Hush by Micalea Smeltzer Page A

think and dwell on things best left forgotten. I was still taking meds and I was going to see a therapist once a week. I didn’t think it was helping.
    I wasn’t sleeping much. I would find myself exhausted, to the point of falling over, and I’d climb in bed and end up laying there for hours in the dark. It wasn’t healthy. I’d lost fifteen pounds since the incident , as I liked to cal l it, took place. B ags were etched under my eyes along with bruise like shadows. It wasn’t healthy. But it wasn’t like I wasn’t trying. I did try… really hard. But nothing seemed to work. I had no appetite and I couldn’t sleep. I was withering away. Turning into a zombie.
    I opened the door to my therapist’s office. Commercial grade blue carpet covered the floors and the walls were painted a soft blue. Standard paintings of flowers and landscapes decorated the walls. It smelled kind of funky too. I wrinkled my nose.
    The mousy haired receptionist smiled at me.
    “Good evening, Ms. Campbell,” she said. It was Friday evening after work. I took a seat on one of the uncomfortable dark blue chairs. I sat my purse in my lap and wiggled my butt trying to find a more comfortable position. It didn’t work. I glanced at my watch. I was five minutes early and then I had to spend an hour talking to the stupid doctor. I was sure Dr. Bernard was smart and knew what she was doing but so far she hadn’t been able to help me. Maybe I was a lost cause. I knew Siva was paying her good money and it made me sick. If she couldn’t help me he shouldn’t waste his money but he wouldn’t let me stop coming. I huffed a sigh and wiggled again.
    “Is there anything I can get you?” asked the receptionist.
    “No, I’m good.” I said.
    She went back to typing.
    “Sloane, come on back,” said Dr. Bernard opening the door.
    I stood and put my purse on my shoulder.
    Dr. Bernard’s office had dark wood wainscoting halfway up the wall. The rest of the walls were beige. When I pictured going to the therapist I figured I’d lie on some kind weird couch looking thing and have my head poked and prodded. But that wasn’t the case. Instead I sat on a brown couch that was actually quite comfortable and Dr. Bernard sat in a chair across from me. She had a desk and book shelves.
    Dr. Bernard was in her fifties. She had few wrinkles but her hair was already gray. She had some crinkles around her mouth like she smiled or laughed a lot. She never smiled at me though. Today she wore a black pantsuit. She sat down in the chair, crossed her legs, and rested her notebook and pen on her lap. I never saw her take any notes.
    “How has this week been for you?” she asked, peering at me through silver wired glasses.
    “Okay, I guess,” I said with a shrug.
    “You guess?”
    “I’m still not sleeping or eating much,” I said, settling into the couch for the next… fifty-eight minutes and counting.
    “Why do you think that is?”
    Dr. Bernard always answered everything with a question. I wanted to roll my eyes at her.
    “Uh… because I was nearly raped,” and I live with a crazy, moody, arrogant, jerk named Siva Kapur , I added sarcastically in my mind .
    She pushed her wire rimmed glasses up her nose and studied me like a scientist studies something particularly fascinating.
    “How do you think you’re handling your ordeal?” Dr. Bernard asked.
    And that’s how the next fifty-four minutes and thirty-one seconds went.
    * * *
    Jacob was waiting with the Porsche when I left Dr. Bernard’s office. This wasn’t unusual. Whenever Siva had to go somewhere he always managed to finagle Jacob into ‘babysitting’ me. I thought it was stupid.
    “Hey,” I said to Jacob. “Where’s Siva?” I hated that Jacob was picking me up at Dr. Bernard’s office. It made me look mentally unstable.
    “He had to leave unexpectedly,” said Jacob pulling into traffic.
    Hmm, I thought, could he not have told me he was leaving himself?
    Stupid, arrogant, moody,