If You Miss It

24. detach

warning: catastrophic thinking.

—

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

DETACH

—

Seeing Claire after more than three months was... different.

For starters, she had grown her hair out.

What was once a short, buzzed head of dark hair was now a thick head of hair, the curls in her hair looking healthier than ever, and as if Dmitri couldn't have gone through more of a fucking reset in time, it was dyed a dark green, the same colour as the walls of her room, the tiny frog on her desk, the cardigan she was wearing.

It was as if Dmitri had missed out on a year of therapy, not just three months, with the way everything had changed since the last time.

"It's good to see you again, Dmitri," she greeted warmly, using that same tone of voice that she always did when she spoke to him, the non-judgemental, impassive but still kind tone. "How have things been with you?"

Teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek, Dmitri shot her a weak smile despite everything, before saying, "It's been okay. I'm alive, so... Some would call that a good sign."

One.

Claire just let out a laugh at that, she always laughed at his jokes, whether they were slightly dark or just absolutely ridiculous. "Is that so?" she asked, her fingers interlacing each other on the table, nail polish coating them, the same green as her walls, as everything in the fucking room.

"Your nail polish is nice," Dmitri mumbled, because what the fuck was he supposed to say? It had been literal months. And shit had only gotten worse since the time he decided that it would be a good idea to stop showing up to therapy and just ghost his therapist.

A small smile spread across her face, and she nodded. "Thank you, Dmitri. Yours is nice, too," she pointed out, her eyes falling on his hands which were doing anything but staying still.

Staring down at his own hands, Dmitri frowned at the way his purple nail polish had chipped off from when Eden had painted his nails, all the way back on Easter. Ten days ago.

"Thanks," he muttered in response, his entire body just aching from tension, from how long he had been stiff for.

He couldn't even begin to imagine what Tariq went through on an almost daily basis, with his constantly stiff muscles because of work, and because that was just how it was for him.

Tariq.

Hopefully he was still waiting outside for Dmitri like he had said he would, because Dmitri was almost a hundred percent sure that he would need him or someone after therapy.

"So, do you want to get right into it?" Claire started, she always let Dmitri lead the conversations, but right now, he didn't feel like leading, let alone talking.

He didn't feel like doing much of anything, really, not when he felt so fucking shit about every little thing, ranging from not showing up to therapy when he was privileged enough to have the access to it, to the incident two days ago, when Tariq had ended up staying the night because Dmitri was so exhausted from all the crying that he couldn't stay up to check on Juno.

"Uh—" was all he managed to say, his tongue nothing but another body part that refused to function even when he wanted it to.

Claire just smiled. When wasn't she smiling? "Okay," she relented, gaze not dropping from Dmitri. Jesus, I'm losing my mind. "How was your break from therapy?"