Storm Child by MKI

Author:MKI [MKI]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-11T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DR. HURLEY

The walls always seemed to creep in on her when they thought she wasn’t looking; inch by inch, stealing the smallest pockets of her air; not enough to really notice. Not if you weren’t looking for it. Not if you weren’t paying attention.

But she was always, always paying attention.

“How are things going at Naomi’s?”

Kora flickered her eyes from the walls back to Dr. Hurley, sitting in his comfortable blue chair. His dark, silvery-grey hair had been, as always, routinely styled, but not gelled. Never gelled. The wispy mavericks that had escaped the carefully shaped, side-swept parting of his hair looked ghostly white under the lights. His smile was worn, but welcoming, always creating crinkles around his eyes. It radiated a kind of practiced warmth, accompanied by a combed, greying moustache.

His harmless demeanour made her uncomfortable, distrusting.

What made her the most uncomfortable was that she always found herself, mid-conversation, snapping out of a complacent and relaxed state of which she had somehow allowed herself to be lulled into. This always made her feel as though she had been tricked. This almost always made her look back at the walls, trying to catch them creeping in.

“Kora?” he asked again. He was always patient; never pushing, only ever guiding.

“Things are fine,” she replied dismissively, not really wanting to talk about Naomi.

Claire, Theo and Kora had all made a pact long ago not to discuss Naomi with Dr. Hurley, wherever it was possible to avoid it. They had kept her behaviour a secret for two years, now. The older two loved her, but they loved the old her. They had been worn down over time, hoping she would wake up one morning and be the old her again. All that had truly happened was that they had grown used to the new Naomi, her change in behaviour, her change in rules. Kora, however, agreed on the pact for a different reason altogether. She decided it was better to live with the devil she knew. There was no telling where she might end up if Naomi was deemed unfit as a carer, and the chance of losing Theo? No. She wouldn’t risk it.

“Have you been writing in your journal at all, since we last spoke? It’s quite alright if you haven’t. I know you don’t like to write. It’s not for everyone, is it?”

There was that crinkly smile again. The question almost sounded rhetorical, but she looked at the floor and shook her head anyway.

“That’s quite alright.” He wrote a small, quick note inside his lined notepad.

She opened her mouth but then closed it again, thinking better of it.

“What’s on your mind, Kora? This is a safe space, you have always known that.”

Her eyes flickered involuntarily towards the video camera quietly whirring away on the tall, maple bookshelf over in the far corner of the room. It made her uncomfortable, as though there was another person in the room, only that person she didn’t, and would never know.

He didn’t miss a beat. “Now, Kora.

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