ANOTHER SESSION

     Faith walked into the doctor's office that morning and flopped down on the seat, she was ready to be drilled by the doctor for that day, she was tired of trying to prove she was okay. Dr Adriana walked in with a smile, wiping her hands on a towel. She wasn't in her usual boring white lab coat. She had a cream mink coat and leather pants on. She could hardly pass for a teenager. 

      "Faith, it's quite surprising to see you again." 

      "Are you going to be surprised each time I come here?" 

   Adriana sat down.  "I think so because this is the last place you want to be." 

       "As right as you are, I don't have a choice, do I?" 

    The doctor shrugged and sought her file. Faith watched her quietly. She took out the file after a few seconds and smiled at Faith. 

       "Shall we begin?" 

        "Sure." 

       "So, Faith, tell me a bit about your history." 

       "Oh, well, I started as an intern..." 

       "No, I mean your family history," Dr Adriana cut her off. 

       "What?" 

       "Tell me about your parents and your elder brother," the doctor said staring her in the eyes.

   Faith's heart skipped a bit. "We have been through this before. I told you my mom left the house and my dad is dead. My brother is in Spain." 

      "How close are you to your brother?" 

       "Quite close." 

       "How close is quite close?" 

       "What?" 

      "Were you close as kids? How often do you communicate now?" 

       "It's hard to remember." Faith swallowed hard. 

      "Hard to remember if you were close as kids or how often you communicate now?" 

       "Both. He left the house before I could ascertain if we were close or not." 

       "How old did you say you were when your brother left?" 

      "Fifteen." 

      "At fifteen, you could remember anything. Do you have other living relatives?" 

       Faith shook her head.  "None that I can remember." 

     "No cousins, aunties, uncles?" 

      "My dad's elder brother died when I was younger." 

     "On your mom's side?" 

      Faith stared at her without blinking for a while.  "No." 

     "No?" Dr Adriana asked somewhat surprised. 

     "I never met anyone from my mom's side." 

      "I see." Dr Adriana wrote down in her note: patient nervous, kicking foot. 

      When Faith was in the cab taking her back to her office, she thought about the question the doctor asked her and was surprised that she hadn't known anyone from her mother's side, she hadn't met anyone from there and she just realised today. Would Joshua know? She sighed, placed her head on the window and folded her arms across her chest. 

      Even if he knew, how was she going to ask him? She sighed again and looked at the rare view mirror in time to catch the driver watching her. He quickly removed his eyes when she looked, she scowled and scoffed and looked out of the window again. For the first time in many years, she wondered if her mom was alive or dead. She pushed away the thoughts from her head. 

      She shouldn't be thinking about the woman that abandoned her to the mercy of that monster. Her father was a monster and she didn't even want to think of him. She tried not to think about her family until they got to her office building. She alighted, gave the driver his bill and left the change for him. 

      Later that evening, when she was done seeing her last client, she relaxed back in her chair and thought: what if her clients find out that she was seeing a psychiatrist? Their therapist, seeing a psychiatrist? She was sure they were going to be more than surprised and most of them would conclude that she has gone mad. 

      She started laughing at that thought, she laughed so hard that she didn't know when her assistant came in. She stood there for a while and watched Faith. 

      "Faith, are you alright?" 

    Faith's eyes flared open and she glared at her assistant. Why was she laughing so hard? 

      "Everything is fine, my dear," Faith answered with a smile. 

      "Alright, I want to know if you want me to do anything else for you." 

       "Why?" 

     Her assistant's face fell.  "I got into an argument with my guy last three nights and although I'm not at fault but I want to go see him before it gets late." 

       "If he is at fault, then why are you going to apologize?" 

        "Because we can't let pride come into our relationship. If we allow pride to settle in, things might go wrong." 

       "That's right..." 

       "He has always been the one apologising, so I want to make it different this time." 

       "That's a good idea, go for it then." 

        "Thank you so much, Faith! See you tomorrow?"

         "What's my schedule?" 

          "You don't have much on the list," the assistant said and flipped the pages of her pad.  "It's just a 1:00 and a 4:00."

        "Alright then." 

     Once her assistant left, Faith appeared thoughtful. She and Noah had issues two nights ago too, she had decided to see him and talk things out, but she had already resolved within herself that it was going to cause more harm than good, so she had decided to wait for Noah to come to his senses and call her back. But with what her assistant just said, she was going to apologise to him first. It won't make her any less who she was right? 

      She took out her phone to text him but resolved to surprise him instead. She stood up from her chair, took her coat and her purse and looked around to know if she was forgetting anything. Since she wasn't heading home straight, she didn't carry her laptop. She locked up the office since her assistant has left and went down the elevator. 

     It was drizzling when she went down and she had no umbrella, she had to cover her hair with her coat and waited for a cab to pull up before she get soaked. Luckily, a cab came and she called Noah's address and hopped in. When she was in the car she thought of getting him an apology gift, maybe a cookie. She asked the cabman to drop by any store and she picked some chocolate cookies. Noah has been a fan of chocolate. 

      The cab pulled up in front of his house and she got out. She was cold from the rain that touched her and she pulled off her coat again to cover herself, despite the cold that was biting her skin. She was going to get warmer if she enters Noah's house, so she was going to endure that cold. She got out of the car, paid the cabman and thanked him. 

    Then she ran to Noah's porch and caught her breath before she decided to ring the bell. She looked in from the glass door, there was no one in the living room. She realised she had made a grave mistake, what if he was not yet back from work? She saw his car parked on his driveway. She rang the doorbell again. 

      "Hold on!" a woman's voice called from the stairs. 

     Faith's heart sank low into her abdomen and she watched as the woman came down the stairs in a maroon night robe. She was too stunned to move. The woman came closer and she recognised her. It was Belle, the woman Noah had introduced at that dinner party. 

       A panic sigh left her throat. It seems Belle recognized her too because she was scowling as she came to the door. She opened it and came face to face with Faith. She raised an eyebrow. 

       "Yes? Can I help you? What do you want?" 

      Faith was dumbstruck and her hands began to shake as tears welled up in her eyes. Belle smiled wickedly. 

       "What? You thought you could work your way back into his life?" 

      Faith opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Noah came down the stairs. 

        "Babe, who is at the door?!" he called. 

  Belle left the door and it slowly closed in Faith's face.  "Your whore!" she replied and started going inside. 

     Noah paused at the centre of the room when he saw Faith, a surprised look on his face. Faith stood there like a fool, her coat draped on her head, she was shivering like a leaf in winter. Belle stood at the foot of the stairs, arms folded, staring at Noah. 

        Noah looked back at Belle and mumbled something Faith couldn't hear. 

       "Oh, really?!" Belle said aloud. 

     Faith couldn't stand there anymore watching the both of them. She dropped the box of cookies she was holding and turned to leave but not without hearing their argument. 

      "I thought you said you were done with her?!" Faith heard Belle yell. 

      "I was, I was... I don't know why she came back." 

       "Who gave her your home address then? You must take me for a fool." 

       "She stalks! She must have stalked me." 

  On hearing that, Faith kicked off her shoes, took them in her hands and started running. 

             She stalks! She stalks! 

    That kept ringing in her head as she ran, the drizzling rain hitting her face and mixing with her tears, the cold gnashing at her flesh. She got tired of running and stopped to catch her breath in his driveway. She crashed down on  the floor, not minding the rain, nor the cold that bit at her skin. She took out her phone, covered it with her purse and dialled Nora's number.