The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

19⎜The Clinic

           I had called my mom again about a day after the incident, telling her that I had been distracted and that I just wanted to talk to her. She told me that though she was my mother, this was something she couldn’t (aka didn’t want to) deal with. Thus, I was forced to sign up for a nice session at the Stanford Student Counseling Clinic, which was how I ended where I was now. I didn’t want to be here, but I knew that I had to be.

           “Eric Wilson?” a feminine voice called, jolting me from my thoughts. I looked up, and saw a girl with a clipboard in hand, about a few years older than me.

           “That’s me,” I said, getting up from my chair so the next person could take it. I walked over to the girl, and she sent me a soft smile. Immediately, my eyes flew to her strange choice of attire—that being a turtleneck and slacks. We were in California. I was wearing shorts and a tank top. It was hot out. Her outfit didn’t exactly seem weather appropriate in, well, the slightest.

           “Well, Eric, just follow me please,” she told me with an encouraging glance. I nodded mutely, going behind her as she directed me through a hallway of white tiles and florescent lighting. We came to a door in about the middle of the corridor, and she casually opened it, gesturing for me to enter as well.

           The room was pretty simple. Just like the building in which it was located, the basic shape was a cube. There was a desk in the center, separating two chairs, and that was basically it. A small window was parallel to the doorway, and something about the minimalism made me feel comfortable. This place didn’t belong to anyone in particular, and there had probably been hundreds (if not thousands) of other students who came here in this exact room to work out their own issues. I wasn’t alone.

           “Eric, if you could just take a seat, that’d be great!” the lady said, pointing over to the chair opposite the desk. I obliged, sitting down cautiously as she did the same. She didn’t exactly look like psychologist, but then again, there wasn’t really a distinct look for every therapist in the world. Something about her, though—it just seemed…new, maybe? As if she was a novice in the field. I decided to ask her about it.

           “Are you a certified psychologist?” I questioned.

           “I’m a third year doctoral student,” she told me. “So, not quite yet, but hopefully once I’ve given my dissertation, I’ll become one.” I nodded, accepting the answer. “So Eric, what brought you in here today?”

           “What’s your name?” I asked, aware that I was deflecting. Over the summer, I did that a lot during therapy sessions, according to Dr. Clarke. I didn’t like all the attention on me, so would try to avert the conversation in any way I could.

           “Cynthia,” she told me with a sigh. “Have you been to therapy before?”

           “Yeah,” I said lightly, “I was in rehab over the summer and had to go then.”

           “Rehab,” she mumbled, reviewing the word in her mind. “Why?”

           “Drugs,” I answered. It was her turn to nod.

           “Is that why you’re here today?”

           “I was at a frat, got offered some weed, and I’m trying to cope with it,” I replied instead of answering “yes” or “no.” She eyed me carefully, silently prompting me to go on. “I’m sober now, and really don’t want to go back to being the person I was.”

           “When you were offered the, uh, drugs, were you tempted to accept?” she questioned.

           “Yeah, but I didn’t.”