Three Months Later

"How does one even define 'fun'?" Ash questioned as she looked up at the stark white ceiling of her therapist's office. "Fun at its core is personal. It's different for each person. I'm certain that things you would define as 'fun' are very different from things that I would define as 'fun'. But then we are back to our original question: what do I like to do for fun? We're going in circles."

She glanced at her therapist and found her staring straight back at her with a patient look. Ash was familiar with this look. It was the one Dr. Ellerson gave her whenever Ash was monologuing in order to avoid the real issue. It could be infuriating how competent her therapist was.

It had been three months since Ash had started therapy and she was still learning how to be completely honest.

For the first month of therapy, she had thought she had been making huge strides in dealing with her issues as she had recounted her whole past to Dr. Ellerson. She had thought that the simple act of telling someone everything would fix her.

Then they had entered the second month and Ash had discovered that telling her story had been the easy part. Dr. Ellerson wanted her to dig deeper into the residual emotions under the story and that was when Ash's coping mechanism of monologuing to avoid the issue had been brought into the spotlight.

Logically, her brain knew, and told her often, that she had a mountain of issues she needed help dealing with. But she had discovered the actual act of being honest and addressing the feelings behind it ran on a different track in her brain.

She would reason with herself in the days leading up to her weekly therapy appointment and arrive fully intending to open her mouth and let the truth spill out, but there was a rut in her brain that made it difficult to get the words out. Instead, she would focus on a word's meaning to avoid going deeper until she ran out of steam, and then Dr. Ellerson would ask the question again.

"What do you do for fun?" Dr. Ellerson asked her again.    

Ash let out a long breath as she stared back at the ceiling. She thought through all the things she did throughout her week. It didn't take her long to confirm what she had already suspected.

"I don't think I do anything for fun."

She went back further in her memory, wondering if she had any memories of having fun. But when she thought back to when she was still living with her dad she could only remember the fear and the basic human instinct to survive.

She thought about her early school days but she had been more concerned about avoiding the teacher's questions and her classmates' taunts. She had worked to be invisible.

It was the same once she had started working. Her only goal at her jobs was to keep the job to earn money in order to get away from her father.

A strange emotion began to rise up in her chest as she searched for past fun and came up empty-handed. It was a mixture of loss and sadness. It was uncomfortable and she didn't like it. She sat up.

"Who says you need to have fun anyways?" she said. "There are more important things in life to focus on."

Dr. Ellerson clasped her hands together and rested them on the desk. Ash caught the movement and her shoulders dropped. In the last three months, she had learned Dr. Ellerson's physical tells and the 'clasped hands' had become one she disliked.

The 'clasped hands' signaled that Dr. Ellerson knew that Ash was avoiding deeper emotions but Dr. Ellerson would be patient and wait. That was another one of Dr. Ellerson's qualities that Ash wasn't always fond of. Dr. Ellerson was patient. It made it hard for Ash to avoid her feelings, which she supposed was probably a good trait of a therapist.

"Do you think having 'fun', however, you want to define it, is part of living a balanced life?" Dr. Ellerson asked.

"Yes," Ash said, already seeing where this line of questioning was going.

The last couple of weeks they had been discussing how Ash could live a more balanced life. It turned out that working, sleeping, and avoiding past trauma wasn't considered a well-balanced life.

"I need to find something to do for fun," Ash added.

She laid back down as she set aside the problem of defining fun and turned her thoughts practical. She didn't know how to have fun, but she was surrounded by college students who didn't seem to have the same problem. She could observe what other students did and then try it out for herself.

"I can observe what my co-workers and fellow students like to do for fun and then try some. Then I can figure out what I like and don't like." Ash nodded, thinking she had landed on a good solution until Dr. Ellerson spoke.

"You could always just ask your co-workers what they like to do for fun? Maybe even join them in some of the activities."

Ash looked over at the desk. Dr. Ellerson's hands were still clasped. This was the second item on the list of things Ash was tackling: making friends.

Dr. Ellerson had pointed out that friends were another aspect of having a balanced life.

"I could," Ash answered. Silence fell over at Ash's non-answer answer.

It wasn't that Ash didn't talk to her co-workers. She had great relationships with all of them. She knew what classes they were taking and their recent forays into love, but that all ended the moment Ash walked out the coffee shop door. They were co-workers. Nothing more.

After a long stretch of silence, Dr. Ellerson finally spoke. "Have you talked to Zach recently?"

Ash frowned at the ceiling. Mentioning Zach had been one of her early rookie mistakes. Within the first month of therapy, Dr. Ellerson had asked her about having friends. Trying to seem less broken than she was, Ash had talked about being friends with Zach, although saying they were friends had been reaching. This was a fact that had become clear the more Dr. Ellerson had asked about Zach.

The day after Ash had brought sandwiches to Zach's room he had sat in the seat she had saved for him. The simple action had made Ash think maybe they were on their way to becoming friends, but thinking something was very different than living it out.

Zach had continued to sit next to her in most of the classes they shared and they would talk before and after the lectures. No topic within the realm of psychology was off-limits but topics beyond that were off-limits.

Neither of them had gone as far as to verbally set that boundary but it was in place nonetheless. And Zach wasn't the only one to blame. Ash had played her own part. It turned out that the process of making a friend and being a friend didn't come easy when you had spent your whole life working hard to stay out of reach of other people.

Within the last month, their discussions had begun to bleed into the times Zach was at the Busy Bean and Ash was on break, which felt like a step forward. But Ash hadn't found the courage to transition from theories to personal life, and everything about Zach's behavior said he wasn't interested in that.

So they talked about psychology and that was it.

According to Dr. Ellerson that wasn't a friendship. She said it was a great beginning and had initially been pleased to hear that Ash had someone her age that she interacted with.

But as the weeks and now months had gone by and Ash and Zach's relationship had stayed the same, Dr. Ellerson had started poking at it.

"You could ask Zach what he likes to do for fun?" Dr. Ellerson suggested. "Since you both share an interest in psychology there is a high probability that you would share other interests as well. He would be a good friend to ask."

Ash didn't answer as she thought about asking Zach. She wondered what ex-CIA agents considered fun. If she ignored Zach's past in the CIA, she had to admit that out of all the people she had met at school he was the first person she had found she shared something in common with: trauma.

"What do you think?" Dr. Ellerson asked.

Ash kept her mouth shut, sure that Dr. Ellerson didn't want to hear that she was thinking about trauma instead of fun.

"I could," she finally said when Dr. Ellerson let the silence stretch on between them.

"Yes, you could. But I would like to know what you are going to do," Dr. Ellerson pushed.

Ash's eyes went to the clock and she felt guilty at the relief that filled her when she saw their session was done. She could only handle her emotions for so long.

She stood. "I'll ask Zach what he likes to do for fun."

"This week?" Dr. Ellerson didn't let the details slip away from her.

"Yes," Ash said.

She wasn't one-hundred percent sure she actually wanted to ask Zach, but she was sure she wanted to be done with the day's session, and saying yes felt like her ticket out of there.

Dr. Ellerson nodded. "You did a good job today."

Ash only nodded in thanks. Laying on a couch thinking about her past definitely felt like a job but she always doubted that she was doing it well.

The first steps out of the office always felt like coming up for air. She took in a deep breath and shook off the past as she walked down the hall. When she reached the lobby she came to a stop.

Zach was standing at the front desk talking with the receptionist. Ash looked back at Dr. Ellerson's office, wondering if she had orchestrated this.

Ash had suspected that Dr. Ellerson was also Zach's therapist. When the CIA agent had connected Ash with Dr. Ellerson, the agent had informed Ash that Dr. Ellerson had CIA security clearance so Ash was allowed to talk about the details of the kidnapping with her.

Ash's ego wasn't inflated enough for her to think they had gone through the trouble of giving Dr. Ellerson security clearance just for Ash's sake. She didn't have to be a genius to figure out that Dr. Ellerson had clearance so she could work with Zach.

Ash had never said anything to Zach about it since therapy definitely fell within the realm of personal topics but now he was here and there was no way to avoid him.

But she saw an opportunity to get the question about fun out of the way. Then she didn't have to worry about finding a smooth transition between the Kohlberg's theory and asking what he liked to do for fun.

She waited until Zach stepped away from the receptionist's desk. She could feel uncertainty welling up inside her. She never felt sure about anything when it came to Zach and even asking a simple question felt weighty.

But when he turned in her direction, she buried her uncertainty behind a friendly wave as she walked toward him.

"Hey," she said casually.

"Hey," he responded in the same casual tone.

Ash wondered if he had ever been surprised or caught off guard in his life. "You're just the person I wanted to see. Are you coming or going?"

"Going," he said.   

"Perfect. We can go together."

She waved goodbye to the receptionist as she led the way out of the office. She wasn't sure Zach was with her until he caught up to her outside the office.

"So..." she started as she began walking in the direction of the campus. "What do you like to do for fun?" She glanced over at him, trying to gauge what he thought of her non-sequitur.

"An assignment for Dr. Ellerson," he said.

"You too?" Ash was only joking but there was a quick flash across his face that made her think she had guessed right.

Then Zach stunned her by nodding yes. She wasn't sure he had ever offered up a straightforward answer so quickly. If ever.

"Does that mean you are also supposed to ask me what I like to do for fun?"

A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth and she felt like she had put her foot in her mouth. He wasn't going to ask her what she liked to do for fun. She had already concluded with Dr. Ellerson that she did nothing for fun.

"Don't ask me," she said. "I just spent the last hour realizing I don't know how to have fun, hence me asking you. So lay it on me. Endow me with your knowledge of fun. Give me some ideas so I can have something to report to Dr. Ellerson next week."

Zach smiled for the briefest moment. "This strangely feels like you are trying to cheat off of me."

"It's not cheating. You are like a study partner." Ash grimaced at the word partner. It felt too personal. "Or like one of the NPCs in video games that holds the right piece of information, I need so I can continue on my journey."

"I'm a computer now?"

"Sure, if it means you have an answer for me."

He shrugged. "You want to know what I like to do for fun?" he said thoughtfully.

"Ha! It's a tricky idea, isn't it?" Ash said when he didn't answer right away.

She was thrilled to have someone on her side of the argument. Dr. Ellerson had looked at Ash like she was trying to avoid her emotions by trying to figure out the definition of fun. Dr. Ellerson had been right, but also, Ash did find the definition of fun to be slippery.

Zach glanced sideways at Ash and she suddenly wasn't so sure that he had been questioning the definition of fun with her. The look made her feel like he understood something about her that she didn't. But she pushed forward in her exploration of the word. It was easier to focus on.

"Shall we look up a definition?" she suggested as she pulled out her phone. She did a quick search and read, "What provides amusement or enjoyment, specifically: playful often boisterous action or speech." She scrunched up her face in disappointment. "It's lacking."

She selected a different source. "The dictionary of psychology defines it as 'a perception of pleasure and happiness brought on by achieving one's desires from an activity'. Does that mean fun only happens when something is achieved?" she wondered.

They came to a stop at a crosswalk and Zach stared off into space. Ash watched him silently ponder the statements until it was their time to walk. They continued in silence until they reached the campus. Ash came to a stop at the quad. She didn't know where Zach was heading but she was going to the Busy Bean. Ash waited another minute to see if Zach was going to offer an answer.

"Well..." she prompted.

He still didn't say anything and Ash found she didn't mind his silence. This conversation had been treading in unknown territory between them and she hated the unknown. Too many variables. She was ready to retreat back into what she knew, even if she hadn't completed her task.

Then an idea struck her. She didn't need to wait for Zach to answer. Her assignment from Dr. Ellerson had been to ask. There had been no mention of waiting for an answer. She had asked. The assignment was complete.

With that, she said, "Bye," and left for the Busy Bean.

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HAHAHAHA!!! 😂😂

I'm sorry for laughing instead of saying hi but I love Ash! I love how completely messed up she is. She's not normal and she knows it. It's refreshing to me to have a character that feels so different but relatable. I mean, who doesn't avoid their emotions from time to time, right?

Continuing with the chapter topic tell me: what do you do for fun? 💭🗯💬

If you want to share thoughts on the chapter you are also free to do that, I won't stop you. Even I wanted to I couldn't. It's not like I can reach through the screen and stop you from typing. And if I could that would be soooo weird.

Also I might use my super power for evil, you never know.

My definition of fun: It's honestly anything connected to my sisters and BTS. That's it. If those two factors are in play I'm having fun.

Though recently it's also been listening to music while I clean. I think something about avoiding things to make something look better is delightful!

Vote, comment, follow hopefully that's a fun thing to do, if not THEN DON'T YOU DARE DO IT! I don't want your unfun vote, comment, follows! I don't take pity.