Mia was smiling all the way home. She did feel sore, but that was probably just normal work stress and bad posture. Doctor Stewart had always warning her about the dangers of stress.
Maybe I should schedule another appointment
, she thought.
In any case, she was very pleased with herself. Anna would be seeing positive changes in her life before she knew it, and Mia had been so helpful in facilitating that. The afterglow was intoxicating.
She stepped out of the car and her mood sank. What laid ahead of her was not going to be nearly as fun or rewarding. Intellectually, she knew that she needed to just be the bigger person and let things slide. It was like the Doctor had been telling her -- it was so important to maintain a wall between her and her roommate. But in spite of that, she was fuming just thinking about what had happened. It was the same sold story, over and over again -- Mia did her best for Bella, and she in turn pushed the boundaries as much as she could.
Mia breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the house was just as she'd left it. She put her bags away, then stumbled over to the freezer, retrieved some lentil bolognese and put it in the microwave. Some days Mia just didn't feel like eating, but currently she was starved. She sat down on the couch and tried to relax. She wanted to say something. She needed to say something. But it was
so important
to maintain a wall between them -- the bedroom wall, she supposed, in this case.
She needed something to take her mind off all this. She fired up the TV and navigated to the home screen. Deciding between the four different streaming services was always a pain, but eventually she settled on one. The new challenge, of course, would be figuring out what to watch. Was she more in the mood for something nice and romantic, or maybe something a bit trashier? She thought for a moment.
Definitely trashy
. She settled on some kind of survivor knockoff that the algorithm had decided to bombard her with over the last few weeks. Sometimes it felt good to give in.
Although she would never admit to this publicly, reality TV was one of her guilty pleasures. Seeing everybody else being a complete disaster was a nice break from dealing with the stresses of her own life. She was struggling to focus on it, however. She kept finding herself stealing glances down the corridor, wondering if Bella would suddenly burst out of her room, or if one of her sex-friends might knock on the door wanting to see her. Some days it felt like it was almost more unusual when one of them
didn't
show up. Mia wished she could just settle on someone.
Her train of thought was disrupted by the beeping from the microwave. A few moments later, she was back on the couch, and unpaused her show. It was only a few bites before she once again found herself staring down there. She had to keep rewinding the show because she kept missing things -- the telltale sign that there was something important going on being, of course, the dramatic musical stings which usually meant somebody had said something shocking or dramatic to one of the other contestants.
Ok, ok I just need to get this out of my system
.
The wall started to shake.
She stood up and slowly walked down the corridor, checking to see if she could hear any sounds coming from Bella's room. Satisfied that she wasn't about to barge in on something disgusting, she knocked twice.
The wall started to crack.
"Bella? Are you in there?"
She didn't respond.
"Bella, I really need to talk to you about something. It's important."
She sighed, then opened the door, just a fraction.
The wall crumbled.
"Heyyyyyy," said Isabella. She was laying on the bed on one side, head propped up with her hand.
"Oh Jesus!" said Mia. "You scared me, why didn't you answer me before?"
Bella pouted. The room was a mess.
Predictable
.
"Well you've been ignoring me for so long, I thought I might return the favour."
Mia felt a sudden surge of guilt, but suppressed it. She was just following the Doctor's advice.
"I wasn't ignoring you Bella, you just keep very odd hours."
"Uh huh. Well anyway, what did you want? Have you come to tell me off for not being a total square again?"
Mia was regretting this. She should have listened to Doctor Stewart.
Doctor Stewart has our best interests in mind.
She wanted to hit herself for being so stupid.
"Mia, I need to know if, um," she said, then paused.
"Yes? Need to know what?"
"If you've been having... relations
with one of my coworkers."
Isabella's face shifted gears from "pretend hurt" to "devious smile". Mia shrank. Before Isabella had spoken, Mia already had the answer she was looking for.
"Mmm, yeah, James. He was a lot of fun." She held up her hands an extremely exaggerated distance apart. "
Huge
cock, god. Why, did he want to stop by again? I'd
love
to see him."
"Woah woah woah,
way
too much information, first of all."
"Oh god, here we go. Ok."
"
Secondly
, why the hell would you do that? You know I don't approve of your little dalliances but surely you know it could cause me problems at work if it got out..."
"If what got out? That I, an adult, had consensual sex with another adult? That sounds like none of anybody's business. And if you weren't such a sex-negative bore maybe you'd realise that."
Mia was reaching the boiling point.
"Well if you weren't such a slut maybe I wouldn't need to worry so much! It's already started a rumour that
I
was having an affair with him. Me!"
Isabella giggled, which just made Mia even angrier.
"This is serious, Bella! If you keep doing this and people keep talking, my job could be on the line. You know, the thing that pays for the roof above our heads?"
She went quiet.
"That's what I thought. Now look, I've been speaking with the Doctor, and I really am trying to be more patient with you. But I need you to agree that you're not going to bring home anyone from work again, ok?"
Isabella was a blank slate. She nodded passively.
"Sure, whatever. It won't happen again."
Mia exhaled.
"Thank you."
"Who was spreading the rumour, anyway?"
"Just some guy from work. Lives across the street apparently."
Isabella raised an eyebrow.
"No! Don't you even think about it."
"I already said I wouldn't! Cross my heart and hope to die."
* * *
Anna looked at the clock and groaned. It wasn't that she had a philosophical objection to not doing work, it was just that on the quiet days, time passed far too slowly. She opened her E-mails, scrolled up and down the list a few times, then clicked on "send-receive" twenty or thirty times.
She alt-tabbed back into the spreadsheet she kept on hand in case somebody walked past.
I'm not deliberately skiving off,
she reminded herself.
It's just a slow week!
Still, she knew that it looked bad to be seen not working, regardless of the context.
After making sure the coast was clear, she picked up her phone and decided to check through her notifications. She smiled when she saw a few more likes on the beach photos from the weekend. She opened the camera app and tried out a few different poses.
Bored? Sultry?
Eww that lighting.
She angled around for a moment but couldn't get anything she was happy with.
She was suddenly struck by an odd thought --
I should see if that psychologist guy has a website.
She had agreed to see him after all, and she hated calling people. She checked over her shoulder again to make sure nobody was about to sneak up behind her, then opened the browser on her phone.
What was the name again?
She was pleasantly surprised when the whole thing popped into her head.
Doctor Nicholas J. Stewart
. She still wasn't totally sure about this whole thing, but what could one session hurt? Hell, enough of these and she'd basically be set for her next pay increment without having to go to any workshops or seminars. Skipping out on work hours for a chat sounded pretty great. She could just yak about any old bullshit and he'd sit there nodding and taking notes or something.
The Doctor's web-presence wasn't hard to find, although it was just a really basic page hosted on social media. Opening hours, phone contact and all that. Nothing but five star reviews. She went hunting for a moment and was rewarded with the "contact on messenger" button.
Bingo
.
"Hi, I was told to get in touch about some counselling sessions. Mia said she'd set up some kind of agreement for me. Do you happen to know anything about that?"
A minute later, she got a response.
"Hi Anna, this is Doctor Stewart speaking," the message read. She suddenly felt more relaxed. She patiently waited until the
Doctor Nicholas J. Stewart is typing
message was replaced with the followup.
"Yes, Mia spoke to me yesterday about you. My understanding is the business will be taking care of all payments, so really it's just a matter of availability. What time would suit you?"
She flicked through her mental calendar for a moment. Most days other than Mondays were probably suitable, as long as there were no team meetings. She picked a day at random.
"Would Tuesday next week be ok? I'm pretty flexible as to the hour."
"Tuesday's full up, I'm afraid," he replied. "What about something sooner? I've just had a cancellation, would today be too short notice?"
She paused. She hadn't been expecting to go to one of these so soon, but she couldn't really think of a good reason not to, considering how light her workload was.
"Sure, I could do today."
The Doctor reacted to her post -- a thumbs-up. She always thought the sound effect for reactions was a little strange -- a tiny little popping sound that seemed to have been chosen almost at random. But as it played then, she felt good.
Really
