Intent [Wattys 2017]

Chapter 13

Craving - James Bay

Emma

"Ugh!" I'm heated and seriously pissed arms crossed over my chest. 

"I just– I just cannot even believe him!" Running my hands roughly through my hair, entirely exasperated. "What right does he have huh?" I finally take notice of the patient women sitting down.

"Why does he all of a sudden choose to want to know me so...intimately?" Waving my hands in front of me in the air to try and show to her and even myself just how pissed off I was of the whole situation. "I don't think he knows what he's asking of me but still"

I have been pacing around Dr. Ellen McCarthy's room for 15 minutes now. I honestly don't remember if I had even sat upon entering the room, I just started walking and ranting. The way Harry was acting, all protective and nosey, was on the one hand completly caring and sweet but on the other is incredibly annoying and at this moment I can't seem to see past that assessment of my feelings.

"Why can't he just be ok with the way things are? You know?" Turning again toward Ellen before quickly turning away to continue with my rant.

"Of course after the other night I don't think we can go back even if I wanted to which, at this point, I don't know if I do or if he does." I hear Ellen try to interject but I barely hear her.

"Things have just been so weird recently. Like ever since Lina told me that he looks at me in that way" making air quotes to Lina's annoying words "I have been overly aware about him and me, you know? Like he's always watching. I don't know how I am going to just sit in class with him anymore and god knows how I am going to keep him at bay after our phone call. I mean come on, he doesn't need to know what happened right doctor?" I say finally sitting down on the couch across from her, out of breath and hyped up "I don't need yet another person knowing and looking at me with their pity eyes and all that shit".

A moment of silence looms over the entire room. Really, you have nothing to say to me? I'm exhausted and annoyed with Harry and I know that with on wrong mood Ellen might be joining Harry on my shit list at the moment.

"Well you certainly have a lot on your mind but first I need to tell you no one gives you pity eyes."

Really, that's what you got from all of what I just said? Although annoyed by the thing she has chosen to focus on it's also what I loved about Ellen. She knows I have some heavy fucking shit to deal with but she chooses the most trivial aspect of my argument to tackle, knowing that she will just use it to dive head first into the other deeper darker stuff.

"Oh yes they do Ellen" How could she even say that?

They all do that, when they find out that I was kicked around when I was little, hospitalized by the hands of my own father. They all give me the same look. Head tilted to the side, holding eye contact for a moment before looking you over with puppy dog innocent eyes thinking "oh poor thing" to themselves, I absolutely hate it even though only a handful of people actually know the details of what happened.

"I do?" Asking a little too matter of factly for my now irritated attitude.

"Well no but the eyes are always there with the people who know what happened even if they don't realize it" I snap slumping back into the couch, suddenly exhausted.

"So what you are saying is that you project these feeling of the 'pity eyes', as you call it, onto the people who know the trauma you experienced even if they aren't. Doesn't seem too fair if you ask me."

"Well what happened to me wasn't fair either and knowing they don't mean to do it doesn't make me feel any better even if it is all my fault" ending raising my arms into the air and letting them fall limply onto my lap.