I hated her stupid questions. I hated the stupid shit she made me think about. I couldn’t stand that she expected me to give her all of this information about myself, but more than that, I hated that I knew I would eventually give up the information. As much as I wished I could say the opposite, I knew that my time with her was helping, at least a little bit.
“I don’t know,” I answered again in a whisper. I slid my hand into the pocket of my jeans and grasped Elliott’s green rock.
“Less than ten?”
“I don’t know.” I thought for a moment, wondering if I could give an accurate and honest answer to the question. If I counted them up and told her, would she tell Elliott that I was a slut? How would he react if someone he trusted like Wallace told him that I was a big whore who banged more people in three years than most people did in their lifetime?
“More than ten?”
Quite possibly. “Maybe.”
I was thankful that she hadn’t gotten up or asked me to sit back down. I was happy to have space away from her, to not have her heavy eyes trapping me in that chair.
“If you added into that the number of men who had taken away your choice, would the number increase only by one?”
I hated her.
“I know what you’re trying to do and I’m not going to say what you want me to say. If you tell Tom anything about what you think you know, I’ll …” What would I do? Like anyone would listen to me.
“Why is it hard for you to admit what happened?”
I wasn’t sure which thing she was referring to, but since she’d been asking me lately about what happened at Cierra’s party, I figured that was it. “I admit that Anderson’s disgusting dick was in me, okay?”
“Did you consent to that?”
I whipped around and shot her an icy glare. “You should shut the fuck up, you pushy-ass bitch.”
“Does it make you feel better to call people names?”
“Does it make you feel good to drill people for their personal information?”
She sat back and wrote a few things down. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Yeah,” I spat at her. “Out of the goodness of your heart you’re asking me about how many guys have stuck their dick in me. Yeah, I believe that. You get paid to ask me sick questions. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you actually get paid to do this or that you do it at all. Do you and Dr. Dalton act this shit out for kicks or …”
“I don’t charge your father anything. Tom’s a good man. He does a lot for the people around him. He’s done a lot for my family, so when he asked for help, I agreed.”
I closed my mouth and turned around again.
“One day you’ll see that your father’s not a bad man. People can do nice things for other people without wanting anything in return. I’d appreciate it if you would stop making obviously false statements and get facts correct before speaking. It’s great to assume things, Sophie, but do you see how when you do, you actually come off looking quite juvenile and imprudent?”
“Shut the hell up and save your big words for your pillow talk.”
“Sit down, Sophie.”
I turned around, crossing my arms over my chest, and cocked an eyebrow. I was not about to sit down now that she told me to.
“If you prefer to stand, that’s fine, but you need to listen because I’m only telling you this one time. Your anger is justified and I’ll do everything I can to help you deal with it. I will not, however, let you treat me like dirt just because you feel like dirt. Don’t refer to my relationship with Dr. Dalton in any manner that is crass or disrespectful. Don’t assume that everyone in the world enjoys sexual objectification. Don’t think that I’m here with you because I’m obligated to be here. I have something you need, so sit down and be grateful.”
I huffed. “You don’t have anything I need.”
“Don’t I?”
I hated this stupid bitch more than I hated anyone in the fucking world right now. “What is it that I need?” I asked tightly.
“You need someone to help you navigate through those emotions and feelings that are weighing you down. You need someone to help desensitize you to all of those memories you wish you didn’t have. You need someone to …”
“It doesn’t have to be you,” I cut her off.
She placed the notebook and her ball point pen down on the table next to her and leveled me with her eyes. “You’re right. It doesn’t have to be me. I haven’t wanted to introduce you to some of my less caring, burnt-out colleagues who work for the state. I could if you’d like. How do you think someone in a state-funded hospital or juvenile detention center would respond to your attitude?”
I had nothing to say. I didn’t want to meet any other therapist, especially someone who hated their job. It took me a long moment to work up the nerve to do it, but I looked at the floor and spoke the word that hurt.
“Sorry.”
“Accepted, now please sit down.”
I didn’t know how I was feeling after my session with Wallace. After I sat back down, she went on and on about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and basically described the symptoms as everything I was going through. I didn’t know how she knew about my flashbacks, but she did. I didn’t know how she knew about all of the random things that set them off, but she did. She said that many people start recovering memories of the past, sometimes good, but usually bad, when they kick drugs. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about.
It left me feeling … sick and dysfunctional, angry and upset, sad and wounded. But yet, I had this tiny bead of hope that bubbled inside of me. There was a name for what was happening to me and the way she described it made sense. I felt so out of control. Who I was here wasn’t who I was in Tampa and I hadn’t been the one who changed it.
Knowing that she thought I had PTSD gave me a sense that maybe she could make me better. Other people with the same disorder got better. I could get better.
I could be better for Elliott and not make him sad or upset all the time. I could be better for all of my peripheral friends, like Andrea and Jane, and be more a part of their lives, maybe even give a shit about what was happening with them. I could be better for Tom and be the daughter he wanted to have.
It was with all of these emotions and thoughts that I settled in next to Elliott on the couch, waiting for group to start. I was about as physically close to him as humanly possible without sitting on his lap or alerting everyone in the room that I had an aching need to be attached to him.
Wallace started the session and I paid as much attention as I could. When she asked me to talk to the group, I picked something relatively easy, which was my lack of interest in school as of late. Everyone supplied what they thought were helpful suggestions in order to get my head back into it.
I hated talking in front of the group, but at least it wasn’t about anything that deep.
Jason spoke about his little sister, who apparently called home from somewhere in Pittsburg. He said that he tried to get her to come home or tell him where she was so that he could go get her, but she wouldn’t.
I tried not to look at him. It made me feel sad that he was upset and I couldn’t really help him. I was afraid that if I showed too much concern, he’d take it wrong and then I’d be forced yet again to tell him that I would never be his girlfriend.
Like always, I was thankful when group was over and I could be alone with Elliott. We sat on his bed together, our legs touching as I picked at his beautiful hands.
“D-do you wwwwwant to be a m-m-mmmmom?”
His question caught me off-guard all the same. I’d never specifically thought about it, but my general feeling about mothers wasn’t kind or wanting.
“No. I screw up my own life just fine. I don’t need some tiny parasite to mess up too.” I looked at him. Hi
s eyes were cast down and he was looking at our connected hands. His thumb moved to stroke mine and I smiled at the sensation. “Do you want to be a dad?”
He didn’t hesitate. “No.”
I nodded and then moved closer to him until my head was against his chest, my arm wrapped around his torso. “Yeah. The world will be a better place if I don’t breed, you know?”
His body vibrated and I looked up. I could just barely see his head shake back and forth. “You wwwwould be a good m-m-mmmmom, Sophie.”
“Are you high?”
He let out a breath that was laced with a chuckle. “You t-take care of p-people. You …”
I cut him off before he could say anything more that was obviously wrong. “I would be a bad mother. I would hate my kids without meaning to. I would be a bad example for them and I have no idea how to give kids what they need. Beyond that, I don’t want kids. They need things. They want things and more than that, the responsibility for not fucking them up is too much for me. I mean, look at our parents.”
I laid my head back down on his chest. “Yeah,” he whispered.
I was tired of all of the heaviness. I wanted to just have fun with my boyfriend. Yes, his father beat him. Yes, my mother beat me. His mother blew her brains out in front of him and someone had hurt him like Helen’s boyfriend hurt me. I knew that, but I wanted to be normal with him. I wanted to just have fun with him.
But I didn’t know how to do that.
“Let’s do something tomorrow.” I had the whole day off.
“W-w-what do you wwwwwant to do?”
“I don’t know, something fun. What’s fun?”
He shrugged. “I-I-I’m not vvvery fun, Sophie.”
I smiled. I wasn’t very fun either, but I loved when he said my name. “Say it again.”
I loved that he knew what I was talking about immediately. “Sophie.”
I let my eyes slip closed and listened to his heart beat for a moment. “What does everyone else do for fun?”
“Gggggo to movies or the m-m-mmmall.”
“I hate shopping and apart from Russian movies that no one wants to see, I doubt you’ll feel very comfortable in a theater.” I tried to think of something, but nothing came to mind except watching a movie here. We’d been talking about a Lord of the Rings marathon. “Do you want to hang out here?”
“N-no.”
“Okay, Tom’s house?”
“W-w-we should gggo somewhere. Somewhere wwwwithout a lllllot of people.”
“It’ll be cold and damp.” I was tired of this weather. There wasn’t much about Tampa I missed, except for the heat. We just needed to get away. I didn’t want to sit around doing nothing like always. There was way too much stuff to think about when we just sat around.
“I know!” I said, sitting up and smiling at him. “Let’s just drive and see where the road takes us. We don’t have to go anywhere in particular, we can just go.”
It surprised me, but Elliott agreed. After an hour and a half in the car on Saturday, we were at Sandy Point Beach in Annapolis. Although they charged us three dollars to park, it was still better than the fourteen dollars they would’ve charged us if we were here at night. There was some kind of holiday light show that people came from all around to see. No one was on the beach now though, and while the sun shining through the clouds made the Chesapeake Bay incredibly beautiful, the chill in the air seemed to have kept everyone inside.
We sat in his car and stared out, watching the small white-capped waves crash to shore. It wasn’t the Gulf, but I was at least a little happy to be close to the water again. It was a little past noon and we were hungry, so I took out the crappy sandwiches I’d packed. As we ate them, Elliott’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen but did not answer it.
A minute later, it rang again.
“Ssssssorry.”
I shifted in my seat to look at him rather than the Bay. “Who is it?”
“SSS-SSSStephen.”
“Don’t you have to answer it?” He always answered his phone when it was his adopted father.
“I don’t wwwwant to.”
I watched as he held down the red button that would make the phone shut the hell up. The phone sang for a minute and then went dark. “What’s wrong?”
“Hhhhe’ll t-tell me to c-come hhhhome.”
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was disobeying some rule, but Elliott didn’t disobey rules, he stuck to them and felt sheltered by them.
“Does he know where you are?”
He shook his head.
“Did you tell him you were going out?”
Again he shook his head.
“Don’t get in trouble for me. We’ve been over this. You’re the good one and I’m …”
He wouldn’t let me finish. “I’ll gggget in trouble fffffor m-me. I’m almost eighteen. I can ggggo where I want to gggo.”
His voice was defensive, as if he felt like he needed to explain himself. I hoped he knew that whatever he did was perfect by me. They treated him like a child. They treated him as if he had some kind of mental challenge that left him too impaired to make decisions for himself. It wasn’t fair, and although I didn’t want him to get into trouble, I would support his rebellion.
I liked rebels.
I tossed the empty bag that had contained my sandwich onto the dash, wiped my hands on my jeans and then threaded my fingers through his hair. “Rule-breaking is sexy.”
Although he shook his head, he smiled.
“You llllook t-tired.”
“I’m always tired.”
“You d-don’t ssssleep at n-night.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “No.”
“Why?”
I smiled but knew he already knew why. “Sleeping’s for babies and old people.”
“You ssssleep w-with me.”
If that had come from anyone else, it could have been interpreted an entirely different way. “That’s because I’m safe with you,” I admitted, knowing that it gave him power, but understanding that he needed a little bit of it.
Elliott was always great when I admitted stuff like that to him. He didn’t need to dwell on that shit. It was like he knew it would be uncomfortable to address it further.
“D-do you need to take your b-blood sssugar?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I’ll take it in an hour or so. You can’t get a good reading right after you eat.”
“It llllllooks c-c-cold out there.”
I smiled at his randomness. “It is winter.” We had driven all this way and I didn’t want to just sit in the car, so I grabbed my gloves off the dash and tugged them on. “Come on.”
“W-w-what?”
“Let’s go swimming.”
He looked at me as if I was crazy. “A-a-a-a-ah …”
I laughed and shook my head at his incredulity. “It was a joke, but I do think we should go do something on the beach. It’s beautiful out.” I pulled on my hat, popped open the car door, and I waited until he opened his door before I got out.
I met him between the headlights and I could tell that he was cold. Hell, I was cold too. He’d lived in Chicago, so I was sure he was well-versed in cold. We looked out at the Bay. It was amazing and beautiful. Beaches were awesome in the winter.
Quickly, I turned around and slapped his shoulder lightly. “Tag. You’re it.”
His eyes flitted around my face and slowly a smile spread on his. He moved his arm, his hand closing in on my elbow, but I jumped back. “Nope. I’m not that easy. You have to work for it,” I called behind me as I turned and ran down toward the water, knowing what a joke my words were.
I had no intentions of swimming or even getting wet, but I wanted to see the water up close
. I wanted to feel the gentle mist coat me. I glanced behind me and saw him running after me.
I had only played tag a few times at recess when I was a kid. I remembered it being incredibly fun. This was fun, but in all honesty, I wanted Elliott to catch me. I didn’t want to run from him, because I knew that I wasn’t difficult to get and I would never make him work hard. Besides, why would I want to run away from him?
I slowed and he caught up, his hands moving to my biceps and holding me loosely. “Y-y-you’re it.” He brought me to him, hugging me tightly for just a moment before running away.
We forgot about the game once I tagged him again and yelled, “No tag-backs!”
We ran until I was exhausted. I hadn’t exercised in a really long time and the workout felt great. My lungs felt like they were expelling all of the shit I’d put into them. My legs burned as my heart raced.
I wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but somehow I tripped and when he reached down to help me up, I pulled him down with me. Damp sand covered the knees of his jeans and the right side of his coat.
I watched him, fascinated, as he looked at it with a crinkled nose and a stitched brow. I’d noticed his aversion to all things dirty. The only exception was when he was messing around with the brussels sprouts we grew for Horticulture.
He shifted around and tried to push the sand off his coat and pants, but it just got stuck on his gloves. He removed them and swung them at the offending sand until I took his hands in mine. “It’s just sand. There’s nothing wrong with it. Just pretend it’s potting soil and we’re repotting plants.”
He sighed and tried to pull his hands out of mine when I brought them down to the sand between us. “Just feel it. It’s not bad.”
“I-I-I d-don’t wwwwwant to. It’s d-d-dirty.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dirty.” I wondered if he knew, really fucking knew how dirty I was, if he’d have an aversion to me, too.
“You look like you’re going to puke. I’ve seen you touch dirt. How can you plant brussels sprouts but be so terrified of sand?”
He looked as though he might actually cry, but I was happy when he didn’t. “That ssssoil is c-contained. Kate … Kate hhhhelped me understand that potting ssssoil could be w-washed off.”
N K Smith - [Old Wounds 03] Page 16
