A new kind of visit
I need a breakthrough.
I only want what's right in front of me.
-- The Weeknd, How do I make you love me?
A shrill alarm cut through the void like the glint of a blade in the darkness. Movement followed from both sides, swaying Theodore as the mattress dipped. A ship came to mind, rocking with the ocean waves. He covered his eyes with a hand, eyebrows furrowed into a scowl—how was it so bright? Why was it so bright? Peeking through his fingers, he saw the window only partially covered by the curtains. It pulled a groan out of him, head pulsing.
“Off, Theodore; go take a shower. Tim will be here very soon.”
How soon was soon? Both of his hands rubbed his eyes awake, shooting a twinge deep into his skull. He hadn’t even been very tired last night; it was this horrible hungover that made him feel like total shit. Begrudgingly, he moved to lie on his side, so he could use his free arm to hoist himself up. His body felt two hundred pounds heavier.
Starting the day in a couple’s bed reminded him of Hwan and Marquis. Ironically, he’d woken up between them just last weekend. How had seven days changed his entire life? He’d gone from being an annoying little shit to being Laith’s annoying little shit so quickly he could barely believe it. If only he could tell his parents about it. Were Laith a girl, his mother would’ve been ecstatic. He might not have gotten with Debby’s daughter, but he’d gotten with someone, differently from Ryan. It should be enough. His brother had left the bar so low already, and yet, Theodore still couldn’t make it. God, it was infuriating; he had an entire life his parents couldn’t know about. He was so much more successful than they thought.
***
The doctor who’d come see him ended up not being Tim, but a woman who worked with him—Sarah. Apparently, since Tim was already Carolyn’s doctor, he couldn’t also see her son. This greatly upset Theodore’s parents, who immediately questioned Sarah, trying to understand what the issue was. Well, it’d be unprofessional. How would Tim be able to have a fair assessment of Theodore and his troubles if he had already developed preconceived notions about him? Wait, if he knew who Theodore was, then Carolyn must’ve brought him up. What could she possibly have said during a doctor’s visit? Why would she even talk about him? That didn’t make any sense. Was he in trouble?
The three argued for a very long time. His parents’ entire viewpoint could be summarized by their wish to see Tim here, since he was the family physician, not Sarah. Well, if they trusted him so much, then they’d surely trust the person he’d sent in his place, right? If he’d recommended Sarah, it was because he believed she was qualified to handle this particular case. The Pierces glanced at each other, almost persuaded—she did make a good point. She pushed on, talking about her extensive experience in the field, at it for about twelve years now, aiding mostly teenagers. Oh, but Theodore wasn’t a teenager anymore; he’d just started college. Yes, that was still her demographic; a large number of her patients were in college.
Whether the discussion annoyed her or not, Theodore couldn’t tell; at no point did she show any irritation on her face, keeping her voice perfectly calm. She spoke around a bit of a smile, the same way Carolyn always picked up the phone, just shy of meaning it. The disparity between the warmth on her face and the sharp edge of her tone put a very uncomfortable feeling in his chest, familiar. At first glance, she struck him as untrustworthy. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a good professional, because she clearly had the capabilities of one—Theodore just didn’t feel like he could really tell her anything without being judged, even if inwardly, which worried him the most.
As the conversation progressed, his parents eventually came around. There must be a reason Tim had sent her, after all. Satisfied for the moment, or rather, acquiescing, they turned to the stairs and called for Theodore to come down—he’d heard everything from just around the corner. A second later, he rounded the corner and took the stairs.
“Theodore, this is Dr. Miller; she will be your doctor for today. Say how do you do.” His mother spoke that last part a little lower than the rest, only playing at secrecy, since the doctor could absolutely hear her from three feet away.
With a smile on his face, Theodore walked over and offered the woman his hand. “Hi, nice to meet you.”
She shook it—the rings on her fingers reminded him of Emily. “Nice to meet you too.” This time, her smile was a lot more convincing than before; it reflected in her eyes. She was pretty, with long black hair and a round face, thin eyes, red lipstick. His first impression of her might be wrong—when she looked at him, the dubiousness of her sincerity was gone. Perhaps her reservations came from his parents, not from inside her. For some reason, she didn’t trust them.
He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. While he couldn’t think of a single benefit that could bring him, it was also difficult to imagine any detriments. It’d be unfair if she judged him solely on her feelings toward his parents, but given the fact she was a professional, he didn’t think she’d do that. He might be okay.
His parents took the two of them to the sunroom, now perfectly spotless, and sat them down by the fireplace. Even though the doctor didn’t show it, the way she watched them sit next to their son was very telling—she hadn’t expected it. Her eyebrows didn’t bounce and her lips didn’t move; it was the attention that gave her away. She crossed her legs, skirt fluttering down to her ankles.
“Is there anything else you’d like to say or am I free to start the session?” she asked.
“Well, I’m sure you’re aware of the reason we called you,” Henry began. “I trust that Tim has filled you in.”
“Yes, he has.”
“Then I suppose you may start.”
“Alright. As soon as you leave the room, I will.”
His parents stiffened. A moment of silence passed by as they deliberated, glancing at each other. Ultimately, they got up from the couch and left the room; the click-clacking of his mother’s heels echoed off the walls, growing distant. No deep, heavy sound followed, indicating they hadn’t shut the door behind them.
“Well, then,” the doctor began. “It’s truly a pleasure to meet you, Theodore. I’m happy to be here with you.”
“Oh.” That was a very nice thing to say. For some reason, he hadn’t expected pleasantries from her, but a more direct approach to what he’d sloppily declared last night. Well, he could work with this too. “I’m happy you’re here too. Thanks for coming all this way just to see me—and also work on the weekend. I’m sorry about that, actually.”
“I always work on Saturdays, so don’t worry; if I wasn’t here, I’d be in my office doing much of the same.”
“Is your office very far?”
“It’s downtown, near campus. The Gap is right across the street.”
“Oh, I know where it is. I live like, three blocks away.”
“Then you live in a really nice part of town. Do you study there too?”
“Yeah, that’s why my friends and I moved.”
“What are your friends like?”
“They’re nice. We were neighbors all our lives, so living together feels like an extension of that. It’s… very natural.”
“That’s good to hear. Sometimes, when people move in together, it doesn’t always work out. A good friend can turn out to be a terrible roommate who leaves all their things everywhere.”
“I think all the girls are pretty neat, even if they do leave their things everywhere. It’s like an organized mess, ‘cause it’s all on purpose, like the boots by the door and the jackets on the chairs.” Considering the natural state of his room, it was Laith who seemed like a terrible roommate, not the girls.
“Do you only live with girls?”
“Yeah, I’m the only guy there.”
“What happened to your guy friends?”
It was surprising that she hadn’t jumped straight into which girl he was sleeping with or whatever.
“I didn’t make any guy friends in high school; I’m only making some now.”
“Were you surrounded by girls in your neighborhood?”
“Of course not; I just didn’t connect with any of the guys. I guess because…” Suddenly, he remembered the door was open. “We just didn’t have anything in common, I guess.”
“Well, I’m glad you found some friends to share interests with.”
“Yeah, they’re… pretty cool. They’re older than me.”
“By how much?”
Oh god, what age had he told his mother? He hadn’t said Ryan’s age, because it would’ve been too obvious—had he shortened it by a year? Fuck, he couldn’t remember. He lowered his voice for this next part, just in case Carolyn happened to be eavesdropping outside. “A few years. Four, I think—I’m not sure.”
“So they’re just about finishing college.”
No, but yeah. “Yeah.”
“Would you like to talk about someone in particular?”
“Um… not really.”
The doctor had a clipboard in her lap, lying over her thigh. She clicked her pen against it. So far, nothing had been jotted down. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.
“I’m okay.”
“How were you feeling last night?”
He swallowed thick, hesitating. His hands met over his lap. “I guess… I’m okay now, but in general, I haven’t been doing very well. It comes and goes.”
“When do you usually feel that way?”
His mind immediately went back to the piano last night, the songs he’d failed to play. Then, it skipped over to Thursday, when he’d somehow managed to ruin the entire night, disappointing Laith multiple times in a row. Then, he remembered Hwan choosing his boyfriend over him as they kissed goodbye at the door. He was worthless; good for nothing. Hwan wasn’t to blame, obviously; he wouldn’t choose himself either. “When I ruin everything and remember I’m a piece of shit. It happens a lot, or it’s been happening a lot. It just feels like I can’t do anything right these days.”
“What do you mean, you ruin everything? Could you give me an example of that?”
“I mean I can’t do stuff right. Last night, I couldn’t play a single song on the piano. Last Thursday, I—” As soon as he remembered the open door behind him, the words on his tongue evaporated. He blinked, staring at her. “I was so drunk,” he quickly continued, off-script, “and out of practice, I could barely sit on the bench right. I bet the whole room was laughing at me.”
“Was it?”
“No, but like, in their heads, you know. It’d be rude if they’d done it out loud.”
“Could you maybe have prevented that with a little practice?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t.”
She nodded. Still, the pen in her hand didn’t touch the paper. “Is there a reason why?”
“Well, I don’t have a piano.” Also, he fucking hated playing it. “It was a last-minute thing,” he explained.
“Ah, so you didn’t even know.”
Alright, yeah, he got her point—it wasn’t his fault because he couldn’t have known. He’d give her that one. Everything else, however, had very much been his fault. “That’s not a very good example,” he added.
“Do you have a good one?”
He hesitated—yes, he did, but he couldn’t say it. All of his worst feelings always flared up when Laith was around, because that was when he tried the hardest and failed the ugliest. Laith was the crux of everything; it’d be impossible to get through this conversation without bringing him up. Alternatively, if his mother was unable to avoid speaking about him to her doctor, did that mean Theodore was at the center of all her issues? The possibility crushed him.
He tried not to think about it.
Holding up a finger, he left the couch and crossed the room. A hand grabbed the door handle, but just before shutting it, he poked his head out. Not to his surprise, he saw both of his parents outside, staring at him like deer caught in headlights. “I’ll be just a moment,” he reassured them.
“Are you keeping something from me?” his mother asked. She recovered from the surprise very quickly.
“I hope you realize you can tell us anything,” Henry jumped in, nice and soft. “If you’re going through a hard time, we can help.”
“I’m not going through anything,” he lied. “I just wanna tell you on my own terms.”
“Why should she know it first? I’m your mother.”
“I will tell you, mom; I just need to figure out how.” He shut the door.
“Okay,” he started, sitting across from the doctor again. “Here’s a good example: two days ago, I gave a speech that I thought my boyfriend would like, but he hated it. Then, I tried to surprise him, but I ended up hurting him. Then, I tried giving him a clean shirt to wear, but I just pissed him off. This whole time, we’ve been getting together to watch movies and I’ve just learned he hates doing that.” He threw his hands in the air. “I’m fucking pathetic!”
“Well, that’s a whole lot of unappreciated effort. You’re trying your best.”
“He hates everything I do. I need to get better.”
“Why?”
His hands grabbed each other. “Because maybe, if I do the things he likes, then he’ll stay with me—he’ll have to. If he has fun with me, he’ll want to stay.”
“Why do you think he doesn’t want to stay?”
He hesitated. “We talked about this just the other day. I told him I thought we were only together because I’d pressured him into it, but he said that wasn’t true. He said he wanted to do it, and here’s the thing—I believe him. I really do, but there’s this voice in the back of my mind that keeps second-guessing everything. Did he really mean it? Yes, of course, but like… did he? Sometimes, I feel like he doesn’t even like me, which is insane, because he does! He likes me a lot! He wants to talk to me and hang out! It’s just… so hard to believe that.”
“Do you think your friends and family like you?”
“That’s a different situation; they don’t really know me. They met me a long time ago, before I had a personality, and now that I have one, I don’t think they care to know what it is. They still think I’m that stale child from ten years ago.”
“What if they took the time to get to know you?”
He breathed in. “I don’t know. I don’t know if they’d like me at all.”
“Why not?”
“I’m just…” He shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s anything to like about me, is the thing. I don’t know what Laith sees in me. He probably just likes me because I’m a bully, I mean, that’s his type. He likes shitty people—maybe that’s what I am.”
“So all these elaborate plans you put together are to make people find something to like about you.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
She nodded. “What do you do when these plans fail?”
“I just try again.”
“And when that fails?”
He shrugged again. “I keep trying, I mean, I… have to get it right sometime.”
“How do you feel after a long list of failed attempts?”
“Like a fucking asshole.”
“How do you deal with that feeling?”
His hand ached. “I smoke weed a lot. I drink and party.”
“Do you maybe take those feelings out on yourself?”
“That’s what Laith does.”
“Do you do it too?”
His thumb squeezed the spot he’d bitten last week. “It’s only happened twice.”
“I’m sorry. It sounds like you’re under a lot of stress.”
“Yeah, I don’t like my major and I don’t know if I want the life my parents want me to have. I just…” He gestured vaguely. “I just want to be who they want me to be. I want to like business and accounting and working in an office and coming home to my wife and kids. I really wish I wanted all of these things but the more I think about them the more trapped I feel, like I’m drowning and… when I see my boyfriend, it’s like…” His mind went back to the lake. “—like he’s pulling me out of the water. I don’t know if it’ll always feel this way, but right now, spending time with him is an escape. I can just go to his apartment and pretend I’m somebody else for a few hours, who doesn’t have marketing classes the next day or parents who can’t know about any of this. We get high together and it feels… good, like I’m not in this world for a while, like I’ve disappeared. It’s nice. I—I can live his life, even if just for a couple of hours.”
“What do you like about his life?”
“The… independence, I guess. The truth; how sincere it is. He doesn’t have to hide parts of himself from other people; they know who he is and they don’t care. They like him anyway. He has friends who love him like family and a really great job that’s really important and—he’s doing stuff. He’s living his life not answering to anyone, just doing whatever he wants. I want that. I wanna be able to just explore on my own and figure out what’s best for me. I want to…” At a loss for words, a big breath left his lungs, dropping his shoulders. “I just want to have a life that I can live on my own terms.”
“Was he always free or did he fight for that freedom?”
He remembered something about Laith’s parents, how he’d secured a job and a place for himself before coming out. Ms. Intervention had done the same thing, with a lot more time in between. He didn’t know about the others, but the one person he knew for certain had been able to remain close to their parents was Hwan, whose life was just perfect, apparently; he had a nice place, a good-paying job, supporting parents and the ideal boyfriend. What didn’t he have?
Him. Theodore knew that shouldn’t be the first thing that came to mind, but for some reason, it kept going there. No, Hwan didn’t have him—because he didn’t want him. He didn’t need him. If Hwan were single, however… it would’ve been a whole different story.
“He fought for it. I think everyone has to. It’s just that… it feels like he doesn’t have to deal with half the shit I deal with. I know he thinks the same—we both feel like we have to deal with a lot more than the other one does, or at least, that we’d be able to deal with each other’s problems much easier than our own. I guess because they’re just that—somebody else’s problems.”
Her pen scribbled on the clipboard.
***
This conversation didn’t make him feel any better. While he told her about himself, she asked him questions and commented on his responses very vaguely, with things like that must’ve been tough and I can see how stressful that is. They walked in circles the whole time, achieving nothing. She didn’t show any judgment—actually, she showed no emotion at all, keeping her thoughts to herself. He had no idea how she felt about him.
When time was up, she put her pen away and gave him a smile. “Thank you for speaking to me today, Theodore.”
Feeling empty inside, he forced a smile. “Thank you for coming over.”
On her feet, she swung a bag over her shoulder, getting ready to leave. Her long, black hair flowed down with the movement, a curtain by her face, bangs side-swept just above her eyes. In her heels, she was a couple of inches taller than him.
“So… am I… clinically insane?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say that. You’re going through a very difficult moment in life, with a lot of big changes happening all at once—intense feelings are expected. You’re pretty normal for having them.”
“Shouldn’t I be on medication?”
“That’s not for me to decide. If you feel like you should, I can recommend someone you can talk to.”
“I thought you were that someone.”
“I’m only a therapist. Who you’re thinking of is a psychiatrist.”
Wasn’t Fred a therapist who prescribed Laith drugs? Huh.
“Oh.” Maybe the tunnels followed different rules. “Can I ask you something before you go?”
Her eyes found his face, curious.
“Why would my mom tell Tim about me?”
“Probably because you’re very important to her.”
That didn’t necessarily mean he was important in a good way. He might as well be her personal hell.
“Is he also a therapist?”
“Yes, he is.”
He nodded, unsure what to do with that information. Wasn’t therapy supposed to help people? This last hour hadn’t changed absolutely anything for him; his life was still the exact same it’d been before he’d met her. She’d leave and he’d still have to go to business classes next week.
“What are you telling my parents?”
“Nothing. What we talked about stays between us.” A hand clutched the strap of her bag, brown over the white of her shirt and the black of her skirt. She watched him quietly, dark eyes lighter than her hair. “Is that all?” she asked.
“Is it?”
She tilted her head. It was a vague motion, but he understood what it meant—yes, this was all. Even though he hadn’t been sure what to expect out of this, he still found himself disappointed. For some reason, he thought he’d come out a different person, or at least someone with fewer problems on their plate.
At a loss of what to do, he simply nodded.
“Well, if you have nothing else to say, then I’ll be going.” She turned around, keeping her eyes on him. “It’d be nice to see you next week. I’d like to know which steps you’ve been taking to untangle some of those threads.”
“How should I start?” he asked.
“Start with the easiest one.”
A brief smile pushed into her cheeks before she left, heels clacking across the hardwood floor. He watched her with a scowl—so she wasn’t here to tell him what to do. He thought she’d pinpoint everything that was wrong with him and make up a list of how to fix it all, but no—he was supposed to do that. He might’ve been thinking of a life coach, then. What could he change in a week’s time? If they were to see each other in the future, he wouldn’t want to tell her he’d done nothing to improve his situation. Laith had managed his and so would he.
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