My hand reflexes towards my phone but I don't stop talking, "Remember what now?"
"You have started remembering things. Haven't you?" her chin lowers.
I swallow, as I ask her my next question, "How do you know that?"
She smirks," I just do."
"How?" my phone locks tight in my palm.
If she knows, means she's somehow involved.
Shivay was right. I can't trust anyone.
"Open your hand, Annika. I'm not the one who wants to hurt you," she says, her voice dropping," Let's just say that your dad's in the hospital for a reason, Annika.
"A man like that doesn't get heart attacks every day," she leans nearer, an excitement sparking in her," There has to be some improvement in you. You must finally be getting closer."
Getting closer to what? "What do you mean?"
"I can't tell you what I mean. I don't have all the facts," she sighs, "You were my patient once upon a time. So tell me, what's troubling you?" Dr. Ekta picks up the pen again.
"Nothing," my answer is quick, but not believable," I'm perfectly fine."
"Perfectly fine, right," she clicks her pen, grimly.
"No!" I shout before Ekta casts her final vote on the certificate.
I don't know what to say ahead.
"It's okay. You don't have to search your head for this. You can start with something simple. Like the things, you've begun to recollect."
I don't say a thing. Yet.
"See, if you don't start talking, I will be forced to keep you in sessions for longer. And your dad may get a discharge, but you'll never find the answers you're looking for. You need to talk about it with someone, Annika."
"I saw him. Shivay. Sort of in an imagery," I blurt it out and it feels like a firecracker exploding slowly.
My therapist doesn't show it but I know she's happy, "I get these blurs sometimes. They are like dreams. Some are stills, pictures. Stopping before me. Sometimes they feel like videos playing on a screen. But I'm in them somehow."
"Since when has this been happening?"
"Recently. A few weeks," she nods in acknowledgment.
"In cars?" she inquires, while her pen keeps scribbling on.
"No. Airplanes too. I don't think its ever happened in a car. I've not driven a car until now. That proof of my insanity?" I pull at her, even though she holds my leash. What crazy risks do you take, Annika.
"That's okay. It is a fear- yes. Definitely not out of the ordinary. If the fear escalates, then it's a completely different case. But I know that's not what's happening here. You haven't been dealing with your emotions- any of them," she tsks annoyed, "It has been two years, and you've just started remembering things? We're you on medication?"
"Medication?" I scratch my head, "No. I never took any after the first few months."
"Strange," she says, reading from my old records," According to your recovery rate, without any anti-depressants, you would have started feeling and recollecting sooner. . .Think about it harder. How were you feeling before you started getting these blurs?"
"I don't know, I don't remember," I pressed my head.
"No need to worry. Usually, with cases of survivor's guilt, our defense mechanisms act up. Defence mechanisms don't allow us to remember much of the traumatic event or things associated with it. And your plate was already full- with the physical wounds and the coma."
CHAPTER 20 A key to the past
Start from the beginning
