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Post by lizzy3 on Feb 22, 2012 21:35:37 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 340px; background-image:url(http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss279/legendskseeker/fk5qwnjpg.png); padding: 30px; border: #a0a0a0 solid 30px; ]WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER
 WORDS 496 OUTFIT CLICK TAGGED KIT AS RILEY Athena had been in therapy. She’d done it from May fifteenth until August eleventh, the day she left for Yale, exactly three months after the shooting. The young brunette had tried to be cooperative and open up, but it wasn’t an easy task. Thea hadn’t been an overly open person in the first place, but how did you even put a school shooting into words? How was she to talk about watching her boyfriend, best friend, and twelve other class mates be slaughtered like animals? Once she was on her own at Yale, Thea promised her parents she’d continue therapy with the name her therapist back home in New Orleans had given her. But she hadn’t kept that promise. It didn’t take her parents long to figure out she wasn’t going, though (the lack of bills tipped them off), and they said that she needed to take care of herself and continue therapy, or she needed to come home. And Athena wasn’t about to move home. So, she’d dug out the card from her previous therapist and called the office of Dr. Riley Walsh, and made an appointment.
Today was the big day. Athena had a psych 101 class, then calculus, then an hour for lunch before her appointment. As a psychology major, Thea had reasoned that she would learn enough from her classes that she didn’t need to be in therapy. Her parents didn’t agree. She knew that they just wanted what was best for her, but this didn’t feel best. It was uncomfortable and made her stomach churn. Revisiting the shooting? She didn’t want to do it. And she knew that she’d have to tell Dr. Walsh about the events. Of course, unless he lived under a rock, he’d seen the news coverage on TV. A large New Orleans high school; one shooter, four guns; fourteen dead, six injured. Thea avoided wearing shirts and hoody’s with her schools logo on them, because people would know. They’d know she was a survivor. And college was all about starting over, getting a fresh new life, right? She couldn’t do that with the black cloud of a school shooting hanging over her head.
Thea didn’t each much, she was too nervous. She drove out of New Haven towards Hartford, and thought many times about turning around and going back to her dorm. But, no. She’d promised. Once she reached the office, Athena took a deep breath, and made her way inside. After signing in, she sat in the plush waiting room, anxiously awaiting her turn. When the previous patient made his way out, Athena was called back. The receptionist walked her back to Dr. Walsh’s office, and knocked on his door before opening it. ”Athena West is here for her appointment. Go on in, dear,” she said. Thea was sure she’d pass out right then. But somehow, her legs managed to carry her through the door, and she sat down in the open across from Dr. Walsh.
stand a little taller; doesn't mean i'm lonely when i'm alone |
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Post by riley william walsh on Feb 23, 2012 1:08:45 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #000000, width: 300px; height: 300px;] suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall Riley Walsh needed his own therapist. It was some sort of conclusion that he was coming to the more time that he spent in his big, run down, piece of shit, needed to be remodeled or condemned house. His life had once upon a time been something that he could be proud of. A wife, a kid, a great job, all of that shit. And the house that he currently lived in, well, it was something that he had bought in hopes of fixing up for his family. With the family gone and it just being himself in the house that was probably better used for crackheads than for a successful therapist, he was coming to realize that he needed to figure something out. Though, the chances of him actually doing that were slim to none.
Loss was something that nearly all of the patients that he saw were going through. Some of them handled it like he did. Holing all of his emotions up inside of himself and going through the day to day like there was nothing fucking wrong. Others were simply train wrecks on legs that walked around leaving a path of destruction behind them. Then there were the ones in denial, the ones who had no idea how to cope, the ones who suddenly found God or some other form of higher power, the ones who refused to believe in God any longer. And with listening to all of this day in and day out Riley honestly had no idea how he felt. He didn't know how he was coping, or which of these categories that he was supposed to fit in. Maybe no where, maybe everywhere. The bottom line was, that he should start seeing a shrink himself.
It wasn't the time for that though, not when his secretary popped her head in to let him know that his next appointment was there. Now it was time to deal with this girl's shit. She'd been a referral from New Orleans, an old college friend had sent her his way. Of course, the details of their conversations were private and Riley had no idea what those were, but he knew the general of what had happened to her. A school shooting, she was a survivor. Some probably called her lucky, some probably went off about how god must've been protecting her or whatever the fuck. But Riley knew, that she probably felt a bit differently about it all in and of herself. And it was his job to talk about that.
He rose from his seat and moved towards the girl with a warm smile on his lips. "Hey. I'm Riley, feel free to call me that. I like to run on a pretty first name basis in my office," he spoke in calm tones, kind tones, the sort that made people feel comfortable. "Please, come in, have a seat," he said with a sweep of his arm. He would wait for her to sit before he decided where he'd plant his own ass. The seat that she ended up choosing would say a lot about the girl. It, after all, always did. If there was one thing that he'd learned in his career, it was that everyone could be grouped into a category. No one was as original as they liked to think they were, but everyone deserved a chance to better themselves. Which, was why he supposed, he kept at this job even after all he'd been though. |
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Post by lizzy3 on Feb 24, 2012 14:05:19 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 340px; background-image:url(http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss279/legendskseeker/fk5qwnjpg.png); padding: 30px; border: #a0a0a0 solid 30px; ]WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER
WORDS 496 OUTFIT CLICK TAGGED KIT AS RILEY Athena gave him a closed mouth smile and a small nod as he said she could address him as Riley. ”You can call me Thea,” she said. Sitting down in the plush chair, she crossed her ankles and glanced around the office. It wasn’t much different than the one back in New Orleans, really. And a shrink’s office was a shrink’s office – no matter what it looked like, she didn’t want to be there. Thea would have never in a million years been able to predict that she would need counseling. She’d absolutely loved her life, was out spoken and independent, made pretty good decisions. She loved her parents, and they loved her, her boyfriend and best friend were perfect. Her whole life had been kind of perfect, really. Until it wasn’t.
Kyle. Everything was so easy with him. They’d only been friends for a little while before dating, but it didn’t matter. Their favorite thing to do was to sneak out late at night and go down to the pier. There, they’d sit and talk for hours about anything and everything. They talked about school sometimes, and family. They talked about plans for the upcoming weekend, or how Kyle refused to sit through another chick flick with Thea (although he always would), or they’d play games of ‘would you rather’ or ‘truth or dare’ for hours. Sometimes the night ended in skinny dipping. Once, they fell asleep there, and got in huge trouble at home. Thea had been grounded for a month, Kyle two and a half weeks (he was being raised just by his dad, so his punishments were always more lenient.) Still, the two of them laughed about it at school rather than regretting it.
”So,” she started, focusing back on the present. ”School shooting. That sucks. I thought I could be done with therapy after the summer was over, but my parents want me here, so this is mostly for them.” Athena was reluctant to admit that she was damage, that she needed help. It was her independent, fiery streak that did that to her. ”It’s been a few months, so I’ve forgotten where we start… a walkthrough of that day? How it’s affected me since?” Athena raised her eyebrows, her tone slightly sarcastic, but she wasn’t meaning to be disrespectful. She was sure Riley was a great therapist – Thea just didn’t think she needed it.
stand a little taller; doesn't mean i'm lonely when i'm alone |
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Post by riley william walsh on Feb 24, 2012 15:06:17 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #000000, width: 300px; height: 300px;] suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall The bottom line of all of this was that Riley had been doing this for more than a short while. Even before he professionally was seeing people he'd been doing it without ever really realizing it. His friends came to him with their problems, and being in school for what was now his profession it wasn't so much of a wonder that everything that this girl thought she'd be sending his way that he'd never dealt with before, she was so very, very wrong.
So she was a chair sort, and the way that she crossed her ankles let him know that she didn't want to stay here long. She wanted to be able to leave as soon as she possibly could and each time that she came here she was going to be in this kind of mood. Or at least, that's what Riley knew she had set in her head. She was going to be a bitch, she was going to sit there and talk like she knew how this whole process worked, and that was all that there was going to be to it. And obviously the person who had been there as her therapist before really had done some damage in making her clam up.
The man moved over to the couch grabbing his note pad and then plopping down on the piece of furniture with his torso propped up on the arm and his legs sprawled out. "School shooting does suck," he agreed with a simple pop of his shoulders before he turned his blues to her and shook his head. If there was one reason that he was so damn good at what he did it was because he didn't go about things like every other shrink did. He didn't sit there in his chair like he knew everything. Of course, it mattered the patient, but with this girl, nope, he was going to be comfortable and that was all there was to it which included lounging on the couch.
"We can talk about that day if you want. But really, I've read enough about it. It's in the past. And yeah, it's something that will always effect you, but, lets not talk about that. Lets talk about today. The past week. School, boys, friends." Another shrug and he moved to grab a cigarette out of his pocket and place it between his lips. "Mind if I smoke?" usually he wouldn't wait for an answer, but, this was a patient after all. "Thea, treat me like your diary. You can say whatever you want, not holding anything back, and you only talk about what you want to talk about. If there comes a day that I feel we need to address something. I'll tell you. Until then, your parents can simply be paying for us to bullshit for an hour once a week." An easy smile painted his lips as he looked over at her. |
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Post by lizzy3 on Feb 24, 2012 15:49:59 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 340px; background-image:url(http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss279/legendskseeker/fk5qwnjpg.png); padding: 30px; border: #a0a0a0 solid 30px; ]WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER
WORDS 496 OUTFIT CLICK TAGGED KIT AS RILEY Alright, so Riley was pleasantly surprising her so far. He sprawled out on the couch, which was different. Her last therapist had been pretty prim and proper, sitting upright in a chair, stiff back, taking notes, the whole nine yards. To say that it made Athena uncomfortable would be an understatement. Of course, this could have just been a show to make her open up, but it was also working a little bit. When he asked if he could smoke, Thea raised her brows. ”Uh.. no, go ahead,” she said with a small laugh. So maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Thea didn’t keep a dairy, never had, and didn’t ever plan to. So she wasn’t sure exactly what she would right about. I mean, it was more like talking to yourself than anything, the way she saw it.
School, boys, friends. ”School is… good. Hard, but that’s to be expected.” You didn’t exactly go into Yale and expect things to be smooth sailing. She had tough classes, tough professors that seemed a bit heartless, and spent most hours studying. Sleep didn’t come easily, and when it did it was usually so ridden with night mares that it didn’t matter, so Athena was more than happy to stay up doing assignments instead. Clearing her throat, she looked down at her hands, picking at the nail polish on her thumb. ”No boys.” She’d been asked out a couple of times since classes started, and always felt a little bad for saying no. But how was she supposed to go date other guys when all she wanted was Kyle? As far as she saw it, he’d been the one for her. They were young, yes, but the two had been talking about marriage. They’d decided each wanted to wait until graduating college, but it had still been spoken about and seemed like a possibility at some point.
As far as friends went, Athena didn’t have any close ones, and certainly not someone she would be willing to call her best friend. Her best friend was and always would be Addy, the girl she’d known forever, the girl that was supposed to be her roommate, but instead was lying six feet under in a cemetery in New Orleans. ”I have some friends,” she said. And it really wasn’t a complete lie. Athena met with a study group once a week for her biology class, and they were all really nice. ”My roommate and I don’t really hang out at all, but she’s nice.” Thea felt bad for her roommate. It must have sucked to be stuck in a room with the girl that wakes up screaming.
stand a little taller; doesn't mean i'm lonely when i'm alone |
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Post by riley william walsh on Feb 24, 2012 16:55:29 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #000000, width: 300px; height: 300px;] suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall Riley had a feeling that this sort of method was going to work with Thea. Of course, there were always the patients who needed their shrink to be all kinds of professional for them to feel comfortable, then there were ones like this girl who simply needed someone that wasn't going to be pressing for ever little confession of her heart to come out of her with full force. In all truth of the matter, there were some patients who just needed a friend, and as stupid as some might call it, that's what Riley was more than a little sure was all that Thea needed. Even if she didn't think that she needed anyone to talk to.
With a simple nod to let her know that he'd heard her he lit the cigarette getting more comfortable and pulling an ash tray towards him. "You can smoke in here too, if you smoke, it's no big deal," he stated with a light shrug before taking a drag off of the cancer stick. Riley looked over at her then with a purse of his lips. "You going to Yale or U of H?" he asked because really there were all of two colleges in the area. That was unless she went to online school, but he had a feeling that with this girl, that wasn't the case. There wouldn't be enough distraction if she just went to online school.
The no boys made sense though, given what he'd read about the girl, he wouldn't have expected her to move on. And maybe part of him was a bit pleased by the fact that she hadn't become one of those girls that dealt with their grief by fucking around, because those were never fun. And being the attractive man that he was, there'd been more than one time that a patient had tried to hit on him instead of actually having a conversation about things that were the root of the problem. He decided to say nothing about it though, at least not yet, boys were a complication for another day.
The some friends part, though, that was something that he knew would end up being a problem for her. It always tended to go that way with people who had suffered such a terrible experience as a school shooting. "Well some friends is good," he stated with a bit of a shrug before taking another drag and then flicking some of the ash into the ash tray. "Any real reason that you and your roommate don't hang out much?" he asked his tones all kinds of nonchalant. He was hoping that if he kept some sort of laid back vibe through all of this that she would end up having the same kind of attitude towards him. After all, it wasn't like they had to hash out all of her problems in the first day. Thus far, though, he knew that this was going to be more of a challenge than he'd previously thought. It always was. |
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Post by lizzy3 on Feb 27, 2012 17:22:55 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 340px; background-image:url(http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss279/legendskseeker/fk5qwnjpg.png); padding: 30px; border: #a0a0a0 solid 30px; ]WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER
WORDS 368 OUTFIT CLICK TAGGED KIT AS RILEY ”I go to Yale,” she said. Athena shook her head. ”I don’t smoke,” she replied. Addy had. She’d smoked kind of a lot, actually. And drank. Addy was the reason that Athena had gotten pretty big into partying. And Addy (and Kyle’s) deaths were the reason she had gotten even more into partying since coming to Yale. A drunken night meant a night that she didn’t have to worry about anything other than how she would be getting back to her dorm that night. Yeah, she was nineteen, and it was both illegal and irresponsible. But Thea didn’t really care. She felt as though she’d earned that right. She also didn’t have the nightmares when she was passed out drunk.
Addy and Thea were inseparable. It was kind of a strange pairing, actually. Addy had always been beautiful; the girl had never gone through and awkward stage in her life. Most of Thea’s life was her awkward stage. Freshman year, she kind of started to get pretty, but even now she felt as though she look about thirteen. Addy was bitchier and less accepting than Athena, but the two balanced each other out. The girls rarely fought, and were always seen together, both at school and away. Honestly, they were the girls that everyone wanted to be. Athena figured that without Addy, she would have been another faceless girl in high school.
When Riley asked about her roommate, Thea could even hold in her sigh. ”It probably has something to do with the fact that she can hardly ever get a full night’s sleep with me.” Athena regretted her answer, because it called for further explanation. ”I have… nightmares sometimes. Well, like a couple of times a week. And I wake up screaming.” Athena stood from the chair and walked over to his desk, leaning against it and folding her arms over her chest. ”I thought they’d go away after a month or two, but now it’s been what… nine?” She ran a hand through her long hair, looking around the room. The closer they got to the subject, the more uncomfortable Athena felt. She just couldn’t think about that day, or surely she’d break down in tears.
stand a little taller; doesn't mean i'm lonely when i'm alone |
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Post by riley william walsh on Feb 27, 2012 18:51:17 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #000000, width: 300px; height: 300px;] suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall Riley took a drag off of the cigarette before listing to her answer. "Yale...ahhh, I remember the days when I was back at Yale. Good school. Fun. Are the parties still out of this world?" he asked with a bit of a twinkle in his eye that made him seem to much younger than he was. He supposed that according to a lot of people Riley Walsh was still very much a kid at heart when it well and came down to it. And really, it'd been so long since he'd been to a good party that he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to hang at one like he used to. Oh the disadvantages of being an adult.
"That's good, the shit will kill ya, ya know," he stated off handedly before taking another drag off of the cigarette. Those blue eyes of his moved to watch her and the way that she stood. He knew these types of girls. The ones that had gone through something terrible and all they wanted to do was get on with their lives and not have to think about it again. He knew from experience that that shit never worked, especially int he cases like the ones that she'd been a part of. School shootings, really were something that a person never got over in a way that they might hope they would've.
Riley nodded as if to let her know that he was still listening and when she moved to lean on his desk his changed his position as well. Moving so that he was sitting up on the couch with his feet kicked up on the coffee table. After all, now they were getting into the shit that wasn't so easy to talk about. The shit that she was here to deal with but it took but one look at the girl's face to know that she wasn't ready for it yet. He let the silence hang in the air for only a moment before putting out his cigarette. "Camomile tea might help. It relaxes you, and things like that. I think you know as well as I that the nightmares are something we're going to have to talk about, eventually. Not now. Unless you want to. But camomile tea, with some honey, and milk. It's pretty good. Valerian root, that helps too. And lemon balm. You can't take the valerian root with alcohol though, and you shouldn't use it for more than two weeks." The man ran fingers through his hair before smiling at the girl. "I can't, ya know, guarantee that they'll make the nightmares go away. But they'll help you get a deeper sleep. So, it's worth a shot. They've helped me out." |
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