The crowds of people she found surrounding her seemed to be moving slowly. With people crying and screaming out in pain and the sound of the ambulance as it reached her. They wrapped her in a towel and questioned her, although she didn’t seem to understand what they were saying all too much. All she could focus on was the blood dripping down her hands and onto her gown. She stared down at the floor as her mom ran to her grabbing her face and sobbing “Oh my god honey, I didn’t know what happened. You didn’t answer my calls or any of my texts. When I got the call that there had been an accident, I-.” Her voice broke as the tears burned their way into her eyes. She grabbed her daughter’s head and pulled her in. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home.” She wrapped her arms around her, and she smiled, but her daughter did not, as she opened the door and let her daughter inside, she turned to her. “Reice, what happened?” She said nothing. She turned to the window and looked at the ambulance pulling people in the car and questioning others and then she looked back down at her hands still covered in blood. “I-” she started tearing up “He- If I’d known what he’d do, then I never would have done it.” 

Reice woke up early to her mom making food in the kitchen the next day, “Hey Mom?” Her mom turned around and smiled trying to seem normal “H-Hey sweetie how are you, how’d you sleep?” Her daughter responded in short responses “Fine, I guess.” Her mom put hers and Reice’s plates down and spoke calmly, “So Reice, I know that what happened to you was hard , and I know you don’t feel comfortable coming to me about it so I scheduled a meeting with your old counselor again.” 

Her mom saw the terror in her daughter’s eyes. “What!?!” but her mom just raised her hands in a way to quiet down her daughter. “Look Reice it’s already been decided you have a scheduled meeting with her today, later on.” Reice looked at her and tearfully and shook her head. “Mom, I’m fine.” Her mom turned around and looked at her with a slight amount of anger in her voice but tears that burned in her eyes from the sadness deep inside her. “Reice I found you yesterday with blood dripping down your hands and on your dress and cuts all over you! You are not fine. You’re going to your counselor.” Reice teared up but put her head down in recognition, she knew her mom was right but nonetheless she still didn’t want to go, it had been almost a year since she last went to a counselor of any sort, and it ached her to know that she’d have to go again. “So Reice it’s been quite a while since I last saw you, how have you been?” Reice sat up avoiding eye contact “Well I’m here so clearly not great” 

Her response was more aggressive than she wanted it to be, but still sat silent. “Okay Well Reice, why don’t you tell me what has happened since our last check up?” Reice sighed and sat up a little bit straighter. “Okay,” It’d been quite a while since she last saw her counselor so she sat down for a minute trying to remember. “I think it was after you left my office for the last time, you ran into another one of my patients, correct?” Reice shot her head up in surprise “Y-yeah that is what happened how did you know?” Her counselor smiled, “Oh he came in here not long after you two met and told me about it.” Reice smiled “Yeah that sounds like Xavier” Her counselor turned to face her a bit and spoke calmly. “Were you two close? He stopped coming to counseling around the same time you did.” She smiled “Yeah we were” Reice noticed the counselor waiting for her to tell her about what had happened so she took a deep breath and did.

“It was around 8 months ago” She started “I think I met him because when I was leaving the building he came running in but bumped into me. He apologized and then offered to take me to get something to eat as an apology, I told him no but he insisted” Her counselor smiled “Hm it’s funny he told me you asked him to get ice cream and then told him how Incredible he looked.” she smiled a bit and then shook her head “I would never” She said almost sarcastically. “Okay so then what happened Mrs Reice?” Her counselor asked calmly.

8 Months ago: “Well You know what Mrs Reice I have to say as much as I know you’re going to miss me I think that you are doing so much better than from when you first came in here, how about you, how do you feel?” Reice smiled happily “I feel a lot better and I think that if it’s okay with you, Well I was wondering if you’d think I was ready to maybe stop needing counseling?” She smiled “I honestly think you’re there miss Reice.” Reice smiled a bit and then gave her counselor a hug “Thank you so much” Her Counselor smiled and nodded “Alright alright now get out of here” She said wiping her tears away. Reice smiled and left the counseling office, but while leaving she ran into a strange tall guy with brown hair and hazel-green eyes. He looked at her and gave a half smile. “Hey sorry about that.” He looked at her and smiled a bit as he walked up to her and spoke softly “I think that you bumped into me on purpose.” She looked at him hearing the sarcasm in his voice “Oh yeah definitely I just purposely ran into you right now.” He let out a little smirk “Yeah well I mean I’m not surprised looking this good I’d bump into me too.” Reice chuckled at his confidence and rolled her eyes “Yeah okay” He smiled a bit and then backed up “I’m Xavier” she smiled. “I’m Reice.” He smiled at her and then nodded his head “Well Reice I guess I’ll see you around.” She watched as he walked inside the room and waited for her mom to come around the corner and get her. And once she did she told her the news “So mom guess what?” She waited for a moment then excitedly squealed “My therapist doesn’t think I need to go anymore!” Her mom looked at her with a thrilled and excited look of relief on her face. “Oh that’s amazing honey.” The rest of the day they spent celebrating, laughing and enjoying the time fly by. “Oh by the way mom I was going to hang out with someone later if that’s okay?”