Peas

Lately she'd been feeling like peas.  Not the juicy, sweet and homegrown kind.  The over-boiled, mushy and yuck kind.  The boring and bland kind.  The ones that she'd dragged through ketchup as a kid to mask that taste of green kind.  Yes, she'd been feeling like peas and, in predictable fashion, she was beginning to come up short for new costume.  

It was the time of the month.  It was the time of the month to pick fights left and right, up and down, or preferably pushing straight through bellies with her double-edged mouth sword.  It also happened to be the day of the week, the one hour at which she normally would've been seated uncomfortably, working hard to look relaxed, on one of those futons for low-budget professional people.  A floral one.  Or one with very abstract, pointy shapes.  Squiggles.  A nine year-old's comforter in the 80's.  Unisex.  The time of the month, the time in the day.  

She'd quit her therapist almost sixteen days ago.  It was a rash decision on her part, she knew that, but after doing a search for her Chinese therapist's name on Facebook, after actually finding it, after actually reading it, after actually comparing her "How black are you?" quiz results with hers only to discover the exact same score (Hood Figure), she had to end it.  So she lied and said she was feeling pretty good about life - things were going well! - and also might have to cut back on certain expenses because her rent had just gone up.  Lying just came natural.

Maybe it was her fault for wanting to know more about this woman - this woman who wore nicer clothes than she did, who preferred cash over checks, who ended each session with "So long!" as the door kind of slammed shut - but it was this woman's fault for not knowing about privacy settings.  And for sometimes staring at her without blinking. For jotting the wrong details down while she spoke.  Not her fault - her fault.

Peas.