Amaurosis

My arms curled around my shins, smearing my legs with a thick streak of crimson, where it eventually dripped into the bath water. Yesterday’s mascara burned my eyes as I groggily turned around to double check that the bathroom door was locked.

I tried to remind myself that death was the best option, but it just felt wrong. I didn’t want to die, not yet, but I had to. It was the only way.

When Emma got back from school she would see my letter on the counter, and she would probably call mom or Rhett. When they found me in this tub they would be shocked, but not sad, because they knew it was coming. Death was inevitable.

So it was with relief not remorse that I dipped my head below the water, releasing all of the air in my lungs, because now... Now they were safe.

* Before*

The long black minute hand seemed to crawl agonizingly slow across the front of the clock, each tick of another passing minute seeming to echo louder in my ears than the one before.

I sucked a sharp breath of air through my nose and widened my eyes in an attempt to refrain from yawning right in front of Beverly.

“And then what happened in this dream?” Damon’s voice was deep and soothing as he spoke to the frail woman seated on the couch opposite us, her legs pulled into her chest, thin arms wrapped tightly around her shins while she peeked at us from over the tops of her jean clad knees.

“Then-” her monotone voice continued, and just the sound of her speaking made me want to pinch my eyes shut and stretch my mouth in a yawn. “-my ex husband reached into his pocket...”

I tried to stay focused, I really did, but I was plagued with the question “Is this all that my life will consist of?” Eight hours a day, five days a week, until I was too old to keep stepping foot into this monochrome building and I retired, then died. Post traumatic stress disorder. I could already slap a name onto this. I could pinpoint the causes of her stress and I could provide her with exact instructions for dealing with it, but that wasn’t Damon’s goal.

Damon and I didn’t cure people, we gave them a short term fix. We gave them something that would hold them off until their next appointment, which was bound to happen the following week, because their problems were not going to go any where. We made sure of that. How would we get a paycheck if we helped them completely?

Two agonizingly slow appointments later, I was free to clock out, and I wasted no time in doing so.

“See you tomorrow,” Cindy, our receptionist, smiled at me, grabbing her large white purse from under her desk as she clocked out on her computer. The red lipstick on her thin lips matched the fitted red dress and heels that she wore. Her honey brown hair was less voluminous than it had been that morning, but it still looked better than I knew mine did. I could feel the ashy black strands escaping from the tight ponytail that I wore my hair in, despite all the gel I had used that morning to tame it.

“See you,” I nodded, rubbing my temples as I made my way to the mostly empty parking lot. The door on my poorly painted white Honda Civic released a loud groan when I pulled the door open, then squeaked when I yanked it closed behind me. I’d purchased this car a year ago from a sketchy guy that had posted an ad online, and the vehicle was practically falling apart at the seams, but it got me to where I needed to go. I planned to run it into the ground while I saved up for a newer, better car.

There was fresh bird poop on my windshield, which caused me to grimace as I peeled out of the parking lot. My day had been far too long. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to curl up in my bed with a book. Maybe I would finally open up that book that Emma had lent me about mindful meditation.

“Your night for dishes!” Rhett yelled from the couch as soon as I entered, not bothering to disconnect his eyes from the TV to make sure that I had been the one who had walked through the front door.

“I already knew that,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes while I hung my purse on the hook next to the front door.

The house smelled like garlic and sauteed onion. My dad was in the kitchen when I entered, a vertically striped apron fastened around the back of his neck. Thick black rimmed glasses adorned his round face, slipping down his wide nose as he leaned his face further into the cook book spread open on the counter.

“Hi dad,” I flashed him a small smile, passing him to get to the fridge and pull out a bottled water. My throat had been aching for the entire drive home, and the water felt amazing on my dry tongue.

“Hi sweet pea. Hungry?” he glanced over his shoulder to look at me while he waited for my response. His thinning salt and pepper hair was combed back like normal, hooded black eyes crinkled around the edges with a smile.

“Very,” I answered, my mood beginning to lighten almost instantly.

“Tuan?” My mom entered the room with her thin blonde eyebrows knitted together. The smile that she used to always wear when she saw him was no where to be seen. She just looked tired. Her shoulder length blonde hair was twisted up into a bun, which sat neatly atop her head, and her navy blue hospital scrubs were wrinkled.

“Hey honey. You look beautiful,” he leaned in for a kiss, but she pursed her lips and leaned back, coolly rejecting him.

“Did that furniture store call you back to let you know if you got the job?”

My dad and I both visibly tensed at her question. His eyes were focused on the counter, where his hand was wiping away a splash of tomato sauce. Just by the solemn look on his face, I knew the answer to my mom’s question.

“Well-” he paused, as though he were deep in thought. “They did call me.”

I felt uncomfortable standing in the kitchen while they talked about this, so I quickly filled my plate with pasta and salad, then made my way to the dining room table. My parents could still easily be seen and heard, but I pretended to be oblivious to them as I twirled my fork around the pasta noodles. I could make out a face in the bright red sauce, a face which stared open mouthed back at me, like a little ghost.

"And? Did you get the job?” Her voice, though it was lowered, was still dripping with malice. The resentment that she felt towards my dad was obvious. She didn’t even bother trying to hide it like she used to.

There was a long bout of silence, in which the muscles in my body were so tense that I feared they may snap like an elastic band, before he reluctantly opened his mouth again. “Um, no. I didn’t get the job.”

Another painfully dragged out silence. Despite how frequently this happened, I still found myself grabbing onto the handle of my fork extra tight, and bouncing my leg in anticipation of the explosion that I knew was only seconds away.

A loud crash came from the kitchen, and though I didn’t dare look in that direction, I knew that my mom had broken another dish. “It’s been six fucking months, Tuan! I can’t keep working extra shifts at the hospital while you sit at home all day and watch the cooking channel! You need to be applying for jobs. You need to start acting like a man, and-”

I tuned her shrill voice out after that. The depression was already creeping up on me, despite me fighting to keep it away. I wished, more than anything, that I could be a sloth. Sloths slept for eighteen hours a day. Eighteen hours of floating through a sea of tranquil blackness, where nothing from reality could reach me. How nice it would be, to be a sloth.

~

When I awoke in the morning, a heap of dread settled into the pit of my stomach. I laid on my back for a while, staring out the dirty window above Emma’s bed, where she was still sound asleep.

The sky was already pink and blue, the sun ascending to it’s rightful home above us. It wasn’t even six in the morning, and our bedroom was already flooded with the excruciatingly bright yellow sunlight. I continued to lay there with my eyes barely parted, gazing out the window, until my and Emma’s alarm went off at six.

My morning was routine. Shower. Comb my hair into a ponytail at the base of my neck with a deep side part. Shuffle into a gray blazer, white button down, and slim gray slacks. Eat a bowl of cinnamon apple microwavable oatmeal. Brush my teeth. Get in the car. Drop Emma off at Edminton High School. Apply my makeup at the red lights. Clock in. Grab some coffee.

I was just walking back to my desk when Cindy piped up for the first time that morning.

“There’s a new client today for you and Damon. Beverly cancelled her sessions yesterday, and he’s going to replace her four o’ clock spot.”

I nodded at her words, boredly staring at the black coffee in my cup, watching the waves that formed on the surface when I spun the wooden stirrer around, mixing in the two packets of sugar that I had just poured in.

“Okay,” my voice replied monotonously, but I gave her a polite smile to soften the blow of my short response. Her answering smile was insincere. After that, she busied herself with something on her computer, seemingly uncomfortable now.

I sighed, making my way to the office at the end of the hall. The heel of my Oxfords clicked on the linoleum floor.

“Morning, Juliet.”

I looked up, forcing a smile for my coworker, although I was sure that it looked just as strained as it felt.

“Morning, Omar,” I pursed my lips, averting my eyes to the wall in hopes that that would be the end of our interactions. Of course, it was not though.

“Do you have any plans for this weekend?” His voice was sweet and curious, his round black eyes peering deeply into mine.

This was why I avoided Omar. He was just too damn nice for his own good. He didn’t see how little interest I had in talking to him or any one else in this building for that manner. He actually liked his job. He liked thinking that he was making a difference in these people’s lives, rather than just shaking them for cash.

“No,” I shook my head, then started walking again, to the office where I spent the majority of my day with Damon.

“Just going with the flow then, I respect that,” Omar starting walking alongside me, in the opposite direction of his office. “I’m going bowling this Friday with some friends. Maybe you could come too, since you don’t have plans.”

There was a glint of excitement in his eyes as he spoke. I glanced at him for a moment. Omar was decent looking, with a prominent jawline, deep set eyes, and a beautiful set of dimples in each of his cheeks, but he was too square for me. He was a rule follower, and a very firm believer of structure. We were perfect on paper. Both boring and lonely, but I couldn’t handle being around him for more than three seconds.

“No thank you. I don’t like bowling,” I stopped in front of the door to Damon’s office, fishing around the inside of my small black bag for my key so I could escape this painfully awkward conversation.

“I mean, we could always just go get dinner or something-”

“Omar! Good morning!” Bruno, the therapist that Omar was an assistant for, suddenly rounded the corner. His crisp blue button down was tucked into a pair of black slacks. In his hairy arms, he held a stack of files. “Will you open the door for me?”

I took Omar’s averted attention as an opportunity to slide into my office, which I had just managed to unlock before Bruno turned the corner.

Damon arrived about fifteen minutes later and we dove into some files that needed to be uploaded to our database before our first session at ten o’ clock. From there, we were jam packed with client after client. I ended up having some left over pasta for lunch, and I was practically twitching with tension by the time our new arrival was due.

“Why’d Beverly cancel?” I questioned as I sat in the plush chair beside Damon’s desk, clicking my pen and staring at the door in anticipation of our new client.

“She never said, though I assume it had something to do with the glazed over look in your eyes yesterday. She seemed pretty pissed when she stormed out. At least try to look interested in this new guy, okay? We can’t afford to lose clients like that,” he warned, his gray eyes flitting to my face momentarily before returning to the notepad on his desk in front of him.

It seemed like years rather than minutes passed before the phone on Damon’s desk rang.

“Good afternoon, Damon speaking,” he greeted into the speaker. There was a pause as he listened. “Thank you Cindy, we’ll be right there.” Then he placed the phone back onto the headset jack and stood.

“Is the new client here?”

He nodded, smoothing out the front of his maroon dress shirt, then adjusting his thin black tie.

We walked side by side down the long hallway until we reached the opening of the lobby. Per usual, Cindy was busily typing away on her keyboard, though I could see her cellphone sitting atop her legs under her desk.

“Harry Styles?” Damon called out in his oh-so-charming therapist voice, eyes roaming over the lobby with fake interest.

I also scanned the room. A weird instinct told me that I had found him when I saw the figure hunched over in the door closest to the exit, a pair of black sunglasses covering their otherwise handsome face.

His hands, which were adorned in silver rings with various designs and jewels, were intertwined in his lap, and his shoulders were lifted in a way that told me he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here.

“Right here,” he raised his hand, then pressed his full lips together as though he were irritated already.

Trying my hardest to be discreet, I let my eyes run up and down his appearance. He had warm brown hair, in a curly disarray atop his head. Black sunglasses were perched atop the bridge of his straight nose. He had high cheekbones, and a smooth square jaw. His lips, which were slightly parted, were puffy and colored a deep pink color that contrasted his olive skin.

He had three different silver necklaces on his neck. I could see the chains, but they were all tucked under the shirt he wore. It was a black button down shirt with red and white floral print. The first three buttons were undone, revealing his smooth chest. The edge of some colorless tattoos peaked out of the neckline of his shirt, immediately filling my mind with questions of what art might decorate his skin.

He wore a knee length coat over the top of this, also black. No surprise, his jeans and old skool vans were black as well. Even from across the room, I could tell that this lean boy was tall, probably around six foot.

My face was tinged pink as I looked away.

“Follow me back to my off-” Damon started turning around, but then Cindy cleared her throat, staring at us and flicking her head over to Harry. I narrowed my eyes on her face, then followed the direction of her head nod. My eyes landed on Harry again, and at first I had no idea why Cindy was acting so strange, but then I noticed Harry’s long fingers curling around the handle of a skinny white cane.

He was blind?

“My sincere apologies, Mr. Styles. Let me help you.” Damon rushed over to Harry, extending a hand to the gorgeous stranger on the plastic chair. I was correct in my assumption that he was tall. When fully standing, he was about an inch taller than Damon, who over a head taller than myself, at five foot three.

Harry said nothing, merely resting his free hand in the nook of Damon’s bent elbow and allowing him to lead the way to the office at the end of the hall.

“Is this your first time at therapy?” Damon asked as we walked.

“No,” he gave a clipped answer, not seeming to possess a desire to talk. Why join therapy if you don’t want to talk?

Harry sat in the beige sofa opposite Damon and myself. We were both equipped with our notepads and pens.

Damon began with the introductions, and explained what our goals in therapy were, and how we would work our best to help him. He explained the whole confidentiality thing to him, and throughout the entire first fifteen minutes of his hour long session, he was silent. I wasn’t even sure if he had heard Damon.

When he did eventually speak I was so surprised I almost jumped out of my seat.

“Do you have any questions, Harry?” Damon asked in a soothing voice that seemed to ooze understanding.

The left corner of Harry’s enticing mouth twitched up, settling into a smug smirk. “Who is the other person here and why aren’t they talking?”

I picked at the hem of my blazer while I waited for Damon to explain. Most people didn’t bother to question my presence, but if ever they did, Damon would calmly explain that I was merely a therapist in training and they would never seem to mind.

“She’s my assistant, in the process of becoming a therapist herself. She’ll be observing and helping out as much as she can, but you’ll mostly be talking to myself. Does it bother you that she’s here, Mr. Styles? We can always have her leave the room during your sessions if it’s an issue.”

Harry snorted rudely, “Having an amateur listen to me babble on about my personal problems, why would that bother me?” He sarcastically remarked, sinking further into the sofa.

My mouth popped open and I narrowed my eyes. What did he just say? Feeling absolutely irate, I clenched my fingers into a tight fist and snarled. “I’m not an amat-”

Damon jerked his hand up to silence me mid-sentence, shooting me a pointed glare for my outburst. I know, I know. Don’t scare off the money. Like an angry child, I crossed my arms and leaned back into my seat, biting on my cheek to keep from saying anything else that I knew I shouldn’t.

I swore I caught a look of amusement on Harry’s face, but it vanished before I could be sure.

“I can assure you, Mr. Styles, Juliet is very much qualified to be here. However, as I mentioned earlier, we can have her leave the room if you would prefer.”

Harry seemed to consider this for a moment, taking a deep breath through his nose and smirking. “Eh, what the hell. Who cares? Let Juliet stay,” he seemed to caress my name with his mouth, sending a not so friendly smile in my direction. Despite the irritation I now harbored for him, there was no denying the heat that spread through me when he said my name so sensually.

“Gee thanks,” I snidely muttered under my breath, too quiet for Damon to hear. I had a feeling that Harry had heard me though. I could see it in the way his lips twitched into an even wider smirk, dimples making a welcome appearance in his cheeks.

“So, Harry,” Damon paused to click his pen, preparing to write, “Tell me what brings you to therapy today.”

Harry was smug, exhaling loudly and rolling his head to the side while he thought about his answer. His jawline became even more prominent when he tilted his head back, his smooth neck completely exposed.

“A car.”

I couldn’t help it. I cracked a smirk at his smart-ass reply, then bit my lip to keep it from spreading. I could feel Damon growing annoyed, and I didn’t want to give him a reason to lecture me once Harry left.

“What was the reason that you decided to sign up for therapy sessions?” Damon tried again, a lack of amusement clearly written on his tired face.

Harry sighed, “I didn’t. My caretaker signed me up online because he thinks I’m crazy. He told me that I had to start coming to these things or he was going to leave me to fend for myself. Pretty fucked up, huh?”

Damon and I both jotted that down so we could add it to his file on Monday morning, before our eleven o’ clock session.

“Why do you think that your caretaker thinks you’re crazy?”

Harry shrugged, placing his elbow onto the arm of the sofa and leaning his side into it. “Dunno. He doesn’t believe me. Doesn’t believe the truth.”

“And what is the truth?”

Harry faced him, but was quiet, as though deliberating. “My parents were murdered eight months ago,” his voice came out lower now, like he was telling us a secret. “The police threw someone in jail, but it wasn’t the killer. The killer is still out there, walking the streets.”

I wrote down what he had said, noticing that Damon had done the same. Next to my note, I also neatly printed the word “Denial.”

“What makes you so sure that their killer is still out there?” Damon probed, setting his pen down so he could look at Harry while he answered.

Harry became visibly uncomfortable. His long arms were crossed in front of his chest, head turned to the side as if he were staring out a window. He suddenly uncrossed his arms, pressing his palm flat atop his thigh and rubbing it, and using his free hand to tightly grip the arm of the sofa. He was nervous.

In a deep, barely audible voice, he whispered, “The killer still calls me. He threatens to kill more people that I love. Before my parents died, they told me about getting these calls too. Calls from a number they didn’t know, always a different number, saying that they were going to cut them up into tiny pieces and bury them in our backyard. And that was exactly what they did to my mom and dad. A finger by the roses, an eyeball by the fence. It was fucking morbid.”

I stared at him, feeling absolutely horrified. Cut up into pieces and buried in their own backyard? Who was that deranged, that they could do that to another human being? I grazed my fingertips over the base of my throat, where I could feel a steady burning sensation, as though I was about to throw up.

I cleared my throat, seeking to get rid of the feeling, and took a deep breath. I deeply hoped that Harry couldn’t sense how shocked I was by his confession. This was so far from a normal Friday session. So different from Beverly, who had come in because of her second divorce. So different from Antwon, who came here to talk about his depression. So different from any of the other clients we had ever spoken with. I wasn’t entirely sure that we were prepared for a challenge such as Harry Styles, though I was sure Damon would do everything he could to keep his one hundred dollar an hour spot filled.

“Are you sure that these phone calls are real, Harry?” Damon questioned after a brief delay.

Harry swiftly turned his head in Damon’s direction. His full upper lip was pulled back angrily, and there was hurt written all over his face. “What do you mean? Are you trying to imply that I’m going crazy or something?”

Damon shook his head, offering Harry a smile, even though he knew that Harry couldn’t see him. “I’m not implying anything. Just asking a question.”

Before I was entirely sure what was happening, Harry was on his feet, using his cane to navigate his way to the door which he had entered through.

“I’m done here. I’ll be transferring to a new therapist. One that will actually believe me,” he reached for the doorknob, but missed, which seemed to make him even more furious. “Can one of you guys fucking help me?”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I placed my notepad on the floor and stood up, taking careful steps toward the fuming boy.

“Cindy, the receptionist, can help you out with a new therapist if that’s what you really want,” I whispered to Harry, risking a glance at his astoundingly beautiful face. I desperately wished to remove the sunglasses from the bridge of his nose so I could get a better look at his eyes, which were hidden behind the mirrored lenses.

The crease between his eyebrows disappeared. On his face, a smile formed. I was shocked by how quickly his mood had just shifted from fuming anger to amusement.

“Alright. Thanks Julia,”

There was a cocky smirk on his mouth as he slipped between the gap in the doorway and disappeared. I had a feeling that he had gotten my name wrong on purpose. The little prick.

“Juliet,” I grumbled under my breath, clenching my hands into fists.

Damon was pinching the bridge of his nose when I looked over. He sighed loudly, then stood up. “I’m gonna go make sure his caretaker is here. Can you start organizing the files by alphabetical order?”

“Sure.” I huffed out, turning away from him to begin the task of organizing. For the rest of the day, I was consumed with thoughts of Harry Styles.

_____________

A.N. Helloooooo!!!! Hope you enjoyed chapter one. Please don’t forget to vote (it only takes a second) and leave me a comment letting me know what you think so far.

I love you all so much.

~Lauren P.