(53) Bad Habits

Fifteen minutes of silence.

Fifteen minutes of tapping her fingers on her thigh.

Fifteen minutes of biting her lip.

Fifteen minutes of staring at the wall and avoiding eye contact.

Fifteen minutes of the therapist's very expensive hour wasted. An hour the Sinclair's were paying for.

For.

"You don't take notes?" Makennah finally asked the therapist because she couldn't withstand the silence for a second longer.

"No I don't need to take notes. This is just a conversation." Her words rolled off of her tongue like velvet. Her unexpectedly smooth voice sounded like melted chocolate over a cold ice cream sundae.

Makennah thought she would be older. Maybe sixty. Or fifty. Seasoned was perhaps the better word. Experienced.

But she was young. Like twelve. Not literally twelve. Just experience-wise she seemed twelve. Twelve compared to sixty. In terms of therapist's wisdom. Maybe she was thinking too deeply into this.

Obviously, the woman was qualified. Her degrees and achievements from multiple universities hung framed on the wall to the left of her desk between two cluttered bookcases that housed both books and green leafy plants overflowing out of their pots and glasses.

"What are we supposed to talk about?" Makennah asked, tapping her fingers on her thigh again to release suspended energy.

The therapist - Janine - shrugged her shoulders and her hair fell off to the side down her back. "Whatever you want."

Unnervingly calm. Peaceful. Makennah surely sensed a profound wholeness and completeness in her hipster-y earthy authentic therapist.

It wasn't that she was hipster-y or earthy. It's not that she had peace or completeness. Her lack of initiation had almost nothing to do with the therapist herself. In fact, if Makennah could hand pick a therapist, it would probably be Janine.

It's just that she was, after all, somewhat forced to be there. As a punishment-not-punishment. Whatever helped her get through the session according to the Sinclair's. Again, she was astounded she even sat in this quaint little chair across from the pretty lithe hippy therapist in her sea foam green library/office. Even in the wake of disaster, the Sinclair's stuck to their parenting rules and punishments. Noted.

"I don't have much to say," Makennah commented. Truly, she didn't. She could talk to pass the time. That was no problem. She wasn't exactly uncomfortable. She felt fine. Just...nothing to talk about.

"That's okay. We can just sit here," she said back sweetly with a gentle almost-smile. Janine did that a lot. Almost-smiled.

"Did the Sinclair's tell you anything about me?" She asked suddenly. Maybe the nice therapist lady already knew some things about Makennah. Maybe she thought she was already too broken to be fixed.

Janine shook her head. "No, Carolynn expressed that this is your time and yours alone. She didn't want to interfere."

"That's great." Makennah smiled tightly. How sweet of her. How great. Wonderful.

"Have you ever gone through counseling yourself?" Makennah asked. Maybe Janine understood how weird she felt perched on that chair across from a professional mind reader.

"Yes."

"Did you like it?" Makennah prodded. Just curious.

"Yes." Shirt answer again. Not very helpful for determining how the rest of this hour long session should proceed.

"So where did you start?" Makennah asked. She just needed some guidance that's all. She could talk and not really say anything. Give facts but not opinions or feelings. She had to appease the Sinclair's somehow.

"I started at the beginning."

"The beginning of the reason why you were in counseling? Or the beginning of your life? Or the beginning of time?"

This time, Janine smiled fully and interlaced her fingers in her lap over hunter green linen pants that corresponded with her opal green-reflecting chain necklace over a cream sweater. "The beginning of why I chose to be counseled."

Makennah crossed her arms over her chest. "That seems right, I guess. But what if I didn't choose to be here?"

"Makennah, no single counseling session is the exact same as another. That's the beauty of your personal experience. You get to guide this process. There is no right or wrong."

She didn't really answer her question but that made sense. "Why don't you ask me questions to get me to open up?" So far, only she was asking all of the questions to Janine.

Janine smiled sweetly and tucked one leg under the other. "That's not how I operate. I will never pester or poke or prod. You can say what you want to say in your own time."

Such an organic free floating way to deal with things. Makennah wasn't sure that she liked that. But she also didn't not like it.

Suddenly, it smacked her in the face. She knew what she could talk about that was stress free and untangled from all the rest of her life! A bad habit! "So my problem is that I smoke when I'm stressed!" She announced happily. She could talk about this. This was safe.

"Interesting that you call it a problem," Janine commented.

"Well smoking isn't good. It's bad for me."

"That sounds like the world's prescription of smoking cigarettes. Not your own," she said.

Her responses threw her off. Makennah reeled back and sealed her lips shut. Obviously smoking was bad? What did she mean? And how was that point helping at all? "I personally believe that smoking is bad and I shouldn't do it."

Janine nodded once. "You don't really sound believable."

Was she arguing with her?

Soooo many other things she could be doing with her time! How did she manage to let Will drag her here and drop her off? Why didn't she evade this whole thing like the plague! Will was weak, so weak. Makennah could have easily broken him down and convinced him to let her skip this session.

"Well I'm telling the truth!" Makennah said grumpily.

Silence. Nothing. Open eyes but a blank expression.

"I am!" Makennah assured her again. She heard the desperateness in her voice and shut up altogether. She was seriously serious. Smoking was bad. And she believed that smoking was bad. "So how should I stop?"

Janine crossed one leg over the other. "I'm sure you have some ideas."

Okay her university degrees were fake. This was all fake. This had to be a prank.

"Well yeah I mean...aren't you supposed to help me though?" Anger bubbled in her stomach and she was seconds away from exploding on this woman. How did Carolynn find her? A craigslist ad?

"I am helping you. Just not the way you imagine. It seems you have a different idea of how this should work. Tell me about that." Janine tilted her head to the side and looked at Makennah with an open expression, waiting for Makennah to speak up about that.

"Well yes," she huffed not very nicely. "I thought you would ask me questions and help me...I don't know talk about stuff or find solutions to my problems."

Janine nodded along, listening intently. "Would it make you feel better if I asked you a question?"

Makennah nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay." Janine smiled, almost playfully...somewhat daringly. "What are the specific reasons that Carolynn scheduled these counseling appointments for you?"

Makennah blinked. Once. Twice. And clammed up like a seashell.

Janine cracked another smile. "That's why I don't ask questions. You're not ready to talk or tell me about these things. You might never be and that's okay. It's your life, your personal information. I'm a stranger that you don't trust. It doesn't have to be my business if you don't want it to be. You are smart, Makennah. And you are thoughtful. You have expectations of yourself and the people around you. I can tell that much already. So you can talk to me when you're ready about what you want."

Sucking her bottom lip in between her teeth, Makennah chewed on the sensitive skin until her pain sensors reacted. Okay so many she knew some things. Maybe not. It was probably too soon to tell. But she wasn't wrong. She didn't have to tell Janine anything. She didn't have to spill her guts. She just wanted to talk about smoking the way she imagined herself talking about smoking. And eventually Janine was supposed to help her solve this problem she had.

"I just need to stop smoking," she said quietly but resolutely. Final answer.

Janine nodded her head. "Maybe we can start off talking about how you started smoking in the first place. I believe that getting to the root of the issue helps us determine a course of action for helping you overcome smoking."

That sounded smart enough. "I guess I started smoking when I was thirteen. That's the first time anyways. All of my friends did it. My mom did it. My mom's friends did it. I was surrounded by it at that point."

Janine stayed quiet and just listened.

"I hated it at first and stayed away from it. But it's...easy to get sucked in." No pun intended. As easy as it was to place her lips on the end of that cigarette and suck the toxins and nicotine into her lungs is how easy it was to accept that lifestyle and fall face first into it.

Again, Janine didn't say anything. This time the silence didn't feel defeating though...she wasn't waiting for an answer. She was just being silent and letting the conversation take its course.

"It was a stress reliever obviously."

"In what ways was it easy to get sucked in as you said?" Janine asked.

Makennah shrugged. "Everyone did it. It wasn't really viewed as a bad thing." Makennah stopped herself short. She was about to explain that smoking cigarettes was nothing compared to the harder stuff. By the look on her face, Janine knew that Makennah had more to stay. "Cigarettes compared to meth or heroine or crack or even weed is just...meaningless."

"Is that your personal opinion?" Janine asked.

"That's the second time you've said something like that," Makennah pointed out curiously.

Janine explained while gesturing with her hands. "I like to hear from you and what you think rather than what you hear or what others say. It's important to me that I understand what you're thinking and how you view things."

She sighed. "That's my personal opinion."

Janine nodded.

"Even...other families I lived with smoked. It's like a...deceptively weird lifestyle. Everyone knows it's bad for them and that it's a waste of money, but they do it anyway. And no one talks about how bad it is. Do they live in denial?" She threw up her hands. "I really don't know."

Janine laughed a little. "Smoking isn't the only thing people tend to deny. Lots of bad habits are overlooked and avoided even though we know they're bad."

Makennah nodded. She knew that. She knew she had other horrible habits that needed to go...needed to go so that she could grow. "Yeah you're right," she agreed.

"If you hated smoking the first time, why did you go back to it?" Janine asked.

The comfort that her office provided urged Makennah to kick her shoes off and curl up in her chair. There was a chair and a couch that she offered to Makennah, but Makennah chose the chair because she figured most patients chose the couch. However, getting comfortable seemed pretty permanent. She didn't want to give Janine the wrong impression that she was enjoying this or accepted it was happening.

"When everyone does it....I guess I wanted to fit in. They would sneak out of class and go outside and smoke. I usually played by the rules. So that seemed dangerous enough at first. In the beginning I just tagged along. After awhile, that's not good enough. You have to do it too."

Janine nodded. "That makes sense. Although...you don't strike me as the individual who has a hard time making friends or getting along with everyone."

She nibbles on her lip. Recalling all the lost friendships from individuals she never heard form again even when they promised to keep in touch. "I'm nice I guess." She shrugged it off. "I jumped from school to school. Friends weren't permanent. Being the new girl....I just did what I could to get along."

When Makennah mentioned her sad sob story about switching schools all the time, pity usually greeted her. However, Janine just blinked at her with a blank face and kind eyes.

"I'm a foster child," she explained after a second of awkward silence. She didn't want to dive into that subject. But it was probably useful information for Janine. Her school hopping didn't make much sense otherwise.

That didn't faze Janine whatsoever. "How do you think that correlates with your smoking?"

Makennah sucked in a deep breath to answer but...she didn't know. She didn't know how or even if that correlated. Obviously she grew up differently than people in Braxton. But did being a foster child play into her bad smoking habit?

She didn't think so. The crowds she ran with were worse at home rather than with her foster parents. Smoking with them didn't compare to the things she could get into back in her hometown where drugs ran rampant through the streets.

She smoked for an escape. Not so much to feel better...just...because....

Because....

Because....

She didn't want to live in that reality. In a world where her mom was a drug addict and too many people had expectations of her. In a world where she failed and messed up. In a world where no one wanted her.

Except the Sinclair's. She guessed they wanted her a lot. Enough to keep her for...forever. To make her their child. To make her permanent. To give her a permanent home.

That didn't seem like a mistake. She hadn't messed this up. They still liked her even when she didn't stupid things and smoked cigarettes and got attacked by raging ex boyfriends or fought on soccer fields.

She glanced at the clock.

"I gotta go."

And she bolted.

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MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS to all who celebrate this holiday 🎄

Sorry for the late update!!

Xoxo

W. Carolina