“Can
we just do this already?”
Dr. Cook looked over at her. He
raised an eyebrow. Asta thought it looked like he’d just noticed that she was
still there.
“Yeah,” Bren said, “I have something
I’m looking for. If we could hurry this along…”
They walked the block back to Dr.
Cook’s office in relative silence. His was located on a row of townhouses that
faced a row of shops.
The other people on the street had begun to
lessen in their numbers, but had also begun to become more stationary. There
were kids, especially, in circles of five and eight, who chattered amongst
themselves. Asta recognized most of them, and wondered if they recognized her.
“It’s right here,” Dr. Cook said,
indicating one of the townhouses with his hand, “We’ll step inside to the
living room where it is quieter. And perhaps,” he said, chuckled, “A place with
less psychic commotion.”
It’s
not like that, Asta thought.
A quick recap might be in order.
Earlier that afternoon, her father had moved the bookcase that had kept her
pinned inside of her room, and had come inside with Asta’s mother to tell her
that they had already called Dr. Cook and told him about the previous night.
They said he’d insisted to see her immediately. Asta had been resigned at this
point and had said that she wanted to shower before they left.
Once she had showered, and brushed
her teeth, she decided on a whim to apply the barest hint of make-up. She
didn’t usually; something about the day seemed to indicate it was necessary.
This was a big appointment, she thought, maybe
today is the day I’ll be able to prove that I have something that isn’t
schizophrenia. Something… magical, instead.
She’d chosen her favorite sweatshirt
too; a white one that was tight, but loose enough to remain comfortable. It had
a faded, faint, picture of an eye on it; an eye that had a bright blue pupil.
She’d always thought it was a cool, simple, emblem. Her parents had never
explained where it’d come from; it’d just turned up in Asta’s closet and had
proven to be the best of the bunch.
When she’d finally arrived at Dr.
Cook’s office, her confidence seemed to have vanished. Dr. Cook was somewhere
between fifty and sixty and treated her as a misguided youth. He’d insisted for
years that her connections with people weren’t hallucinations brought on by schizophrenia,
but delusions from some a type one Bipolar disorder. Eventually he’d shifted
his opinion, perhaps to suit Asta’s parents. But he’d never stopped treating
her like she was a child.
Asta didn’t realize that people
didn’t stop treating children like children until around their sixteenth or
twentieth birthdays, depending on the child. Fourteen is almost always an age
that is treated as childlike. Asta did not know any better.
The first thing Dr. Cook had done
was tell Asta’s parents to go home, that this would be a longer session than
usual. He had Asta explain the trip through the forest and had then told her,
step by step, how each part could have been a hallucination. She explained,
then, how she always had trouble because of Rob’s tendencies towards suicide.
Dr. Cook said that if she was so
sure he was suicidal, why didn’t she report it?
Asta told him the following, “I
don’t know his name for sure. I only know his face. Kind of. I saw him once at
a musical, and his friend had started telling me I was pretty before he said
‘She’s way too young for you’ or something. And ever since then I’ve known
about him. I’m not even sure his name is Rob.”
Dr. Cook asked if her connection was
enough that she could know where he was at all times.
No comments:
Post a Comment