Joshua Foster

The little white clock that hung up against the beige walls ticked incessantly in my mind, one that was spinning in all different directions, focusing on both everything and nothing around me.

The sofa I sat on was a deep green colour, velvety and soft, but not comforting.

Nothing about this room was comforting, not the array of succulents on the windowsill, not the click-clacking of clock chimes, not the basic furniture, it felt like a cage.

A domesticated cage, yet still a cage.

"Joshua, Joshua, hello?" a sultry and calm voice calls out as my vision fades back into focus, and I am met with a face I know all too familiarly.

A worn-out smile coats her lips as she looks at me, head cocking to the side slightly.

And the best part was, I knew the exact words about to elapse from her mouth.

"In general, how would you describe your feelings right now, Joshua?" she asked, pulling a black biro from the pocket of her blazer.

I bite the side of my cheek.

"Good all around, thanks."

My voice was hushed, yet I spoke fast, something accidental and seemingly a mistake.

She continued with her whole spiel about being open and safe, but I had other things I had to be doing.

I skimmed my eyes around the edges of the room, counting the grooves in the sideboard and twiddling my thumbs in my lap, desperately avoiding eye contact.

"Joshua, If you want to make any progress, if you want to get to your goal and diminish the symptoms of your low mood, I have a feeling you might have to start working with me here, son."

She pulled a funny face, a mix of a smile you would give when you didn't know what grandpa was saying to you, and the one your face does automatically when you taste a lemon.

I nod slowly, taking a deep breath and opening my chapped lips, preparing to open up about the bombsite I call my life.

But nothing comes out.

I end up making this strange irrational squeaky noise, swallowing as much of the air around me as I could muster up, a thick layer of sweating breaking out at my hairline.

Her false smile fades abruptly, quivering and dropping down into a frown.

"Mr foster, I beg you to work with me right now." she entwined her hands, which were resting against her notepad, as she gazed at me, into every part of my soul.

Deep breaths.

"I got in a fight again yesterday."

She scribbles her pen on the paper, not speaking, but instead waiting for the words to come to me instead.

"I fucked him up pretty bad."

More scribbling.

"I broke up with my girlfriend."

The pen on paper was the only sound I could hear.

"Mama kicked me out again"

She continued to write, smitten by the fast pace of my forming thoughts.

"And I almost did coke again."

The pen grinds to a Holt.

She looks me dead in the eye.

"What."

I sniffle, blinking repeatedly in a hopeless attempt to clear the water which was welling up in my tear ducts.

"I mean, I didn't." I smiled awkwardly, showing all of my teeth as I attempted to lighten the ever-thickening tension building up across the coffee table.

She doesn't talk.

My nails dig into the mustard fabric of the loveseat I'm sitting on.

Still nothing.

"But you almost did?" she asks, yearning to solidify my answer.

I nodded, seeking only to avoid the guilt I would feel if the words fell from my mouth.

"Joshua, you know I'm going to have to alert the centre right? Your sobriety coach is going to wanna hear from you," she spoke slowly now as If I was fragile as if I needed protecting.

"No. you won't."

I sunk my teeth down into my bottom lip, sniffling slightly and trying to recollect the breathing exercises I had learnt a long time ago.

I couldn't get her eyes to move from mine, I couldn't distract her and so I couldn't distract myself.

In an instant, my human instincts clicked in.

The fight or flight mechanisms that had been drilled into my brain from pure nature, were spinning cogs in the back of my mind as I sat there, gathering my estranged thoughts as I scrounged around in desperation, reaching for an escape plan.

Empty.

I decided to let the instinct overtake me, settling into 'flight' as I grabbed my backpack from beside the couch, pulling one strap over the fall of my shoulder as I began for the exit.

I could hear Dr Simone yelling my name as I continued on through the glass doors, pushing back through the waiting room, trying my very hardest to compose myself as dozens of pairs of eyes settled on various points of my body, bringing a deep sense of unease against me.

I was so caught up in my thoughts at that point, that my reaction to two pairs of great hands landing on either side of me seemed to be slow to say the least.

They spoke slowly, asking me in an almost disgruntled manner if I had been discharged from my appoint, because I was labelled "high risk" and my mother had to sign me out.

Slight issue.

My mom didn't know I was there, or anywhere to be exact.

I hadn't slept, hadnt gone home, I was still in the clothes I put on for the party, my hair messy and thick bags weighing down my under eyes.

"Yeah boys, shes gone to wait out front for our car to come round." I assured them, attempting my best false confidence as I spoke.

Suddenly, I heard a clacking of stilettos, and in walked said mother, shit.

"Joshua." she nodded, looking down her nose at me over her white square sunglasses.

"I called your mother the moment you strode through these doors Joshua, you reek of alcohol." a calm yet firm voice flowed into my ears, doctor Simone stood to the side of me, shaking my moms hand as she spoke.

They hadn't ever met, Mom always said that that would be improper, and that "quacks" like doctor Simone were 'purely sad sacks who enjoyed judging and indulging in other peoples issues rather than their own.' which made this interaction both better and worse in entirely different ways.

Mom didn't utter a single other word to me, instead just taking her time looking me up and down, judging.

She never liked me, not as a person and certainly not as one stemmed from her; Lucy was far more driven, more assertive, more like her.

I took after my father in more ways than I wanted to admit, which seemed to spark some sort of hatred towards me in my mother, which spread like wildfire to both myself and my entire bloodline.

Something about my personality must have really bothered her, or more likely something about him bothered her.

He was gone now, and I seemed to be a constant reminder of him, of a person she prefers to pretend was never present in her life.

Which was actually not that far from the truth.

I craved the love and the validation that Lucy so easily garnered from our mother, to be seen, and to be cared for as casually as she was, but it was something that in my seventeen years of life i had very quickly realised was simply a dream.

Without realising it, I had left the building and strolled out into the parking lot, and was now stood in front of my moms BMW as she watched me from the drivers seat.

"I'm not goin' with you." I grunted, turned around as the rain pelted against me.

"Get in, Joshua." she yelled.

I refused, I didn't want to be stuck in a box with her, I barely wanted to breath she same air she did, I didn't want to be reminded just how much she didn't want me.

"I'm not taking you home, Joshua." she sighed, signalling with her head for me to get in.

I was confused, to say the least, but I wanted to be the thing she never could, I wanted to be the bigger person.

I had barely buckled myself in when she started the engine, drumming her hands on the steering wheel as we shot 90 down the freeway, she very obviously had something to say.

After noticing some sirens flying past us, I looked up into the rear view, catching sight of a couple of duffle bags layed up on the back seat.

As I began to talk I was cut off by her sharpened tone, a large exhale exploding from her lungs as she very matter-of-factly stated her terms.

"After your little rendezvous yesterday, I spoke to billy, and we believe it would be best for you if you stayed with Rocker and Jeannie for a while." she sniffled, though no emotion strangulated her words.

"You mean better for you." I snorted, it was accidental, but only seemed to reinforce my point a little more.

We bickered back and forth as we approached my grandparents house, pulling up past a couple other blue suburbans before approaching their marginally more run down one.

Rocker and Jeannie where my dads parents, they where pretty great, and they sure as hell didn't like my mom which worked in my favour for the most part.

I hauled my duffles out of the back seat and slung one over each shoulder, casting the other two into the grip of either fist as I edged up the driveway; before I had even gotten to the top, my mother had sped off and out of the neighbourhood.

Old wood creaked as I climbed the stairs, my eyes focusing in on the cracked paint and worn out floral designs covering every inch of the railings, courtesy to my grandmother.

Placing one of the bags down, I raised my fist to the yellow door, rapping on it and then taking a brief step back as a dog began to bark, and then footsteps approached me.

Within seconds, the door swung open, revealing a rather flustered Jeannie, who simply dropped her knitting needles to the ground as she uttered my name, disbelief advancing over her face.