I hate it. I hate all of it.
But most of all, I hate the psychotherapy my rehab doctor insists I do. Two sessions a week. Two hours where I sit across from the therapist, Amanda, and try not to roll my eyes too frequently.
It’s the middle of December now, usually my favorite time of the year. I walk into her office with the same objectives as always: say as little as possible and get out of there a few minutes early.
“Jacob, welcome,” she says with a wide smile. She smiles too much, Amanda. And she fiddles with her braids (she actually wearsbraids, like she’s a middle schooler) way too often. “Have a seat.”
I sit on the stupid, uncomfortable couch, and wait for her stupid, uncomfortable questions.
“How are you?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“I spoke with your physiotherapist,” she says. “He says you’re doing extremely well.”
“I can run for ten minutes,” I say flatly. “Hooray.”
She frowns. “You’re miles ahead of your projected recovery schedule.”
I shrug one shoulder and say nothing.
“Are you still in a lot of pain?”
“Not really.”
A little silence. “And how has it been living with your parents?”
I stare at her coldly. “You ask me the same questions every single time. Do you realize that?”
“Yes,” she says. “And I’ll keep asking them, until you answer me honestly.”
I let out a harsh breath. “What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.” Still in that calm, pleasant voice.
“The truth,” I repeat. My temper, always so close to the surface these days, is bubbling over. I let out a harsh breath. “My whole life’s been fucked up, how’s that for the truth.”
“How has your life been fucked up?”
“How hasn’t it been,” I snap. I should stop talking, but it’s been twelve weeks of this shit, and I’m so, so over it. “I was going to get into F1, do you even understand what that means? Do you understand how much effort that takes, how rare it is? Twenty people in the whole fucking world. Twenty people, out of seven fucking billion.” I shake my head roughly and look away from her.
“Why do you think that’s ruined?” she asks, in that stupid voice. “Your doctor anticipates you’ll make a full recovery—”
“In a year,” I snap. “Maybe two. In two years, I’ll be twenty-five, and there will be a hundred drivers younger than me who haven’t been fucked up in an accident.” I let out a cold, humorless laugh. “My career is over.”
“I see.” She nods in a slow, thoughtful way that makes me want to throttle her. “So what are you going to do instead?”
I shrug roughly. “I don’t know. My parents think I should apply to business school and go to work with my dad.”
“Is that what you want?”
I shrug again. A stupid question deserves a stupid answer.
She taps her pen against her clipboard. “Hm. And have you been dreaming about the crash at all?”
“No.”
“Because it’s quite common, after a major trauma—”
