There had been counselors in rehab, of course. And if she was being honest they were actually decently helpful resources once she got used to using them. Tanya with the short skirts and the doe eyes was the good cop, the one you went to when you wanted soft fluffy maternal support. Then there was Sal, all hard gruff disappointed judgement and tough love if that was your thing. She’d found she needed a steady diet of both depending on the day. And she’d been missing them as she settled into Dayton. Her pride had wanted her to be able to do this on her own, but today she’d woke up with an itch so bad she was afraid for herself.
Go figure, a city like Dayton wasn’t exactly teeming with therapists. But she found one. And somehow managed to snag herself an appointment for that afternoon. An appointment she showed up for exactly two hours early, because parking her ass outside made her feel more stable, more in control, than she might have if she’d stayed at home or wandered the city.
“Thanks for fitting me into your schedule,” she mumbled softly, eyes downcast when she was finally sitting across from her new resource Gavin. “Like I said on the phone I’m ah…I’m seven months clean and it’s just….it’s a bad day today.”
If it wasn’t totally obvious to anyone living on the outside, Dayton was a shit show. It was a mess of sex and profanity. It was drugs and strip clubs, and alcohol addiction. This town was so accustomed to sin that it was amazing to him that there weren’t more people in his own profession working around the clock to support the people of this town. Insanity of the towns morals aside, it was swimming with damaged people who were drawn to that sort of thing in the first place. Have your fun where you will, but the lives of the people who it attracted were more often than not darker than the towns allure. That was one of the many reasons he’d decided to open up shop in Dayton in the first place and it most certainly did not disappoint. His trauma support group was running as smoothly as to be expected and was almost always full. Some of his clients clearly making more progress than others. His individual sessions were plentiful and he was a big fan of the progress he was seeing in some of them. And his referral line was almost always going crazy with new clients hoping to get in.
That day the lucky winner of a call back just to happen to have been Emma. He’d only just finished putting all of her information into his system when he heard her knocking almost two hours early at his door. A look of amusement crossing his features as he leaned back in his seat and welcomed her the chance to sit down anyways. His office decorated the way one might expect a children’s therapist to decorate with a small sandbox sitting on a table in the corner, games stacked high on the shelves, an endless supply of books lining his book shelf, and even same animal shaped bean bag chairs in another corner of the room. It made the room seem brighter, less intimidating in his opinion even though children were the last population he’d ever be interested in serving.
“Of course. I was definitely intrigued by your voicemail. Kind of felt a little too cruel to leave you out to dry for long when it sounds like you’ve already made so much progress. And hard days are to be expected. I’d almost say if it was one hard day every seven months you’re luckier than most but I’m sure it’s safe to assume that’s not the case, so what makes today any different?” He asked, leaning forward as he picked up a stress ball off of his desk and squeezed it between his fingers.
2087
titsay
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
stormborns
yousharknotpass
janainaart
