

"I - I don't know," he explained. "She's been through a lot. She's my friend. I want her to be happy and safe. In another world, maybe we'd have been more than friends?" He was uncertain of his answers and Debbie saw right through it.

"Is it possible that you see a bit of yourself in her? Lost and struggling?" she suggested, lifting an eyebrow.

"No. Not her," he admitted. "Finn, her son. He's old enough to start being aware of her working and being busy all the time. I guess I just see a lot of my childhood - or maybe the start of it."

"So she reminds you of your mom a bit?" Debbie asked.

Andrew thought briefly of the slight thrill he'd gotten the week prior when Cassie accidentally opened her robe in front of him. It wasn't even an immediate attraction, more just he'd spent so long seeing her a certain way that having her reveal so much more of herself - literally - had made him see her differently. And the way he saw her reminded him nothing of his mother, thank fuck.