“Not yet,” she says. “Hypnosis has been shown to aid with memory and can even put you back to another time in your life using a process called age regression. The brain is a pretty interesting thing.”
“So you’re going to hypnotize me to find out what I was feeling?” I ask.
She ignores the question. “So, tell me more about your relationship with Ash,” she says. “I’m assuming that’s short for Ashley or Ashton?”
“Ashley,” I answer. “She’s great. We get along really well, and we seem to get each other. Things haven’t been easy, but a lot’s been going on over the past few months. Apart from the thing with her mom, there’s really nothing I’d change about her.”
“Okay,” Dr. Sadler says. “When would you say was the last time when there wasn’t a lot going on—when things were more normal?”
“I don’t think things were ever normal,” I tell her.
“That’s why I used the modifier ‘more,’” she says. “When was the last time you really felt like yourself?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “I know it’s been a while.”
“That must be very difficult,” Dr. Sadler says.
I look at her. “It is what it is,” I tell her.
“And what it is must be very difficult,” she says.
“Look, I didn’t come in here to be judged, okay?” I ask, getting out of my seat yet again.
The doctor doesn’t move. She barely blinks. “Where did that come from?” she asks in a surprisingly soft tone.
“You’re sitting there trying to be empathetic or sympathetic or whatever it is that you shrinks do to get people to trust you, but you don’t have any more answers than the idiots they put me in a room with when I was a kid!” I shout.
She just sits there observing, watching.
“Look, this was a bad idea,” I tell her. “I told Ash that I’d come see someone, and now I have. I’m out of here.”
“All right,” Dr. Sadler says and turns to her desk. She picks up a file and starts leafing through it.
I haven’t moved from my spot in front of the leather chair that has been my seat for the last half hour or so.
“All right?” I ask. “You’re really something, you know that? I come in here asking for help and you don’t even care that I haven’t gotten it yet?”
She shrugs, but doesn’t look at me.
“Fine!” I declare and go for the door.
“If you’d ever like to turn the anger you’re feeling into a psychological breakthrough, you’re almost there already,” she says. “Come back when you’re ready to start taking this seriously and we’ll get you all fixed up.”
“Just like that?” I ask. “You
expect me to believe that you just figured out what’s going on, right when I’m threatening to walk out of here?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t expect you to believe anything, though for the record, I would just like to let you know that I pretty well knew what was going on the last time you threatened to leave. I’d love to help you—it is my job after all—but I made a rule a while back: When a person tries to leave the office more than once, just let them go. Nobody changes until they become willing to change. The reason so many people say they can’t change is that they’re not willing to do it. So, until you’re there, I’m just wasting my time and there are people in that room out there who’d love the extra time to delve into their psyches.”
“Reverse psychology,” I say. “That’s what you’re doing. You’re trying to convince me to stay by telling me you don’t care.”
Finally, she sets her file down and turns toward me, saying, “I wouldn’t rule that out completely, but everything I just told you is true. If you want to stay and finish the appointment, we can do that, but I’m going to have to insist that you be willing to listen, that you be willing to be open enough to hear what you’ve known for a long, long time.”
“Oh? And what’s that?” I ask, crossing my arms, smirking.
“You don’t think you deserve her,” Dr. Sadler says. “It’s not your fault. Your whole life has been all about you finding out just how limited your choices are. I get it,” she says. “I mean, if I were in a relationship with someone I really cared about after avoiding that sort of thing for so long, I’d probably be scared, too. Add fear to the anhedonia, and we’ve got two of the three emotions you were feeling that night.”
“Why three?” I ask. “Is there some part of the brain I don’t know about that makes sure you feel exactly three things at all times, or—”