Scarred (Scorching Soldier's #1)

Part 7

"'But people are oceans,' she shrugged.
You cannot know then from their surface."
- Beau Taplin, s u r f a c e s

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Chapter 7
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GAGE

My therapy sessions take place bi-weekly on a Sunday morning. A chance to reflect on the unfortunate events of the prior weeks, in which my therapist retorts with how my state of livelihood can only improve with time.

The brightly lit waiting room I sit in represents the proposed improvement of health. The "light at the end of the dark tunnel" in a sense. For me, it signifies all that was. All that used to be. And of sunny dreams that I recently never seem to have.

Upon commencement of my therapy, which was many months ago, I'd been told to align a set of topics to cover through the session, and today I am aptly prepared. I'd arrived early and had, therefore, had been directed to this room, where chairs lined the walls facing a small wooden table placed in the center, offering a range of magazines.

I only have fifteen minutes to measure my surroundings, noticing the blonde woman sat at the reception with the light smile permanently tugging the indents of her mouth, and the disheveled woman sat on a chair opposite to me that kept twirling her frizzy hair around her thumb and finger. A poster that particularly catches my eye is titled "Not All Pain is Physical", detailing mental health is equally as imperative to one's outward health. It's relatable.

The door to my therapist's office opens. Matt, the psych paid to evaluate my mental health, greets me with an easy smile. His youthful demeanour is one that mirrors his age. From behind him, a familiar face appears. I immediately realise it's Harry, the brother of a close friend that I had served time on base with. 

Harry's deceased brother, Oliver, often dies in my own personal nightmares. It's a repetitive one, and it reaps with the true horrors I had faced on my last day in the war zone. It had been Oliver's first placement and he'd been a breath of fresh air whilst compactly surrounded by hardened and ill-witted soldiers.

It's a shame that he hasn't lived on to brighten the sentiment of future with his dry humour.

Harry sets his eyes on mine but doesn't say anything. I gather that his session had been quite hard hitting. He only nods at me, setting his lips into a thin line. One that is hidden considerably due to his unshaven face. Then, without a second glance, he hurries out of the clinic.

Speech is often unused when mourning. Indiscriminately, whether mourning family or your own sense of self. Nothing much to say when existentialism is an essence replayed on the tip of your tongue.

Wordlessly, I'm guided into the room, with a gentle hand at my back. It annoys the fuck out of me, but I ignore it. As per ritual, I sit on the padded couch. It's a white to match the walls of the office, but slightly more subdued. The colour scheme was obviously designed to match a propositioned idealism. The pictures that hung perfectly lined and sorrowfully contained snapshots of lively flowers and popped with colour splashed onto the surrealistic art, contrasting the bland whitewashed plane behind them.

In a professional manner, he sits opposite me and crosses one leg over the other, leaning against the arm of his chair with a pen in and hand notebook hidden beneath his forearm. Discreet as it may be, it's noticeable.