I Can Feel You

Chapter 3

I'm sitting at the waiting room of Marth's new office; it wasn't really far from where I live. I went early today, because she said that this session will be collaborative and I'm looking forward it. She said that her first client from the school will be coming today, and that the two of us will work together on the therapy session. We are both informed of this days ago and agreed.

I've never really heard of this kind of therapy session before but I trust Martha. She's currently in a meeting right now and our session is not up until 20 minutes later. I'm wearing a mask and a face shield per mandatory protocols but was told that it's okay to remove the face shield once I'm in the room.

5 minutes passed and a girl entered the office, she sat perpendicular to me. She's wearing glasses and has a long black hair. I think she's the one I'll be working with today. I wanted to approach her but decided otherwise, I don't really know what she's going in therapy for; so, she might not be comfortable with strangers approaching her. Her earphones also shows that she doesn't want to be bothered.

A few more minutes later and Martha came out from another room, there are a few people inside. She saw us and greeted us "Well Hello there! I'm Martha, you can just call me that or Ate Martha. Oh, hey Annie, both of you follow me." Then she led us to a room few floors up, me and the girl walked side by side but she still put a distance between us. I could only guess that we are the same height.

The room is pretty spacious. It is divided in to sections; one is like a living room with a sofa, another is like a mini kitchen where snacks can be found, the third one being a pretty empty space except for the table with two chairs by the glass wall, lastly there's 3 comfortable chairs two parallel to each other and facing the other one.

Marth led us to the latter, she smiled at us and instructed us to take a seat. "So how are we feeling today?" she said as she took a seat across us, resting her binder on her lap. "I'm a bit nervous" although I'm comfortable with Marth, it's different because there's someone else here.

"Anxious" she said quietly, this seemed to worry Marth "Oh, do you want to take a quick break or something" she shook her head "Okay, shall we proceed?" the girl nodded. She smiled; Martha took her mask after we entered the room so we can see it. "Oh, by the way this room has an air purifier and has been disinfected. Since we are all vaccinated, it is also okay to remove your mask but if you don't feel comfortable with that it's okay as well."

I looked at the girl beside me and she didn't move so I decided to not remove my mask as well. "Okay, let's start with a brief introduction first. I'm Martha Cruz, I had Ph.D. in Psychology and I have been working as a therapist for 3 years now. Your turn" she gave us yet again another warm smile, she's being gentle with this girl. I believe this is their first personal meeting as their previous sessions has been through zoom.

"You don't have to say a lot just your name is fine" she reassured. I decided to talk since I think she's too anxious "Hey, I'm Annie" she looked at me and I felt weird so I looked elsewhere. "I'm Kate" she said softly, this made me shot my gaze back at her, I stared at her but she's already focused her attention to Marth.

I wanted to ask again, I wanted to be sure if I heard her right and Marth's words confirmed it. "Okay Annie and Kate, so, both of you are aware of our activities today, right?" we both nodded. I shrugged it off, Kate is a pretty common name. "Can I just ask something?" she spoke "sure"

"Is there a reason for this, I don't think this is a common thing to do" I nodded in agreement "Well it's not really a common practice but it is being done is some occasions, I just thought both of you would be compatible with each other. Annie is pretty new here too; I thought the both of you could learn from one another. But this is just a test run both of you can pull out of this activity whenever you wish to"

"So will we be having all our sessions like this?" I asked. "No, you two will still have individual sessions but if this goes well, we can schedule this regularly." I nodded "So, can you elaborate why you think we would work well together?" she smiled at my question. "Because, I think you two would find each other interesting. Annie you're not very social, you're actually pretty cold and Kate is pretty good at making people comfortable with her. I think you two already find each other interesting, am I right?"

"I do find her interesting" Kate said, this made me feel things. Marth clapped "Great! So, our session today will contain 3 parts. First, is what we will do now; just draw whatever you're feeling and you don't have to explain it. After that you two will solve puzzles together so we can see, how you two will work together. Lastly, if and only if you two are comfortable with it, I will leave you two to have a conversation over there.

She pointed at the table by the glass wall. We started doing our tasks and was going pretty smoothly. We worked really well in solving the puzzles she's pretty good at it, I just really followed her lead, and do as I was told which is odd since I never really took orders from anyone except from Gran.

Later on we were already sitting at the table, sitting across each other. The view is actually pretty nice and she's busy admiring it. I initiated a conversation. "So, how old are you?" "I'm 18" she briefly answered "Oh I'm 19" she nodded with a hum, not even looking at me. "You're pretty good at puzzles" I commented still trying to strike up a conversation. "Yeah, I like them" she, once again, answered shortly.

"Do you not have any questions for me?" I asked a bit impatient in my tone which made her look at me. "I don't want to ask you the boring questions, but I also don't want to ask personal questions cause I don't know if you'd be comfortable with that" that melted me, partially. She was just looking out for me.

"Well do you not have any other question for me?" I really want to converse with her, for some reasons "I do, but they're pretty interesting in some way" I smiled even though she can't see it "Go on" I said, excitement is really evident in my voice.

She stared off into the view, she held her hand up to me sort of asking like a high five. I don't know what came over me but I just gently lifted my hand and placed it against hers. She doesn't seem to mind, she turned to look at me. "Do you think, this is real?" she asked so suddenly "yeah?"

"This view over there, us sitting across each other on this table, your hand against mine. Is this really happening?" I'm so confused but once again I answered "yeah?" I'm pretty sure I'm not hallucinating this "If you and I both lost our memory of this ever happening, then how do we know that it really happened? If there's no proof of it then, how can we say it's real?" I'm in loss of words but she continued.

"Do you think I'm real?" She slid her fingers in between mine and grasp my hand, I did the same "How do you know that I'm here and not a hallucination?" I stared at her as she stared back, deep into my soul. "I can feel you" I said softly, even though she's wearing a mask I can see her smile through her eyes. "okay" she chuckled.

"This is just one of my philosophical questions. I'm quite sentimental you see, I view things weirdly and yeah" she seems to be comfortable with me now "I don't think it's weird, I think it's really interesting" she giggled "I actually have another, but it's sorta kind of a rant between weirdness and uniqueness, but I won't tell you about that yet" she giggled, why is she so cute?

She's fun to talk with and had a lot of things to talk about. "Uh...Kate? Can I get your number?"

She giggled "Well, you could but you wouldn't be able to contact me. I mean you can call but I can't text back cause I don't have any load" "How can I contact you then?"

"Do you have facebook?" I nodded "Oh, okay. Can I have your phone? I'll add myself" I immediately gave it to her and saw that she had already accepted the friend request when she gave it back to me. Not very long after, we have to depart but we had told Marth that we would want to do this again.

I went home and did some chores, just a little bit of tidying. It was a good day, a very good one.

Before sleeping, I was messing with my phone, until it slipped from my hand fell right into my nose. I'm so annoyed I'm ready to throw my phone but I saw that the contacts were opened. I was about to exit the app when something caught my eye, its Kate's name surrounded with sparkling emojis. I blinked a couple of times and I confirmed that Kate's number was there. I'm ecstatic, so she gave it to me after all. I rolled over feeling butterflies and fell asleep smiling.