“I take it you’re not too happy with your mandatory stay here?” He asked, scanning his badge and pressing the up arrow to call the elevator down to our floor.
“Would you be?”
He didn’t answer right away as we waited for the light above the elevator door to light up and start descending down to the second floor. Straightening my spine, I crossed my arms under my chest, feeling anxious with the idle waiting. Small talk wasn’t exactly my strong suit except for when I was at work, and my customer service voice and outwardly friendly personality worked overtime most days.
The elevator dinged once as the doors opened to an empty cabin, as he answered, “No, I don’t think I would be under the circumstances.” Daxton held out his hand, motioning for me to enter first. He hit the button for the fourth floor as he stepped in behind me.
“Exactly, it’s not exactly a vacation even if the food is amazing,” I said, making sure to keep my arms tucked tight. I never knew what to do with my hands when I was feeling uncomfortable. Letting them dangle at my sides always felt unnatural and forced,and I would usually end up picking at my nails or swinging them around just to let my body move, so I always settled for keeping my abdomen concealed behind them.
“Your case is definitely out of the ordinary from my perspective Miss Devlin —.”
“Rae.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s Rae. Miss Devlin was my mother. I prefer to go by Rae or Raelynn.” Given the fact that I despised my mother, even in death, I hated being addressed that way. The guilt I would feel later over correcting him, over asserting how I preferred to be addressed, would eat away at me in the dark hours of the night when I revisited this interaction. The memories always did, playing like broken records on repeat from simple interactions that caused my anxiety to skyrocket. I just hated being addressed that way. Since being admitted into the clinic, enough people had continued to keep the formalities, and I didn’t need another person added onto the list.
He smiled at me and made the correction without commenting on how rudely I had interrupted him.
“Rae, I’ve spent some time going over your case notes and can discuss my thoughts with you further once we reach my office, if you would be okay with that? I’m going to be blunt with you, if you can’t be honest with me in these sessions, we won't make much progress during your stay here. Prisoner or not,I am here to help you.” Daxton kept eye contact with me as he spoke, his dark eyes never once leaving mine, his voice hypnotizing. There was something about him that was just so comforting and welcoming.
“I have nothing to hide, Mr. Bradshaw,” I said, keeping my chin high as I spoke and my eyes locked with his. My height never caused me to back down before, and it wasn’t going to start being an issue now, even if he did tower over me, my head barely reaching his shoulders.
The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, letting us out. This time, I was left following him down the hallway to where I assumed his office must be located. He didn’t speak again until we were behind closed doors, whether from fear of someone overhearing or as a simple respect for my privacy as a patient, I wasn’t sure. In a place full of both innocents and monsters, the walls must have grown ears along the way, privy to the type of secrets that would make sophisticated women clutch their pearls and hide their children. No secret was safe in a prison meant not just to keep their captives, but to psychologically dissect them until only scraps remained.
Daxton scanned his badge to get into his office, just like he had for us to get onto the elevator. The security in the clinic was comparable to that of an actual prison. Only, instead of batons and tasers, the watchful staff were armed with prescription pads and the ability to pick apart your mind until it was nothing more than a deconstructed jigsaw puzzle.
He took a seat in one of the two armchairs that sat across from a tan couch. The furniture all looked well-worn. Maybe at one point in its early life, it would have been considered nice, but now it resembled something you might find at a thrift store. Not that I was complaining, I’m sure they were on a limited budget for office decor. Though the drab interior probably wasn’t the best way to combat depression. I laughed to myself at the thought of some poor suicidal soul deciding to throw in the towel due to the sheer dreariness of his choice of aesthetic. One window sat behind his desk, bars encasing it from the outside, an attempt to prevent anyone from breaking out of the fourth floor. In my opinion, if someone wanted to find a way to truly end their lives, the bars wouldn’t stop them; it would only force them to seek an alternate route.
Suicide wasn’t something I believed you could ever really prevent. If someone was set on dying, if their mind and their illness had convinced them beyond a doubt that the only way to end the suffering was to snuff their life out, then they would find a way. Similar to blowing out a candle on a birthday cake, they would find a way to extinguish the flame of their existence despite what anyone else believed. I know because I had been there once before. No one else could provide the will to live for me; the discovery was up to me to find it on my own.
Daxton crossed one of his insanely long legs over the other, picking up a notebook from the small table between the twoarmchairs and opening it to a blank page. I hesitantly took a seat on the corner of the couch, immediately grabbing one of the pillows and placing it in my lap.
“Are you not going to record our session?” I asked, indicating the notebook.
“I don’t record most of my sessions with patients here. I’ve found it can make them feel like they can’t speak freely when they’re with me. Some patients suffer from disorders that make them paranoid, so the more we can limit those thoughts, the better off they can be.”
“So how do you remember what we talk about?”
“I have an amazingly accurate memory, and I write in a short hand only I can read. Anything we discuss here is confidential, and I’ll only use the information you provide me with to simply understand you better and help give you the tools you need to help yourself.” He used a pen to make a note in his notebook, but from my seat, I couldn’t see what it was.
My eyes drifted around his office for a moment, trying to avoid eye contact with his dark chocolate ones. I knew the second I looked at him, I wouldn’t be able to look away from his near gravitational pull. Very little art hung on the walls, and only a few pieces of abstract art painted with neutral colors were used for decoration. No bright colors or tacky patterns were found on any of the pillows or furniture fabrics. The window was sparse; the therapists probably weren’t allowed to hang drapes in case apatient decided they wanted to hang themselves as part of the decor.
“I know,” I admitted, “I was in therapy once when I was a teenager.”
“Would you like to start there?” He asked, his deep voice gentle, a stark contrast to his physical appearance. Daxton looked like he would be more at home in a gym, or maybe on a construction crew, something more physically demanding than just sitting around listening to people talk about their problems all day.
“You’re the professional, you tell me where we should start.” I started scratching at my bandage again, from annoyance or because the healing skin was itchy, I couldn’t tell.
“Why don’t we start there then, and if something else comes up, we can certainly deviate from that point. There’s no right or wrong way to start.”
Nodding in agreement, I took a few steady breaths. Organizing my thoughts into anything coherent didn’t seem possible from my outlook. Inside my mind wasn’t a pretty place. Most of the time, the pressure in there took the form of a locked room, dark and undisturbed. Caging the entity I felt beneath my skin. The claws were the worst part. When the anxiety got to be too much, when it started to sink my stomach and rattle my bones, it felt as though claws were trying to dig out of that room, cracking through my skull. Pushing against them, putting all my effort into containingmy episodes and preventing them from breaking free, drained me.
“How old were you when you first started therapy?” He asked softly, still making notes but never once looking away from me.
“I was fourteen, I think, around that age.”
“Did your parents sign you up, or did you ask to go to therapy?”
