snapshot #1

She wouldn't know. After all, here she was, sitting in the armchair, looking down at the floor with resignation.  Her fingers were curled around the ends of her sweater’s sleeve, making her mint colored nails stick out from her sweater paws. There was just something about the color that made her calm. The therapist that sat before her couldn’t stop staring at her face. Uncomfortable, she shifted in her seat, using her sweater-covered fist to brush at her bangs.  She’d been here too many times to know what came next. A deep exhale escaped past her lips, rough yet sounding so broken at the same time. She didn’t know how sighs could sound so … sad.

There was a darkness around her that sucked her into the abyss of cold. Suddenly, the green Christmas sweater she was wearing felt suffocating. She strained a smile at the therapist and uncrossed her legs. The silence that hung in the air started to become asphyxiating with the heavy pause of empty words and unshed tears. She watched her therapist’s lips move, the movement absorbing her attention and blocking away the sound. She couldn’t remember the sound of the heavy-boned therapist’s voice; she hadn’t heard it often enough, nor had she paid attention to it, since she started coming.

She walked out of that room when the first ding of the timer registered in her ears. There were many voices she couldn’t remember after the accident. She never minded not knowing. Not when everything was her fault. With trembling fingers, she undid her bicycle chain and pushed off from the sidewalk. Asphalt crunched under her sneakers as she kicked her feet off the ground. Only when a wetness on her face started to grow more prominent did she realize that she had finally broken down into tears as she cycled through the streets of Blackwood.

No, things wouldn’t get better.