MORE DAYS of doing schoolwork and homework and hanging out with Emmett have passed, and I find myself once again seated in the office of Jordan, my therapist. I’ve only been there a few minutes. I wait in the reception area while my mom sits in his office and talks about everything that I have done, from her perspective, in the past week. It’s nothing besides working, food, Darwin-esque adaptation, and more hanging out with Emmett. He practically lives at our house. In a few more minutes, I’ll go in and Jordan, my therapist, will listen as I retell everything my mom has just told him, but from my point of view. Then we’ll go over the red journal tucked between my side and the arm of the chair, my mom will come back in, and we’ll all three of us talk about things before being dismissed to go home to whatever dinner we’re cooking.
It’s an established system, albeit kind of a dull and monotonous one. I relieve the waiting room boredom by reading whatever book I most recently downloaded into my phone while my mom observed my Internet usage.
The earthman is putting a fish in his ear while his alien friend tries to keep them alive and out of the void of space when my mom walks out and motions me in. I place an electronic bookmark and saunter into the office with the red journal clutched to my side.
Jordan, my therapist, points out to me ten minutes in that I’ve developed a habit in these past meetings of running my fingers over my scars while I talk. Of course he would notice something like that; the professionally dressed man is trained to. I’m surprised that I haven’t. I nod thoughtfully before realizing my fingers are on the biggest scar on my wrist, and I put my arms on the armrests of the black leather chair.
“I think I have a bad habit of naturally diverting everything to myself,” I blurt, interrupting whatever Jordan, my therapist, is saying and further proving my point, now unable to contain my thoughts in a rational fashion. Now he leans forward, intrigued.
“And why do you feel this way, Carter?” His deep voice is reassuring, and I find myself calming down at the same time I realize I’m panicking. So I tell him an abridged version of the bitch encounter, and basically point out how right she is, even though it hurts to admit it, while also talking about how I realized with Emmett that I always talk about myself and that I don’t really know much about him. I start to sniffle the smallest amount. Emmett puts up with so much bullshit of mine, and I never know anything about him other than his ex-boyfriends and fleeting crushes.
Jordan, my therapist, does not say anything while I’m talking, kindly letting me finish. He nods a few times, and makes affirmative noises in his throat, and when I’m done, he leans back and talks for a few minutes, while I stare at the wall and play my fingers up and down the scars on my wrist, listening intently. I tell him it is a case of textbook narcissism, and he nods, saying a little about the power of celebrity being strong no matter how small of one you are.
But now, I can try to change that. Despite all the therapy and the mostly gone depression, I haven’t felt much like talking the past months, and I still don’t. It feels like I’ve lost the power I used to command over words; they seem weightless, and I don’t see why I should waste energy expending them. Maybe I can use that feeling to listen to others before vomiting my opinions all over them. Who knows? My opinion may not be the right one after all.
With my remaining fifteen minutes, we talk about the future. It’s really quite a daunting place. I don’t know where I’ll be going anymore. Before the accident, I assumed that I would keep writing poetry and make a living off of it. But the writing industry is a fickle business, and nothing is guaranteed. Well, in life nothing is guaranteed either. Now, dealing with the absence of poetry in my life, I need to explore other careers. Jordan, my therapist, says to me that he finds it imperative that I look into my options. I have published poems and had fairly decent grades; I ought to be able to get into a good school, he thinks. I find myself nodding in agreement, tuning out the slightest bit when school becomes the primary focus of conversation. I forget the conversation immediately after we finish it.
I understand his point, because if I’m done writing poetry, I need to be able to do something with my life. My biggest problem is that I spent the last fourteen years of my life ensconced in the world of poetry. My mother introduced me to it when I was three. Poetry shaped my childhood. It’s kind of a challenge to break free, even now. I still think about it every day, despite my inability to produce one.