CHAPTER 7
I have class that morning, and I go to it, but I don’t really listen. It’s a class on developmental psychology or some shit. Some class that I was supposed to take a semester or two ago, but forgot to, so now I’m stuck in here with a bunch of sophomores. I end up making enough squiggly lines to take up the entire paper, and then it bleeds through onto another one, and another one, so I rip all three out in the middle of class, and everyone around me stares.
There’s this cute girl in class sitting in front of me, who I actually talk to when we got out. I ask her what she thought about what the professor was saying, and she said she wasn’t really listening, and laughs. I told her I was doing the same. We get coffee afterwards. Her dad is on the board of executives at some place that funds the school, so she said she doesn’t really have to pay attention in class, or even go to class for that matter. Her dad told her not to worry about it, and that whatever she wanted to get a degree in, that she would get it in four years. I tell her it sounds like she might be in the mafia. She gives me her number on a piece of notebook paper, with her name at the top, and the letter “I” dotted with a heart. I stuff it in my pocket and think about maybe calling her later this week. If I feel like it.
I go to see my therapist every Monday at one, and I always show up late. Except for today, when I think it would be good to see him after yesterday’s blowout. My grandparents made me go to him after my parents died, because they thought I’d need someone to talk to about it. He’s an asshole. He used to tell me that my parents were supposed to die, and that I had no reason to be sad about it. That everyone dies, and that eventually, one day, I’ll die too. As a ten year old, that didn’t help worth a shit.
“Here early today. This is a first.” He opens the door to his office and I sit down on the chair across from him.
His chair is taller than mine by at least half a foot, and he knows this. I asked him why he did it once, and he said he didn’t notice. I told him if he wanted to keep patients, he should probably cut the legs off.
“Yeah, I haven’t been having the greatest week.”
“Why’s that?” He says.
“I don’t know. I went on a date, and then I went to a party, and then I went on a second date, and I don’t know. It didn’t go well.”
“Well, all weeks can’t be as great as the last one.”
“See, you keep saying that and it doesn’t help me at all.”
“But it’s true. If I was to say, today wasn’t as great as yesterday and then so on and so forth, I would never have a good day.” I start rubbing my eyes with my fingers.
“That’s like saying at least I’m not a starving kid in Africa. I’m not, but it doesn’t help my problem. If I just got all of my limbs cut off but one, and you say there are people out there with no limbs, then that just makes me want to punch you in the gut.”
“See, you’re resorting to violence. What’s gotten into you lately? You never used to be a violent kid. When you came in and told me you had beaten up that kid at school, I didn’t believe you. But now, the way you’ve been talking, I’m starting to see a trend.”
The instance he’s referring to is when this kid cut in front of me at the movies, and I told him no cuts, and he told me to go fuck myself. So I punched him in the back of the head. Patrick was there, and he said he thought the kid probably deserved it. If not for cutting, then for something else he probably did. I ended up apologizing to the kid a week later, and he still told me to go fuck myself.
“I’m not resorting to violence. I’m just getting fed up listening to you babble on, week after week about how I should be happy and how I should be okay. And I would be happy and I would be okay if I didn’t have to come here every week and hear you tell me that I should be. If it was up to me, I would’ve stopped coming here after the first visit.”
“You were ten years old. Your parents had just died. You had post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s why we put you on the Zoloft.”
“I know, and you know what? That just made me feel numb. You shouldn’t put a ten year old kid on 150mg of Zoloft. How the they gave you a license to practice therapy is beyond me.”
“There you go again. Tapping into your anger.”
“There you go again, telling me what I already know.”
“Your grandparents just want what’s best for you. They continue to pay me for these visits. Now, whether or not you show up for them is up to you. There have been weeks where you didn’t show up, and then would come back in and sit down and pretend like it never happened.”
“My grandparents are in an old folk’s home. They both have dementia, you dumb piece of shit. When I go to visit them, they don’t remember who I am. I’m pretty sure they don’t remember who the fuck you are. So all you’re doing is stealing money from people who don’t know where it’s going.”
“I think it would be for the best if you came back next week after you’ve calmed down a bit and take a Xanax. You’re angry, and you’re saying things you don’t mean.” I’m standing up now, on the verge of punching him, but I hold my hand down.
“I mean everything I’m saying right now. I’ve said it all before. I don’t like coming here. It does me no good. You’re a shit doctor, and I’m surprised you have patients that actually pay you to talk to them. You’ve never made me feel better about what happened. You never told me it was going to be okay. You just sat there and talked to me like I was ready to handle all of that shit. Like I was a grown up. You don’t tell a ten year old that people die and that they need to get over it. That’s fucked up. I wish you would get into a car accident with that same asshole who cut in line.” He reaches for the phone.
“That’s it. I’m calling the police.”
“I’m out of here. I’m going to cut off any payments you get from my grandparents. If you get one more dime from them, I’m going to come here and beat the living shit out of you, do you understand?” He’s trembling a little, but he’s trying to talk to the police.
I leave the office, and slam the door behind me, and I think I hear the handle break off. The secretary tries to stop me and ask me what’s wrong, but I don’t answer. When she asks a second time I walk out of the waiting room, where a bunch of kids are sitting, petrified.
I drive around town, angry. The veins in my forehead are popping out, and I’m trying my best to breathe. I call Ashley, and she doesn’t pick up. So I leave a voicemail apologizing for last night. I try my best to sound sad, or like I was actually sorry, but I’m still angry from the therapy visit so I just say fuck it and hang up the phone. Then I call my friend Rebecca, but she’s getting lunch with some guy, so I hang up and go back to driving angry. I shouldn’t be angry. I don’t know why I got so angry at the guy on the pier last night. I can’t explain it. Maybe it was because Ashley had grabbed onto my arm the way she did, like she was afraid, so I felt like I had to protect her. I keep telling myself that, but it’s not sticking. It doesn’t sound like me.