The Weight of Us ｡ Peter Parker [3]

5 - Golden Girl

Flaky air blew down on my face and it sunk into my bones. My fingertips felt frozen and my lips were chapping quickly with the steady chill of air conditioning waving above my head. My eyes watered a little bit and even with my sweater threaded over my shoulders, everything felt chilled, like I was stuck in a snow-globe. Dr. Elsie Potters was a woman born for the cold, which meant her office was always coated in frosty air conditioning, even when the months turned with snow and wind outside. 

"What do you want to talk about today?" 

Dr. Elsie Potters was a familiar face in my life now; her kind eyes and her tiny frame. Her tidy office with the watered plants and the photo frames of pretty landscapes which gave the illusion that one was not cooped up in an office looking over the buildings of the Upper West Side. Everything about her was comforting and that was a good thing. "You spoke with my mum, you already know everything that happened last night."

"I did speak with her over phone, yes," Elsie replied calmly, hands folded neatly in her lap. She wore a mask of perfected grace. Even when my words stung with venom, she always remained collected. I really envied her ability to control her emotions so well. "But did I ask what your mother wanted to speak about today?"

My teeth scraped across my dry lips. "Was that an attempt at a snarky comment, Dr. Potters? Am I actually rubbing off on you?"

Elsie offered a half smile with my words. "Deflecting is not very becoming. How are you feeling?"

"A little better," There was no point in dancing around my thoughts today. "Since last night, I mean. Last night was...not great."

Therapy was a back and forth game; sometimes you felt like you were acing all your questions and in a sense, you felt like you were winning and well, I lived for competition. But other days, with one calm look from my therapist, it had my stomach swimming with doubt. Deep down, I wanted to make Dr. Potters pleased, proud even, with my recovery, but maybe this was a losing battle.

"What happened last night?" Elsie asked, eyes flicking to my hands in my lap. They were twisting around and around and my knees bopped with jitters. A telltale that everything was not alright. Something Tony Stark had once picked up on. 

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "I didn't have anything to take my mind off things, and well, it got all too much. Once I start thinking about them, about how they won't ever come back, it just doesn't stop. It's kind of like an avalanche. It starts small, but then grows and grows until it's all really crazy."

A moment of silence ticked on. Elsie jotting something down in her notebook. "Do you think you're crazy, Florence? For feeling this way? For having such deep emotions?"

I gulped. "Am I crazy, doc?"

Elsie clasped her hands together, her bangles jingling with the movement. "No. Grief is very common in all stages of life and everyone experiences it very differently." 

A sigh of relief escaped from my lungs. Sometimes I did feel crazy. Nobody else around me was still grieving, not like me. "Well, that's good to know."

My therapist leaned forward in her chair, legs crossing at her ankles. "I want to tell you something, Florence. Something I've come to know about you, something you may not realise yourself. Is that okay?"

A flurry of fear rested in the pit of my stomach with her words. This was the moment she told me what was truly wrong with me. My diagnosis. "Um, okay?"

"You struggle with grief, and by our conversations about your past with your brother, it seems like you've been fighting this fight for a very long time. You hold onto your grief tightly, always carrying that burden, even when you don't have to any longer. This grief, it turns into your depressive stages and that adds to your anxiety." Her words like were a bullet to my heart. She was not wrong.