EDITED

I groaned when I woke up, remembering what happened yesterday. How could I break down like that? Now that they knew I was vulnerable they were going to stop being so nice. I just know it! My only hope was to act like nothing had happened.

I threw on some clothes, slapped on my eye shadow and headed down stairs for some food. I slipped into the kitchen to see Thomas making himself coffee when he saw me he gave me a huge grin.

"Good morning Virgil!" He greeted "how are you?"

I shrugged and opened the cabinet to find some cereal "why are you acting so weird?" Thomas was a pretty cheerful guy but he could be really.... Touchy in the morning when he hadn't had his coffee yet.

"I'm not acting weird!" He said, still smiling. I gave him a look before moving to the table with my cereal. "Anyways," Thomas said, grabbing his coffee and sitting down across from me "I wanted to talk to you about last night."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Really?" Thomas turned serious "because you burst into tears last night."

"I'm fine" I muttered, I could tell Thomas was hesitating to tell me something. "Look, whatever it is just tell me."

The man took a deep breath "okay well, I signed you up for therapy last night."

My head shot up "what?!"

He winced "look, I think it would be good for you to talk to someone."

"No way man! I don't need some shrink trying to pick my brain apart."

"Well." Thomas gave me a look "you're going."

I stood up, breakfast abandoned "well, you can't make me!" My heart rate increased at the thought of seeing a therapist, even more so than denying my guardian.

Thomas looked up at me calmly "actually I can. And I'm sorry if you don't want to but you're going. It's already been paid for. It's one session, if it doesn't work then you don't have to go back. But you do have to go to this session."

"Fine."

"Great!" Thomas said "we leave in an hour." I just huffed and back stormed upstairs.

------

I glared at Thomas from my place on the couch in the therapist's office, the man rubbed his eyes and sighed. I won't go into detail but it was a struggle to get me here.

"Look. I know that you don't want to be here but will you please give it a chance?" He asked, practically begging at this point. I just glared at him silently with my arms crossed. "Fine," He sighed "well, I'm going to go. I'll be back in a hour."

Thomas left and I glared at the wall, in any other situation I would make a run for it but I had a feeling that Thomas was going to sit in the waiting room just to make sure I didn't. I sighed and looked around the office, which was decorated with toys and posters of Disney and Cartoon characters. Great, he was a children's therapist. Not only was I going to have my brain picked, I was also going to be downgraded like I was a five year old.

I jumped when a voice said "it's the moment you've been waiting for!"

My head snapped towards the door as I could see someone's arm and.... Were they singing a theme song? I didn't recognize it but it sounded like a theme song. Finishing his 'intro' the man walked over and plopped down in his chair. The man had dark(ish) pink hair and glasses. He wore a light blue sweater vest with a long sleeved, pastel, collard, yellow shirt with a light pink tie.

"Hello," he said, "do you how do?"

"What?"

"Ah well my name is Dr. Picani, and you are?"

"....Virgil... but shouldn't you know? Cause of paperwork and all that?"

"Yes, but it helps a patient feel more comfortable when they introduce themselves." I groaned, great it's been five seconds and he's already trying to shrink me. "Is everything alright?"

"No." I declare "I'm not doing this."

"I'm sorry?"

"Look man, no offence to you or whatever but I didn't choose to come here. The only reason I am is that Thomas thinks that just because I had a little breakdown last night I'm all of the sudden 'mentaly unstable' or whatever." I said, using air quotes around the words 'mentaly unstable.'

"Well, alright." Dr. Picani said "if that's how you feel. But if you don't mind me asking. Who's Thomas?"

I sighed, already annoyed "Thomas is my foster dad."

"Oh, so you're a foster kid?"

"Yeah," I raised an eyebrow "you got a problem with that?"

"Not at all. Now before we start I should ask if you have ever been to therapy before?"

I sighed again "let me guess, you are not going to just let me sit here until this is over."

"No, I'm afraid not." Dr Picani smiled at me.

"Fine, I'll answer your questions if you answer one of mine."

"Of course!" He said "go right ahead."

"If I share stuff with you are you going to tell Thomas what I said?" I figured that I might as well get this over with. Especially if the guy wasn't going to leave me be. But if he was going to tell Thomas what I say... then I would much rather keep quiet.

"No, not without your consent." He said "but if you are hurting yourself or others then I will but if you aren't then everything said here will be kept private."

"Fine, I've only been to therapy once. About a year ago when my dad went to jail."

"Really? And how was that?"

"Which one? The therapy or the dad thing?" I asked.

"Therapy" He clarified.

"It sucked." I said "she didn't do anything besides tell me that I'm a screw up, which I already knew."

Picani frowned and wrote something down. "Now, why was your dad arrested?"

I let out a dark chuckle "let's see... child abuse, neglatance of a child, edangerment of a child... I think there's a few more in there that I don't know about."

"I see... now you don't have to answer this but I'm guessing you were the one he was abusing?"

I shrugged and looked down "mostly me yeah I mean, I get why." I pulled the hood of my jacket up and said, "I deserved it."

"Now hold on, why do you think that?"

"Cause I'm a no good, useless, rotten screw up who will never find love and everyone hates."

"Hmmm you remind me of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender."

His words broke me out of my spiralling thoughts and I looked up at him "who and what now?"

"Prince Zuko from the show Avatar: The Last Airbender."

"What's that?" I asked.

"It is a show about a world that is divided into four nations. The Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation and the Air Nomads. Each of them are represented by an element for which the nation is named." Picani explained. "Benders have the ability to control and manipulate the element from their nation."

"Only the Avatar can master of all four elements. The Fire Nation wants to conquer the world but the only bender who has enough power to defeat them, the Avatar, has disappeared. Later in the show two siblings, Katara and Sokka, find the Avatar who is a young airbender named Aang. Aang must now master all four elements in order to stop the war and bring peace to the world."

"I see... and who's this Zuko guy?"

"Zuko is one of the main antagonists for a good portion of the show. His sole mission, right from episode one, being to capture Avatar for the sake of the Fire Nation." The therapist chuckled "and he is always grumpy."

"Wow, I'm feeling so good about myself at this comparison right now" I said sarcastically.

"Just hang on a Momo, over the episodes, it becomes clear that Zuko is after the Avatar for more than just the sake of the Fire Nation." He explains "there are moments where Zuko withholds information from and even sabotages the efforts of other members of the Fire Nation. All so he can be the one to hand the Avatar over to his father, Fire Lord Ozai, and regain his honor."

"Regain his honor?"

"Yeah he 'lost it' after speaking out of turn in a meeting. Stating that sacrificing a whole Fire Nation troop as a simple distraction in a battle plan was not a good idea. What an offence, amiright?" He said with a touch of sarcasm "his father punished him by facing him off in combat, burning and permanently scaring his face, and banishing him from the kingdom until he could return home with the Avatar."

"That uh... sounds like a bad dad."

"That sounds like an understatement."

"I've never seen the show man, give me a break." I muttered, my hood falling off. "Look, I don't understand why you're comparing me to this guy. I mean, yeah my dad hurt me but he never left any scars."

"While that may be true one thing Zuko struggled with is wanting to make his father proud." Dr Picani said.

I glared at him "and you think I'm the same. No effing way man, I couldn't care less about what he thinks!"

"Okay, okay. I apologize, I didn't mean to offend you." He said "so you don't care too much for your father. But what about the rest of your family?"

I sighed "well there was also my mom and older brother. Mom.... died several years ago, I don't like to talk about it, and Janus.... It's complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"When we were young Janus and I were pretty close but after mom died and dad started drinking and stuff he started bullying me at school. Dad loved it." I said the last part under my breath but I knew the doctor heard me say it.

"Well if that's the case then you're much more like Zuko than I thought!"

I looked up at him "What? How?"

"Like you Zuko had a sibling who tended to bully him. His younger sister, Azula, she was constantly being praised by their father for her talents while Zuko was pushed aside." Dr Picani said "tell me, how did your mother treat you?"

"Um... it's been a while since.. You know.. But she was amazing." I let a small smile fall unto my lips "sometimes it feels like she was the only one who actually cared about me. And now, no one does."

"Well, I'm sure that is not true. After all, your foster father brought you here. Don't you think that's a sign that he cares for you?"

I hesitated, a month ago I would have said no. That Thomas was just trying to make himself look good by taking in some helpless foster kid. But... I have had foster parents who were like that, even if they were trying to make themselves look good they would still give me up around the three week to one month mark. "I don't know." I admitted, looking down in shame and a little bit of panic. If Thomas wasn't using me for some kind of personal gain, then why did he take me in?

"Now, I know that you said you don't care about what your father thinks." Dr Picani said "but do you think that you still judge yourself based on what he thinks of you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you mentioned earlier that you thought yourself to be a screw up. Is that something that your father ever said to you?"

As I thought it over I realized it was true and I nodded "among other things."

Dr Picani wrote something down and began to talk about this Zuko character again "one of the main issues Zuko had trouble with was that he believed his father that he was the only one that could give Zuko his honor back." He said

"And that gave him a lot of problems with his self worth. But if he had realized sooner that worth didn't stem on what his father thought of him. If only he learned to trust the words of his mother who he lost when he was a child or the words of his loving uncle, who was always there for him. Then maybe it would have saved him a lot of internal struggle."

"Did he ever get better?" I asked. Despite not wanting to come, here this man compared me to a fictional character that was in a similar situation to me... helped.

"Yes. He did." Picani said "but he didn't get there alone, it was through the efforts of his uncle that he was truly able to start a new path for himself."

"But I don't have anyone like that." I said.

"What about your foster dad, Thomas? From what it sounds like he's truly trying to help you in whatever way he can."

"I don't know... It's... hard to trust people. Especially adults" I explained.

"Well, is there anyone else you can think of that you can go too?" Picani asked.

"Well, I mean, there's my foster brother, Patton." I said "I don't really trust him a whole lot yet... but I guess I can try."

"That's great! Finding people you can rely on is always a good thing."

-----

After the session finished I walked out to the waiting room where Thomas was sitting on his phone. When he entered he looked up and stood as I walked over to him.

"How was it?" He asked.

"It was nice..." I looked down "thanks."

I didn't need to look at him to tell that Thomas was smiling "you're welcome." He hesitated "if you want I can sign you up for another session."

I paused, an hour ago I would have said no... but Thomas was right. It had been nice to talk to someone. Even if he were a little strange.

I looked at Thomas. "Okay." 

-----

A/N: Wow, this is a long one! Probably the longest chapter in the story so far! It's over two-thousand words. But there was a lot of content to fit in and I didn't want to make this chapter a two parter. 

I know that I just posted here pretty recently but I was looking at my outline for this story and realized that if I want to finish before the end of the year I'm going to have to buckle down and post more. So yeah, the plan is to finish by the end of the year but I don't know if I'll succeed at that goal lol.

Anyways, what are your thoughts on the chapter? Did you like Emile's camo? Also, the chapter title is a line from 'Recipe For Me' By Thomas Sanders. 

Have a great day and stay safe. 

Take it easy Guys, Gals, and Non-Binary Pals. PEACE OUT!

-Isabel