Cracks On The Surface

The beginning of Ethan's recovery goes slower than his therapist expects, and he finds it hard to face even the smallest obstacle on his long road to recovery.

In his leaving, Michael gave Ethan a menacing look. The meaning behind it, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. Within seconds, he heard the wooden door close with a loud slam. It shook the entire front wall of the building, and within the space of a minute, the sound of an ignition starting was heard. Looking though the blinds, he saw the silver truck in the lot outside pull off, tires screeching as it peled out into the street. Hearing a fatigued sigh, Ethan looked back up.

“I doubt he’ll be back, Mark.” Dr. Bennett’s venom from a few short seconds ago was replaced by a growing fatigue. Ethan could see her eyes losing their sharpened appearance, and as they moved from the door to him, the tension in the air lifted. “Ethan.”

“Rough day, Doc?” His question made a barely detectable smile ease its way across her features. Apparently it was true, however, seeing as she nodded shortly after that. “Oh… Well, wasn’t an easy one for me either.”

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it had. The day had moved painfully slow for him, with the exception of the time spent in the parking lot outside. School, though easy for him, was always something that seemed to slow the hands of time down. Deciding to talk about this today, he looked at the clock, seeing the time had already started. It was 17:45. Taking note of the time herself, Bennett nodded, motioning for him to go on back.

Shifting his chair easily, Ethan did just that, going through the doorway that she and Michael had just exited. Looking to the left, he saw the office, where Mark was sitting, absently looking on Google for something. Steering his chair to the right, he proceeded down the hallway, hearing the doctor speak again, but this time, not to him.

“Head on home, Mark. I know you have a family you need to tend to. I’ll be fine. No more appointments this evening.”

“Got it, Jeri. i’ll see you first thing tomorrow, then. I’ll swing by and pick up Dylan and make sure he gets in alright.”

“Good, thanks. I swear, he’s growing up so fast… soon he’ll be doing everything on his own and he won’t need anything from anyone…”

“I know. I’ve got a daughter like that. Already, she’s sixteen, has a car, and doesn’t know when curfew is. They grow up too fast… I remember when she was asking me to tell her stories about my time in the Navy. She wanted to know what little girls looked like all around the world. Now, she could care less.”

“I hear that.”

Their voices didn’t fade, but Ethan concentrated on something else just as he was about to turn into the last room on the left. At the end of the hallway, there was a full-length mirror, one that showed the hallway as if it kept going, though it was a reflected image. He often times ignored this mirror, because he knew it was there, but tonight was different. He saw himself, more importantly, he saw how rough he looked. Being of thin build, he had always been strong, keeping his body in shape, especially before he was in this chair.

While able to walk, he had ben a runnr, keeping himself in shape by running, lifting weights, and eating right. Sleep came easier when he was running. It wiped him out while it benefited him. Now, though he kept his upper body in shape, he felt restless. Looking at his reflection, Ethan saw what he hadn’t wanted to. His hair, kept in that typical “Marine” fashion, was still the same, neat, in place, and such. His face, on the other hand, wasn’t. His normally youthful skin was now a pale, almost unhealthy color, his eyes had dark circles under them, and their lids threatened to close if he stared too long. His eyes, almost a silver grey, naturally, were now rivaling charcoal. Lack of good sleep tended to do that to him. From his neck down to his waist, he really couldn’t see, it being obscured by the black tee shirt, but he had a good idea of what it looked like. His lower half hadn’t changed in a year, save for geting thiner from lack of use. Even obscured by clothing, he knew how bad off he was getting.

Strong though he was, Ethan didn’t like looking at himself in the morning Each time he got in or out of the shower he saw a pale young ma, mostly muscle and bone. His ribs weren’t visible, but they were as good as. He wasn’t healthy. He was muscular, but that was all Instead of eating enough to keep his body fueled by enough fat to keep him thin, he was barely eating anything at all, his body feeding off of his muscle. This made him constantly ache, hurting when he moved, hurting when he didn’t.

Shaking off the mental image, Ethan turned his chair, entering the last room on the left. Looking in here, he saw the dark sofa, ever alluring compared to this chair, and the desk and chair usually occupied by his therapist. Thinking back and forth on whether to leave his chair or not, Ethan decided to forego the chair. He had always remained in his chair, knowing that the session would be seemingly short if he was comfortable, but tonight, he had a lot on his mind, causing him to really want comfort. Pushing his chair in front of the sofa so that it was parallel to it, Ethan lifted himself off of the stiff seat of the wheelchair, almost falling oto the soft surface beside it. Using his right hand, he pushed the chair out of the way so that he could arrange his legs, which were bet at an odd angle. Straightening himself up so that he was facing the desk and chair ahead, he pulled the chair back toward him, collapsing it, and wheeled it back and to the right, so that it stood beside the arm, still in reach of his right hand. Listening to the conversation outside again, Ethan knew that it was over and that his session was soon to begin. In a way he was ready for it, but there was still part of him that wasn’t.

“Good night, Jeri. Hope things go well on that end.”

“So do I, Mark…” The sound of a wooden door, presumably the front door, closing met Ethan’s ears. Her voice got a bit clearer and louder as his therapist got closer. “So do I.”

Seeing her enter the room, he regarded her for a moment. It was typical behavior, because she did the same thing with him. Her icy eyes swept over him, nd he swore he saw concern, if only for a few seconds, in them. In those few seconds, he was sure that he had a strange look on his face. He often did when he was trying to read people. Pushing that aside for the moment, he watched her take her usual place across from him.When she spoke, it wasn’t purely professional, but it wasn’t bleeding heart-caring either.

“I hate that you had to see all that out there.” Seeing her lean forward slightly in the chair, Ethan saw her interlacing her fingers, which he had seen many times before in school and back at home, if he could call it that. There was a difference here, though. Then, he had expected a lecture or sometimes worse, depending on the situation, but he didn’t find any 

hostility in any form, hidden or otherwise.

“That’s okay. I’ve seen worse, I guess.” Keeping a steady face, Ethan was really struggling. The simplicity of that statement was nothing compared to the images that started flooding his head. Concentrating on his surroundings, rather than the fading rooms and people in his mind’s eye, he kept speaking. “Seems like a hard-a*s, if you’ll excuse the language.”

“I’ve heard worse.” The ghost of a smile that flickered across her face made him relax further. Seeing stern people made him nervous, and apparently she had picked up on it. “I don’t know where to begin with him…” A thoughtful look passed over Ethan’s face at this. She caught that too. “So, how have things been for you this week?”

“Good for the most part I’ve had a few tests. The teachers made them seem like exams. They weren’t the hardest. Studying has been easy. I don’t have many distractions, if any at all, so this has been easy enough to prepare for.” Thinking back on the examinations, he realized that they may have been hard. Looking over the space of the room, Ethan looked down. 

“Well, I’ll take that back. I’m sure they were difficult…”

The struggle that he was dealing with must have been written obvious. ethan grimaced inwardly, hoping that he wasn’t as much an open book as he seemed.

“What makes you come to that decision, Ethan?” Her eyes searched his for answers, but they weren’t there, and if they were, then they weren’t clear enough. “Why go back on what you said?”

“I think it is because I study constantly. I’m never doing anything with anyone, so I hava that time to study so much. I guess it is a good thing, but…”

“But you want more out of life, not to simply keep your nose in a book constantly.” Normally, he would have been slightly angry if someone had cut him off, but this was different. He had no idea what to say next, so he was thankful that he was apparently an open book. This made it easier for him to speak even when he had no words to say.

“Yeah, exactly. I don’t want to spend the rest of my high school and university days with my nose in a book. The only problem is I… I don’t know how to keep friends, I don’t know how to keep them.”

“Why do you think that is, Ethan?”

The puzzled look on his face made her think; His file suggested that he had not stayed in one place too long due to his father’s being in the military. His eyes told her everything, though he didn’t want them to. She saw him as a boy, not a seventeen year old. She saw him as a kid who had given up on making friends. Thinking back to what she had access to in his file, she frowned slightly. Having dealt with people and the agencies that were supposed to help them, like Childrens’ Services, Jeri Bennett knew full well how much of a brick wall they could be. His case worker especially, had not been in touch with her at all. The file looked sanitized, holding back all the real problems that he seemed to be facing. Her thoughts were interrupted by Ethan’s next words.

“It’s because of his job. He had to move constantly, go to different bases, work for different brass. When we would move I had to leave all the “frineds” I barely made behind. Because of him I had to learn to just ignore people, to shut people out, even those that were trying to help me… I had to ignore them because i didn’t know if I would ever see them again.”

“I see.” There was a slight frustration building in Ethan’s voice that was unsettling to her. having seen him in very few moods, anger wasn’t one of them, so this was new territory. He was shifting slightly under her gaze, and it was cause for concern. “Not nervous are you, Ethan?”

“I don’t know, Doc… Should I be?”

“Not in the slightest”