June

Dr.Grohm sat in his office, his hands folded and his knuckles against his lips. He stared at a note, small and tidy, the handwriting all too familiar to him. Don’t let lines blur. -Dearest. Dearest, she was rubbing it in. He leaned back in his seat, rolling a legs length away from his desk, and he stared out the tall eccentric windows. He pursed his lips and exhaled all that filled his lungs. 

Don’t let lines blur.

Dr.Grohm smiled as he opened the door to a rather emotionless Mr.Anderson. He watched as he trailed through his office, waltzing by the bookshelves as if this were his own office. Dr.Grohm sat down at his desk, with expectations that Mr.Anderson wouldn’t follow far after. “You’re quiet. Though it’s your hour.” He spoke with a soft smile, one that Mr.Anderson had grew to know, and possibly resent. “There must be much on your mind.” He stared at Mr.Anderson’s coat, now tossed over the back of the opposing seat, he was growing comfortable in this office, despite it’s appearance.

“There was another body.” His voice was flat with a spike of gruff anger towards the end. 

“Is there something different about this one?” His words fell like water against a dam. Each word he spoke he could see, he could watch flood over the edge. Whether it be the quick and fleeting moments of eye contact, or the way he would jerk his head to the side when a question hit particularly close.

Mr.Anderson’s brows furrowed and his nose scrunched ever so slightly. “What does, Jonquil, represent.” It wasn’t as much a question, as it was a statement, a demand. Dr.Grohm felt a smile yearning to inch it’s way further onto his already warm expression.

Having suddenly the remarks of his previous week, another imitation of venus and her many statues. Jonquil, a flower easily confused with Daffodils and Narcissus, only Jonquil were all yellow. He leaned back in his seat for a moment, he was quiet when he thought, his brows furrowed slightly, and under the stare of Mr.Anderson he felt it weigh. “I’m unsure.” It was a lie, one that was easy to look right through. 

“I find that hard to believe.” Mr.Anderson spoke rough through his teeth. It was hard to believe. When someone tells you that they don’t know something, but they can tell you everything else about that something, would you have believed them? Of course not.

In truth, the realization that Dr.Grohm didn’t want their relationship to be strictly professional had made a vast impact on his work. Not only in the flowers and flora he used to decorate the caverns of harvested organs, but in the quality of his work. He had hoped Mr.Anderson would see this and be able to admire it, but did he? 

“The language is vast, Michael.” He wouldn’t be so abrupt however. 

Mr.Anderson leaned his elbows against the edge of his desk, the space between them once again closing in distance. He watched with a warm expression, one he hoped Mr.Anderson found any sort of comfort in, he watched as he refused eye contact, but insisted on studying his every detail. “There’s something ulterior.”

“Ulterior? I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.” Dr.Grohm leaned back into his seat, his arms folding against his chest as he let out a deep and held in breath.

“Last week, why were you there.” His words dared to break through his barrier, they dared him to break down the dams.

“I have an extensive knowledge of anatomy, and flora. It was an obsession of mine one could presume.” How long would he continue this? Perhaps it would be easier, not only easier, but a little more fun to give him everything as it was. He was no child, no, he was something much more than even as simple as a ‘Man’.

“Aren’t psychologists supposed to be truthful with their patients? To gain their trust?” Dr.Grohm tilted his head as Mr.Anderson shifted his weight, his hands now firmly against the desk. The line coming so close to crossed, the distance became lacking between their professional relationship, and a personal one.

“Not necessarily. It entirely depends on the Psychologist. You just so happen to have a rather unorthodox Psychologist.” In more ways than one. His head fell forward, his eyes staring up at Mr.Anderson with raised brows. 

He wasn’t a child, he could handle the possibility that the world had made up it’s mind. It takes one to know one. How long would it take for his brilliant mind to close in on him? How long would it take before he was at the other end of his closed and bloodied fists? How long would it take before he lost his way and bloomed into the creature he keeps locked deep in his mind, tucked into the far corners?

“Hanes doesn’t think you to be fit, mentally, to be viewing these crimes alone.” Dr.Grohm pursed his lips for a moment before lifting his head and staring out one of the windows. “I wouldn’t disagree with him. Least not in this state.” He wasn’t going to give up the opportunity placed before him. To study and push at the thought, the thought that Mr.Anderson had something itching to surface.

His mind stirred and scratched with thoughts as he watched Mr.Anderson’s head lower and his hair, all rugged and curly, fell forward. How did it feel to have everything decided for him? What emotion did he feel rising through his chest? Was it anger? Defeat? Or was it something else entirely? How did it feel, to be forced through one path amongst thousands of others, how did it feel to be forced through life?

“How does that make you feel?” Dr.Grohm’s voice was gentle.

“How would you feel if your decisions were made for you.” Mr.Anderson once again spoke through his teeth in a hiss.

“Trapped.” Dr.Grohm said after a minute of silence. Mr.Anderson lifted his head and stared at his doctor, a mix of some kind of anger and surprise, surprise he actually answered. “Everything has been made up for you, no room to make your own choices, no room to run. You’re caged like an animal.”

The two sat and stood there, staring at one another. Both gazes prying and digging at one another in hopes to figure out what the other was thinking, what they were feeling. What was he feeling?