CHAPTER 1: Therapy

One of Alicia's therapy "sessions"

“Have you had any nightmares since our last session?”

          My therapist, Dr. Alice Green, always asks me that at our “sessions” as she calls them. Every Tuesday and Thursday it’s the same question but asked in a different way. Last week it was, ‘So, Alicia darling, any recollections of Johnny since the last time we met?’

          “Yes.” I give her my usual answer.

“More than one sweetie?” Her face has that cookie cutter ‘worried’ look on it.

I sigh. “Four actually.”

This time around she gives me a confused look and I elaborate for her.

“I know, it has only been two nights since we last met, but I slept three different times during the day yesterday and then again at night.”

“Really?” She starts writing in her small red notepad. “That’s interesting, why is that?”

My hands make fists on reflex. Relax, I tell myself, she’s only doing what your ridiculous mother is paying her to do. I take a deep breath. I have a feeling she is going to see this as a bigger deal than it really is.

“Well yesterday was Wednesday which meant it was the time of week for Mr. Crasser to rant to us seniors about life, bills, money, and college in the morning assembly. I fell into a light sleep during that within minutes.”

“I see, and Mr. Crasser, he is your principal right?”

“Yup,” She does some more notepad writing, “Anyway, after that, I had Mr. Skotti for calculus and his voice was extra low and monotone yesterday so I ended up knocking out during that too.

“Then at the end of the day I had a double block of gym class so after an hour and forty minutes of basketball and flag football, I was dead. Daniela dropped me off at home and I immediately knocked out on the couch.”

“Wow,” she chuckles, “sounds like you had a long day.”

“You don’t even know.” I lean back in my chair, exhausted from even having to relive what I had to do. I look up to see Dr. Green taking of her glasses. She always does that when she wants to start getting into the whole reason I come to see her; Johnny.

“So, Alicia, tell me. Where any of those dreams-“

“Nightmares.” I interrupt. It is important to me that she knows the difference.

“Nightmares. Is it possible that any of these nightmares involved Johnny and his accident?”

And there it is.

“Only one, kind of, he wasn’t in it but the accident was.”

Her eyes seem to twinkle just for half of a second. I know she doesn’t but sometimes it is as if she enjoys hearing me talk about my nightmares, like it’s entertaining to her. But I know it isn’t, so I always brush off the thought. She just wants to help me. I just don’t want it.

“Do you think, maybe, this time, you’d be able to describe the accident to me. How did it happen? What exactly did you see, Alicia?”

Why does she always do this? “I’ve already told you, some guy drove past a stop sign and hit his car.”

“I know sweetie, but, what do you remember seeing? If you want to get any better you have to try to pry that info from your memory and release it.”

“Well, I guess-“

At that moment, the timer bell rings, as if purposely stopping me from actually telling Dr. Green about the horrible things I saw that day. The things that I know I will never really be able to forget. I look at her with an unsure face.

“It’s OK Alicia. We’ll just stop here and call it a day.” She seems to be alright with not continuing, but I know that, if not for her next patient waiting for her at the door of her office, Dr. Green would have loved to rip those horrific details from my memory.  

“Alrighty then, I’ll just, uh, be on my way then. Have a good night.” I’m all jittery from that close call. I shake my head to return to reality and start out the door. As I shut it, my phone starts to ring.  A song by The Kooks starts to blare and I hurry to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey hun, I’m out front. Are you ready to go?” It is Daniela Hynes, my best friend since second grade.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out.” I hang up and head for the stairs in the hallway of Dr. Green’s office building. Even though her office is on the eighteenth floor, I prefer to take the stairs rather than the elevator. It gives me more time to process everything.

***

 “So, how was today’s session?” Daniela exaggerates the word ‘session’ because she knows I hate that Dr. Green calls it that.

I stick my out tongue at her. “It was fine. By the way you were right; she did indeed bring up Johnny.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry to hear that Leesh. I was hoping she wouldn’t.”

That makes two of us. Before I fell asleep during yesterday’s weekly lecture with Mr. Crasser, Daniela and I started talking about my next appointment with Alice, as I prefer to call Dr. Green when out of her office.

“I don’t think she will again. We have talked about him almost non-stop for a few weeks now. I think Alice has heard enough, by now she should be grasping the fact that I really don’t want to say any more than I already have.”

I really do not like having to talk about Johnny, with anyone for that matter, not only when I am meeting with Alice.

Daniela is against therapy just as much as I am. When she was twelve her older brother Adam was sent to therapy after he witnessed a triple murder. Intense, I know, and he was just 16 when he saw it. Some lady named Abigail Plymouth was shot in the head along with her two grandchildren. It was all over the news, and one of the three eyewitnesses was Adam. He went to therapy for two years, until the day after his eighteenth birthday, when he hung himself at a friend’s house. His whole family, including Daniela knew it was because of the shoddy therapist he had been seeing and ever since then, they are anti-therapy.

“Well she is a therapist after all; it is her job to do that. She gets paid to make you talk about things that trouble you. It’s apparently good for you. But we both know that’s crap.” I knew she was right but I had not wanted to believe it.

 “She didn’t go too far.” I said, after I noticed she had been asking if Alice had really drilled me tonight.

Daniela smiles at me. “Good. Because I would have had to head on back there and kick some Green a*s.”

I laugh. I know she means what she says, not because she has some strange violent tendency, but because she has always had my back and I will always have her back.

“Thanks Daniela.” I say, as she pulls up to my house. We say goodbye and I reach over to hug her. Soon enough I am up the steps in front of my house opening the door to still packed boxes from my move to this house almost three months ago.

Author's Note

What did you think? Only honesty please!