Alighieri Wellness Center, Limbo City, Friday Afternoon

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"So, did you do the assignment?" Dr. Alighieri asked, leaning back in her chair. "The one with the houses?"

Kathy nodded, pulling her folder full out printouts. "I didn't understand it," she admitted with a small laugh, "but I did it." She laid out several sheets of paper, all of them showing different houses she'd built on Dr. A.'s weird little simulator game. "Honestly, it felt like I was playing one of those Design A House Facebook games."

Dr. A. nodded. "My son coded it and he used those for inspiration. It's supposed to be fun, among other things."

"Okay," Kathy said, "but, umm, could you still explain it?"

This time, Dr. A. laughed, hard enough to make her deadlocks shake. "So eager to understand and get it right," she said, fondly. "Well, let's see if you can figure it out. What were we talking about when I suggested this?"

"How much I dislike...pretty much all versions of me," Kathy said, a little shamefaced. Her hand reached for Ronin's fur, burying itself in his ruff. "The version of me in high school, the one that came back after LA...even now, after, like, a year of work, I'm still not very...great."

"Right," Dr. A. said, her dark eyes full of compassion. "Now, let's look at these houses you designed. Show me the first one."

Kathy sorted through until she found the one she liked the most. Dr. A. had told her to build the house of her dreams. "This one took me about forty-five minutes," she said. "Was that too long? I know you told me to take as much time as I wanted..."

"And I meant that," Dr. A. told her. "So long as you were willing to put the time in, it wasn't too long. And I like it. Very neat and homey. Lots of bright colors. This is a very open, welcoming house." Kathy beamed at the praise. "And now the second one?"

That one had been trickier. After she'd made her dream house, she'd been told she had to design another one as much to her specifications as possible, only this time, most of the choices she'd used for her first dream house weren't available. She'd had to design the second one with whatever was left and it was a lot harder. "This one took me over an hour," she said. "It was frustrating, knowing what I wanted and then not being able to find it."

Dr. A. nodded again. "How do you think it would have looked if I'd told you that you had to decorate it in the same amount of time you decorated the first one."

"Not as finished or as good," Kathy said, frankly. "I had to work a lot harder to find things I liked..." She trailed off, a lightbulb starting to flicker in her brain.

Always professional, Dr. Alighieri hid a smile. "And the last one?"

Kathy frowned, and pushed over the last picture, which was practically a disaster compared to the neat, carefully curated pictures before. In that one, she'd only had three minutes to design a house, making sure that everything a family might need for survival was in there. There were barely any of the warm touches that she'd added to the first two, focusing only on the basics and necessities. And most of it was furniture and things she didn't like, just because she didn't have time to look for anything better. Worst of all? It had started playing some really loud music, making it hard to concentrate. "Hard," she said. "Really hard. I was focusing on it being functional in a short time, not being pretty."

"You did it exactly right," Dr. A. said, figuring Kathy could use the approval. "Now then, pretending that you did the fourth one, the one where you had to build the house with other people's choice of materials but in the same amount of time as your first, how would you place them in order of how much you liked them?"

"Well, first comes my choices," Kathy said slowly, putting that picture on the top. "Then the one where I had as much time as I wanted, but not my choices. Then probably the one where I still didn't have any choices, but limited time. And then the last one would be the one where I only had a few minutes and a lot of distractions."

"Last question," Dr. A. said, reaching over to take Kathy's free hand. "What was the lesson about?"

Kathy licked her lips and looked down at her pictures. "Umm...assuming these houses are different versions of me..." She glanced up and Dr. A nodded, encouragingly at her. "The me I like best is the one where I get to make all my own choices, over a long time. I could get to like me if I had someone else's choices determining things, but moreso if I have a long time? Not so much if it's limited. And when things are fast and scary and crazy, I don't like me at all?"

"Brilliant," Dr. A. said and watched Kathy bloom. "The girl you were in high school? She was built to your parents' choices and specifications. Eighteen years may seem like a lot, but they're really not. Your adolescence is when you're just learning about who you are and what you like. You didn't explore that as much, because your parents' imprint was so deep. That you was your third house. If you'd lived, you probably would have gotten up to the second house, because you would have had more time to shift things about and rearrange them, but at that point, you were dealing with other people's choices and a very short amount of time."

Kathy dropped her eyes to the fourth picture. "Then I died..." she murmured.

"But then you died," Dr. A. agreed. "And you came back and you had to quickly put yourself back together. You had a lot of trauma and a lot of hurt and not a lot of help. Some," she added quickly, seeing Kathy about to protest, "but not a lot. Not as much as you needed. So you shoved everything together that you could in an attempt to get something that was 'good enough'. And it was, for then...but now it's been some time. And what was good enough then isn't good enough for now."

Kathy looked at the top two pictures, the one that was okay, even if it was made with someone else's choices, and the one that was hers. The okay one was more muted, missing the bright colors of her own, a little colder. More showy and expensive items were there, but less comforting and whimsical touches.

Okay yeah. That was a pretty good metaphor for the daughter her parents had wanted and the woman she was on the inside. "But now..."

"Now you have time," Dr. A. said. "You can make your own choices. You're not at the mercy of an emergency and you have no one telling you that this is who you have to be. Not me, not your adopted father, not your boyfriends, not your friends or even the people you wish were your friends." Her dark fingers pushed the top picture over to Kathy. "Figure out who you want to be. Throw out the things you don't like any more. Fill up the house in your soul with things that make you happy, with things that will help you be the person you want to be. I think you're a very smart, kind, and empathic young woman. I like you a great deal, Kathy. It's time you start taking steps to like yourself." Her smile grew. "Just remember. It's going to take time. So don't get impatient, because you're worth the time to get it right."

Ten minutes later, Kathy left her therapist's office with a single piece of paper in her hands. Instead of going straight home, she stopped first at a frame shop, to get the picture of her dream house matted and framed so she could hang it on her wall at home, directly across from her bed.

A nice reminder to wake up to.

[Mostly establishy, but open!]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante tried not to get in Kathy's way on therapy days; sometimes they were pretty rough on her, and she didn't always need him butting in or whatever.

What he was doing was hanging out in the living room, testing out her sofa. Sure, it'd been fine in her apartment, but maybe it had gotten less comfortable during the move?

... not so much, going by the way he was sprawled all over it.

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Kathy was later than normal coming home, even factoring in the occasional 'stress-walking' time. But when she arrived, she seemed okay, humming a bit as she traded her shoes for house slippers, Ronin a silent ghost by her side. Ronin seemed pretty relaxed, too, ears low and tail high, maybe a bit tired by the way the flopped on the floor when they got in, but not sticking to her side the way he did when she was distressed.

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"Hey there," Dante called, waving casually at her from the couch.

No, he wasn't getting up. This was Kathy-for-Kathy-time.

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"Are you colonizing my couch?" Kathy asked, swapping a large package to her other hip as she removed her coat. "Ronin, look at him colonizing my couch."

Ronin lifted up his head, whuffed, and then laid back down.

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"I was testing it out," Dante said, shutting his eyes. "See if it's up to snuff."

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"Mmm, yes," Kathy said, nodding. "It could have been leaking comfort in the move somehow."

She wanted to head upstairs and hang up her picture, but that could wait a few minutes. At least until she'd bent over and kissed Dante hello.

...Even if he was colonizing her couch.

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Dante didn't open his eyes, but he did reach up to cup the back of her head as he kissed her back, firm and pleased. "How was it?"

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"Good," Kathy said, sounding sure. Sometimes her 'good' came with a distinct question mark at the end and a fair bit of uncertainty. "Figured out what the houses were for and came home with some new art. Ish."

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"Wanna tell me about it?" Dante asked, smiling up at her.

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"I dunno," Kathy teased. "You gonna make room for me on my couch?"

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"Ugh, if you don't want to go in my lap, fine," Dante fake-whined, swinging his legs over so he was sitting.

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Kathy sat down next to him, then tried to tug him down so his head was resting in her lap. "Not when I can get you into mine, instead," she said, dimples deep grooves in her cheeks.

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"You do always like seeing me go down," Dante said, sliding his feet back onto the sofa.

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"Cause you're so pretty when you do," Kathy told him, bending down to steal another kiss.

...She'd forgotten his question, oops. Stupid distracting boyfriend.

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Dante laughed softly. "I try," he said.

He looked up at her with thoughtful blue eyes. "So... this afternoon?"

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Sometimes, Kathy really wanted to see what Dante would look like with glasses. She was pretty sure he'd get them on for all of five seconds before she was yanking them off again to make out with his face.

Sigh. #JustNephilimBoyfriendProblems

"Hmm? Oh yeah, right. So she had me design three different houses with this housing design app..." She explained the different rules that went into making each house and the time limit on each. "Then she explained that each house was, like, a different version of me."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Okay," Dante said slowly. "So... what does that mean?"

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"I have a real problem with, umm, liking who I am," Kathy said, eyes lowering down to some point on his chin, where she didn't need to make eye contact. "So she had me do this to kinda show, I guess, how the deck's kinda been stacked against me? Like, in high school, that Kathy was still kinda under her parents' thumb a lot. Banzai and boys aside, I was doing what was expected, what they wanted, walking the path that they told me to. Then I came back and I kinda had to rebuild who I was, but I had to do it fast. I was drowning and just kinda grabbing onto anything that would keep me afloat. So both times, I was kinda working a shitty template?"

Wait. Too much information at once. Definitely over her word limit.

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"I hadn't noticed," Dante teased gently. His fingers found her face, tracing over her cheekbone. "But yeah, that makes sense... what was the third?"

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"The third was the house I got to design myself. I was able to take as long as I needed and got to put in things that I liked," Kathy said. "And that was the prettiest house of all. And Dr. A. says I should try to be that house - take my time and decide who I want to be. Not who I think other people want me to be, but who I wanna be."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante made a fond noise. "Sounds like good advice," he said. "Better late than never."

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"I'm also not allowed to declare a major yet," Kathy said ruefully. "And I have to take one completely frivolous class a semester, bonus if it's one that I would never otherwise take because of what other people might think." She sighed. "And, as a suggestion, I should also get a bunch of random side jobs that I only keep for a couple of months at the most. Unless I fall in love with it."

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Dante laughed. "Oh, so you gotta be a real twentysomething," he said. "How terrible."

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"It's literally the worst thing that's ever befallen me," deadpanned the girl who used to snack on brains. "So now you get to help me look for a bunch of little part-time jobs. For therapy."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I bet you'd be a hot bartender," Dante mused.

Not just because she had access to booze!

... Probably.