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“I don’t need help,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and continuing to follow her. “I just need medication to stabilize my moods—that’s all.”
“You sure about that?” Meghan asked me. She turned her green eyes to mine. It was kind of startling how much our eyes were alike. It threw me for a loop for a moment. I’d never known anyone to have the same shade of green eyes that I did.
“I just have bipolar depression,” I told her bitterly. “I’m not fucked up.”
Meghan shrugged. “Never said you were,” she reminded me. I hated that she was right. “But you never know what you’re burying in your mind.” She knocked lightly on a wooden door in front of us before she pushed it open. An older man, probably in his fifties, was sitting behind a desk. He warmly smiled at Meghan. “Dr. Gresham, your two-thirty appointment is here. Her name is West,” she said, moving aside so Dr. Gresham could see me.
The door shut behind me, and Dr. Gresham stood up from his desk, giving me a warm, friendly smile. He held his hand out to me. “Hi, West. I’m Dr. Gresham, and I’ll be your doctor and your therapist. Take a seat.” He gestured to the couch against the wall. “Would you like Meghan to be in the room with us?”
I shook my head. I hated opening myself up to people, but I owed it to Jessie and Lincoln to try to get my shit together. They had already gone out of their way to do so much for me. But the least witnesses there were, the better.
I wouldn’t open up to anyone that I didn’t have to.
“Very well,” he simply replied.
“I’ll go see if your men need anything,” Meghan told me.
“Oh, Meghan, Axel called—said you need to go eat lunch,” Dr. Gresham told her before she slipped from the room. “You know how Axel and Julian are about you skipping meals.”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “They’re so overbearing sometimes,” she grumbled.
Dr. Gresham laughed. “They care about you, and they know how you get when you bury yourself in helping others. Go eat,” he ordered.
She rolled her eyes but left the room with a smile on her face. Dr. Gresham turned to face me. “I have your documents from your old doctor,” Dr. Gresham began. “Well, I did,” he corrected himself with a shrug. I frowned. “I frankly thought your old doctor was incompetent, and I filed them away to never look at them again. Your medication dosage was too high, and frankly, she should have done a lot more sessions with you than just when you came into her office to get a new prescription for your meds.” He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together in front of him. “I frankly don’t blame you for not taking them anymore.”
I stared at him in shock. That certainly wasn’t what I was expecting to hear when I came in here. I’d expected him to give me a lecture about how important medication was—not to agree with me stopping them.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t.
“Tell me a little about yourself,” Dr. Gresham prompted.
I hated talking about myself.
“There’s not much to tell,” I said with a shrug as I looked around his office. God, it was too stuffy in here. I hated closed-in spaces, feeling like I had no escape.
Dr. Gresham was silent for a moment before he cleared his throat and stood up. “Let’s go on a walk.” He opened his office door as I stood to my feet, a little thrown again. “Do you like gardens?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess,” I grumbled, slipping past him to leave the stuffy office. “I’ve never really gotten to experience one before.”
Dr. Gresham closed and locked his office door behind me before he walked beside me, leading me to the back of the center. “We have a beautiful garden out here. It’s a couple of acres with all kinds of flowers and trees.”
He pushed open a double door and gestured for me to walk through. I couldn’t stop the gasp that fell from my lips. I stared at the beautiful garden in front of me. It was well taken care of with a worn, brick path moving throughout it, splitting off to go in different directions.
“Is this better than my office?” Dr. Gresham asked me.
I nodded, lost for words. We began to walk. It was silent for a few minutes before Dr. Gresham spoke up. “Your file from your old therapist did mention that you had a rough childhood, but nothing else was mentioned about it. Tell me about that.”
That was because I’d never told her. I shut down every prying question she had, refusing to answer them.
“Nothing to tell,” I shrugged, purposely evading the question. I’d buried all of that shit for a reason. Talking about it now would send me spiraling; I knew that. And I hated losing control of myself.
