Nightingale

thrity-two

I hate lying.

The truth will come out sooner or later. I understand small white lies but lying about something completely is just frustrating.

As much as I hate lying that's all I'm going to be doing for the next hour. Lying to someone who is here to help me with all of the thoughts that run inside of my mind.

"How have you been Parker? It's been awhile since our last session." Sarah says to me as she sits down in a large white arm that's in front of me. I'm sitting cross legged on the small loveseat in her office, thinking of how I'm going to lie to this woman's face about everything that has gone on in my life since I was in the hospital in Las Vegas. It feels like a lifetime has gone by since that day and it's only been about 3 weeks.

"I've been really stressed out." I say as I pick at my cuticles.

"Do you know what is causing you to be so stressed?"

"Life." I say truthfully, slightly laughing.

"Parker you know I need more information to help you." She raises her eyebrows at me.

"I don't know how to explain it. I guess the best way would be I feel like I'm drowning in the ocean, like if I don't keep trying to swim through life then I'll just get pulled under the waves and that will be it."

Sarah nods her head at me in understanding and starts writing something down in her notebook. I hate it when she writes stuff down cause then that means more explaining.

"Okay. And when you feel like you are going to get pulled under what does that make you want to do?" She proceeds to ask.

"It makes me want to scream. It makes me angry." I sigh. It makes me want to do a lot more things but those are the kind of things you don't say to a therapist unless you want to be under watch for 72 hours. I still don't feel like I want to die but that doesn't stop intrusive thoughts from popping up.

"Well angry is something new. Most of the time when we talk you say you feel nothing."

"You know Sarah, that's the real kicker. I want to feel nothing because feeling angry doesn't get me anywhere. I used to be so good at just feeling nothing and then I met someone who makes me want to feel."

"Harry right? He's the man we talked about in our last session."

"Yeah Harry." I smile just from saying his name. He's the one thing that is keeping me sane.

"Are things getting serious between you two now?" She asks for clarification.

"Yeah they are. He's kinda the one thing that keeps me from going under ya know. He makes me feel like I'm not alone."

Again Sarah takes some more notes and circles something. "My next question for you then is, does he know about your past? Have you opened up to him about how you are feeling?"

"He knows I'm an addict. He knows I take medication for a mental illness but he doesn't know the specifics. We don't really talk about the dark stuff. I mean I haven't really had to say anything cause he doesn't really ask questions. He knows about Birdie. He hasn't said anything about my scars so I don't feel like it's important to talk about. He knows Martha and I aren't on good terms but not in depth as to why. I haven't talked about how all of this makes me feel because I know he is struggling too." I explain to her.

"What has he opened up to you about?" She then questions.

"Um... he told me about his parents briefly. They died 9 years ago and it was hard for him and his sister. Off the top of my head that's all I can think of." I scramble through my memory to try and recall any other personal things Harry has told me but I can't really think of anything else. It's still early and I haven't had coffee this morning because Harry and I woke up late. I shouldn't have let him hit snooze 4 times.