I STILL REMEMBER THE FIRST DAY I MET HER, how it felt like I was in hell. I mean, the place was too hot, as if they never knew the meaning of air conditioning. She treated me as if she knew everything about me, just a stupid kid that decided to cut herself to make everything difficult. Attention whore, playing mind games, worshiping the thought of entitlement…
It was pretty funny, actually. She didn’t know me at all.
<><><>
Satan’s green eyes study me as I stare at her bookshelf. It’s filled with books all on the psychological mind of a teenager.
Science is complete bullshit to me. You can’t analyze someone by the way they act. I act like I have a psychological disorder just because I cut myself and I lose my appetite frequently.
I act like it comes from the death of my mother, from feeling like no one loves me.
Hell, I’m almost eighteen. Whether people love me or not is the last thing I’m worried about.
Last time I checked, you don’t have to love someone to listen to them.
“So,” she says as she flips her clipboard to a new page. It’s the same one she’s used since the day I met her. Dark red, matching the color of her pen. She’s writing about my every move, and I’ve started not to care. After all, no matter what I do, it’ll still lead to the same comment she writes every week.
Uncooperative.
“How were your two weeks with your father?”
Raped nearly ten times already, but thanks for wondering.
I shrug, stare at the floor. Navy blue carpet that goes really well with the baby blue walls. The walls clash with the two pictures hanging side by side, one a Psychology doctorate, the other English. Satan’s name is printed across both. Jane Shepherd.
I try to keep myself from laughing. As if a degree determines just how well someone can help other people.
I’m sitting on the sofa that sits across from her desk. It’s funny. Normally, when someone would think of a therapist, they’d think of a comfortable recliner next to a chair. The victim would lie back and talk about their feelings while the therapist would sit in the chair and listen.
That’s not how it works here.
“Are you and your family getting along?”
What do you mean my family?
“It’s whatever.”
“Ah.” She nods, starts writing on her clipboard again. God, that annoys me.
“Anything new lately?”
“Besides the whole you’re forced to live with Mark thing, no.”
“Come on, Emma. You need your father.”
Then why did you take me away from him?
“Yeah, I do.” I lean forward, look her straight in the eye. “But you took me away from him.”
She frowns, looks away from me. “I don’t know what Mark did that made you so upset, but I really feel that you two should make up.”
Not until he believes me.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s possible.”
She writes something else down. “How are you and Jessie getting along?”
“We’re fine.”
“And Jeremy?”
Like I said, raped nearly ten times already, but thanks for wondering.
“Eh… we get along.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. We get along.”
“Really? So I’m guessing you spend a lot of time with him?”
Sure.
I shrug, look at my watch. We’ve been talking for almost thirty minutes. All I’m waiting for now is for her to tell me I can go, relieve me from being in this room with her, annoyed with her ignorance. She glances toward her clock.
“We’ve run out of time,” she says, “so we’ll have to continue this discussion next week.” She smiles, stands. “I’ll walk you out.”
She leads me toward the door, out into the hallway. It’s way brighter than her room, luminescent lights glowing much more powerful than the two large windows behind her desk. She leads me out into the lobby.
“Tracy,” she says as she approaches her assistant’s desk, “Mark is going to come in soon. I need you to send him back to my office as soon as he gets here.”
“Alright, Ms. Shepherd. No problem.”
I watch Satan as she disappears behind the door. I sigh, pull my notebook out.
<><><>
It’s funny. I come here every week, try to talk without telling her everything, and yet she still can’t see anything.
I’m starting to question what the point of her job is supposed to be…