The Deluge

⒒ Coming Clean

Chapter 11- Coming Clean

The boy was staring at Eric’s pen as it sailed smoothly across the paper. Little scratchy sounds came from the nib leaking ink onto the paper.

Eric used only recycled paper. And only fountain pens, strictly.

Eric cleared his throat, and the boy looked surprised to see him, he shook his head; much like a dog clearing its head of water.

“You’re getting a lot visits from your family, now that your sentence seems to be coming to an end.” He smiled at the boy.

The boy nodded, lips clamped shut.

Eric probed further, “Why are you not meeting them? The staff tells me you refuse most of their visits. Is there something wrong?”

The boy dropped his head in his hands, and looked up at Eric with a pleading look. “I don’t feel safe. I-I- just don’t know how to face them okay?” His voice was harsh.

“What do you mean you don’t feel safe?”

But the boy just drew into himself further, shivering lightly.

“I was informed your sister got a divorce.” Eric tried again.

A faint glimmer of pride ruffled the waves in the boy’s conflicted irises, and he nodded.

Eric adjusted his reading glasses, and looked over at the fidgeting boy, “What’s wrong?”

There was a roar from a wounded animal as the boy kicked back his chair and strode over to Eric. Eric had never really realized how physically intimidating the boy was, but here he was, in all his 6’1 glory, glowering at Eric.

“You’re supposed to know why Eric. Why do you not know this? Or are you simply playing a game, where you do know what’s going on but you pretend you don’t? ”His voice was loud and clear, ringing and echoing off the corners of the room.

He leant over and actually grabbed Eric’s shoulders, and shook him.

Words contemptuously slithered out through his gritted teeth, “What kind of a psychiatrist are you anyway? Or are you just really that dumb?” his tone was scathing; his words pierced through Eric.

Eric considered calling the guards; this was beyond anything he had experienced. Patients turning upon their doctors wasn’t new- but it wasn’t as though Eric had gone through this before. Gut instinct, he thought.

He had barely opened his mouth, when the boy stepped back. He was wringing his hands, a guilty look upon his face.

He was sweating, he faltered when his anxious eyes met Eric’s.

“I’m sorry doc. I really am. I…it just gets to me sometimes. I’m sorry. This stuff- well, it just makes me really emotional. I’m sorry doc. I never meant to overstep any boundaries. I’m really sorry doc.”

He stumbled back into the window seat, into a world of his own.

It took Eric back to the beginning of the sessions, when the boy had been nearly always in a catatonic stupor.

He finally lifted his head up, gazing out of the window, biting his lips.” I’m just scared doc.I mean, I killed her. And I loved her. I did. I truly did. I loved her, but I killed her…And I was thinking; it took just that much to push me over the edge, and what more is it going to take to push me over completely? And I love my family. I really do. Which is why I’m scared. What if I end up with more blood on my hands?” He was shaking his head, hair flopping pathetically side to side.