I checked my phone an unnecessary amount of times to make sure I was in the right place. This whole street had fancy townhouses all the way down, on both sides. I looked up at the brick building in front of me and walked up the stairs to the front door. The only thing that determined that this was a psychologist's office was the little engraved sign above the doorbell: Alana Park, PhD.
In a dark moment, Anderly had asked me if I would come see one of the psychologists affiliated with her work, and I had accepted. I was honestly scared of where my brain would take me next if I didn't get more help.
~
It was a few nights earlier, after I had gone to the dispensary with Hex. We had all passed out in his king sized bed after stuffing our faces with Chinese food and watching 'the Magicians' on Netflix. Anderly was between Hex and I, just in case I started freaking out in my sleep. I told her to slap the shit out of me if it happened again, but she just laughed. I fell asleep easily for once, with the cannabis tincture melting under my tongue, but of course my mind wouldn't let me have even one night of peace.
I woke up to a dark room, the only light coming from Anderly's phone screen, illuminating us both in a sphere of brightness. My hand was on my face, on the old scar right above my eyebrow, and I trailed it down to feel wetness on my temples, tears, sliding silently into my hair as I laid on my back. I felt sad, but I couldn't remember why. Anderly was to my left, holding my other hand, whispering soothing words to me.
"It's okay, Cosmo. Shhh... You're here with me, it's just a bad dream."
I was confused, a little frightened. Did I have another night terror? Anderly seemed calm, if not troubled, and I could see Hex's back rising and falling behind her, thankfully asleep. I rolled over onto my side to face her. Her phone between us said it was 3:25 AM.
As soon as I locked eyes with her, the memory of my dream came rushing back, hitting me straight in the chest like a freight train, knocking the air from my lungs. I curled my legs towards my chest instinctively, my breath coming back in a pained gasp. I smashed my palms against my mouth, but a single sob got past my fingers as the dream played behind my eyes in a rush; too much information at once. Years of information.
Anderly was there, rubbing my arm and hushing me gently. I knew I had to shut up so I didn't wake Hex, so I just scooted closer to Anderly and buried my head under her chin like a child. She wrapped her arm around my back and squeezed me close, like I knew she would, holding me as I shook.
"I'm really messed up, Andy." I managed, after several minutes of deep breathing. "I'm so messed up."
"I know, Babe. I know." I was glad she didn't deny it. Her fingers swept up and down my curled back.
"-But you're trying to get healthy, right? You've come such a long way-"
"No, I haven't... I'm just- I'm just a crazy loser. I haven't accomplished anything."
"Yes. Yes you have, Cosmo. You've held on this whole time, hurting. Inside and out. Suffering... You've never given up, and I'm so fucking proud of you for that."
Hex had said almost the same exact thing to me the day before, in the car, but it still sounded like a lie. I couldn't make myself believe it. What strength was there in just being alive, but not living?
"Thanks for saving me." I said.
She chuckled quietly against my hair. "Hex saved you, I just stood there and freaked out-"
I pulled back and looked her in the eyes, interrupting her. "No, not that... I mean six years ago. You saved me too."
It took a second before recognition settled on her features and she smiled.
"Sweetheart," She moved a strand of my hair off of my face. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Her phone screen turned off, leaving us both in the dark. We didn't speak for a minute or two, and I wondered if she'd fallen asleep until she spoke quietly again.
"Hey Cosmo?" I felt her hands hold mine.
"Mm?" I had my eyes closed in the dark, and I yawned. I was tired, always so tired.
"If I got you some appointments with a really nice psych I know through work- Would you go?"
I thought about it for a second, even though I already knew it was a good idea. "Sure. I've been putting it off for too long, I guess."
"Thanks, Babe." I felt her pull the soft blankets up over us both. "Let's talk more in the morning, okay?"
"Yeah."
She didn't tell Hex about that night, and I never told either of them about that dream.
~
I took a deep breath that morphed into a yawn before I pushed the brass button. I was so damn tired, and I hated meeting new people by myself like this. I could hear the doorbell ringing inside the house, and then the door opened and a round smiling face greeted me. A stout woman with buzz-cut hair and piercing green eyes under strong brows.
"You must be Cosmo!" She said, holding her hand out.
"Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you." I shook her hand and faked a smile.
She motioned for me to enter and stepped aside as I did. The sitting room she directed us into had a fireplace with ceiling-high bookshelves set back into the dark blue walls on either side. There was a mahogany desk in the corner and shelves covered in random antique decorations and framed photos all over the place. It was nice, but I still felt a little trapped. I mapped an escape route in my head. I could take one of the little statues from the shelves and hurl it through the window-
"Come in, come in! Take a seat over here." Dr. Park's cheerful voice snapped me back into reality.
She sat down in a leather wingback chair and I cautiously did the same on a tufted dark green sofa across from her. A combination of anxiety and leg pain had me sitting up rigidly. I wanted to look everywhere but at her. While she shuffled through a few papers on the wood coffee table I scanned the hundreds of books filling the shelves next to the cold fireplace. Most of them were psychology books with words on the spines like 'personality', 'emotion', and 'behavior'. Ugh.
She crossed her legs and held a clipboard on her lap.
"So! I have the answers from the little questionnaire I sent you, and some of your records, but I don't know much about you besides that. Why don't you tell me about yourself so we can get to know each other?"
I cringed internally. "What do you want to know?"
She smiled softly. "Well, first off I'd like to know what's making you so tense? You have nothing to worry about here, this is a safe space."
I realized that my hands had been gripping the bottom of my shirt and twisting the fabric. I tried to relax my posture a bit, and put my hands loosely in my lap. Deep breaths. In. Out.
How fucking embarrassing. Quit acting like the boogeyman is gonna jump out and murder you.
"Ah- sorry." I said, realizing full well how pitiful I sounded.
"It's perfectly fine!" She said. "It can be nerve-wracking to meet someone new, especially by yourself."
Huh. That's exactly what I was thinking when I came in. I looked her in the eyes. She seemed kind, at least. Like maybe she wouldn't think I was too much of a freak, or at least wouldn't care.
"Yeah." I said. I felt stupid.
"So, Cosmo Wakeland." She read from her clipboard. "24, disabled, with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and nerve damage from a severe injury to your left shoulder."
I wanted to sink into the couch, humiliated. Why does everyone have to know so much about me? I didn't respond, so she continued.
"As for mental health, your records say you were diagnosed with major depressive disorder when you were nineteen, and persistent depressive disorder with major depressive episodes when you were twenty-one..." She trailed off a bit while she scanned a page with her finger. "You haven't been seeing a psychiatrist much since then, except for these last couple months since you were hospitalized."
I did not want to talk about that. I didn't even want her to know about it, but of course she did. I just nodded, looking at the worn out high-tops on my feet.
"Do you feel like Dr. Lawson has been helping you?"
I grimaced. "Not really, we don't talk much. He just likes to push drugs on me. It's kinda like he's throwing darts on a dartboard, hoping one will stick, you know? Nothing ever works for more than a month."
"I see." She smiled gently, not perturbed at all by my (most likely horrific) records.
I felt a little more at ease, even though hearing someone say all my problems out loud made me feel like a piece of shit. More so than usual. But Dr. Park didn't look bothered at all; she was affiliated with the CQA, and I realized the things she must hear from her other clients on a daily basis- a lot of them must be way worse than mine.
"Okay, Cosmo." She sighed, tossing the paperclipped stack of records onto the table, dismissing them. She actually looked at me like I was a human being, instead of a puzzle to be solved. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, interlacing her fingers loosely.
"Why don't you tell me your truth. What do you go through on a daily basis? What do you think about? What do you feel? If you're willing, I'd like to get to know you more than just through ink and paper and e-mails. Then I promise I'll do my very best to help you in any way I can."
I wouldn't let myself be hopeful, not yet, but I wouldn't lie to her. There was a monster made of lies behind me, following me and consuming my happiness, getting closer and closer to devouring me whole. It was so close now I could feel it breathing down my neck, and I was scared that I wouldn't be strong enough to fight it if it finally caught me. I needed help, more than I could allow my friends to sacrifice for me. I'd try to get better for them, since they loved me and saw something inside me that I was blind to. I wouldn't hurt them anymore.
The little box covered with chains and full of my secret suffering was overflowing, and it was leaking into my dreams.
So I took the hand Dr. Park had offered and for the first time ever, I opened the box.
~
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