Sunshine
Chapter seventeen
“You look terrible.”
“Gee, thanks Doc,” I snap back.
Fuck him. I’ve received better therapy from a liquor bottle nutritional label than this shithead has ever given me. He pisses me off, takes Daddy’s money, and I’m back within a week trying to find another remedy.
Talking, pills, group therapy—I refuse—hobbies, long walks off of short piers, anything other than chopping my fucking head off.
The second I see Daddy I’m squealing, telling him everything about this sack of shit—if I remember to. He deserves to know where his money is going, because it sure as fuck isn’t helping me any.
I hate using his name as some magic wand to fix things, but it works. Being a Patton heir has weight in the northern states; this blockhead may not realize how much power being my father’s daughter wields, but he’s one more therapy session away from finding out.
Then again, both of my parents being felons and violent is sure to put a fire under his ass.
Could you imagine my parents showing up to an appointment when Mom’s known as a man-killer and Dad survived torture without going insane?
Mr. Kensington would be sitting on a family gold mine of psychosis, but you know damn well we’d put him in a jar somewhere dark to shake like a glowstick anytime we get bored.
“Wasn’t a compliment.”
“I suggest practicing sarcasm; would save you the embarrassment of looking like an idiot.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Sadie. I expect more from you.”
“That’s the good thing about growing up as the family disappointment—it doesn’t faze you when inconsequential people are also displeased. Am I here for you to beat me down or are you going to fix my meds? If you’re not, I’ll leave and save us both the trouble of dealing with you.”
The asshole has the audacity to carefully call me stupid, then think his expectations are what I strive for? Sad day for you, Doc.
“You know the deal—we talk and I adjust if needed. Tell me how you’ve fared since we last altered them.”
Perfectly, Doc. I’ve been having the time of my life. Feel like a new woman with more ahead of me than I ever could have dreamed of. Not.
“I ran out of medication almost two weeks ago because I’ve been doubling up. They’re not strong enough to prevent me from spiraling. So, up the goddamn dose. This kumbaya nonsense is unnecessary and jeopardizes my progress.”
“What do you mean, spiraling?” he deadpans.
What progress—that’s what he’s not saying as he ignores the rest of what I’ve said.
My eyes cut to him, barely emerging from the shadow of my hoodie.
It’s turned into a security blanket, the only thing capable of helping me disappear amongst people.
Any other time there’s a billboard hanging over my head with ‘crazy’ lit up in neon red, alerting everyone to the insane person too close for comfort.
When I turn to snap at them, show them exactly how fucking unhinged I can be, they’re gone. They ran away—cowards. Always looking, staring, but the moment confrontation comes, they’re nowhere to be found.
“Exactly how it sounds, do you not understand English?” Practically snarling at him.
Kate has a hold of my puppet strings today. We’re both poised, weaponized, and ready to launch—gnaw his Adams apple straight through the flesh and crush it between our molars.
“Hardly. Explain.”
Calm down, child. Tell the man what he wants to hear.
Exactly, girl. The longer you stall, the longer we have to sit here.
Gritting my teeth, the enamel threatens to crack under the force. Instead of answering, I glare at him with as much contempt as humanly possible—hope his skin packs up and rips away from his muscles before high-tailing it.
What’s another painfully long session of sitting on this stuffy couch, listening to the faint whine of what I’m sure is elevator music coming from his desk—an attempt to keep me calm.
It’s not working. In fact, it’s pissing me off because I can’t concentrate on anything other than the annoying whimpers of some acoustic jazz puke.
Liz is sitting on the armrest of his chair, coiling a lock of overly gelled hair around one of her refined fingers.
She’s dressed to impress today in a gown that hugs her upper frame while maintaining her noble modesty—whore.
Far behind him, to the left, sits a bookshelf Kate scales like she’s fucking Spiderman, pulling books out of their place as if they hold the secret of life.
She holds them by a few pages and shakes until the pale paper rips and the book hits the floor—I jerk at the sound.
Outside of my head, they give me a slight reprieve while standing in the flesh, but it’s just as hard to look at them as it is to listen to their voices. At least from there, they can’t control me. The tendrils tying to one another are long and weakened when they’re not burrowing into my body.
Holding my legs tight to my chest, my dirty boot heels dig into the cushion under me.
I’m trying to keep still; anxiety and frayed nerves have me wanting to bounce them all over the place.
It’s the only way I can burn off the pent-up energy swirling around like whirlpools that swallowed whole ships.
I haven’t been able to sleep since Elias left days ago—assigned to another case. Part of me has come to hate when he leaves, and when he gives other people the attention I secretly crave from him. They’re unworthy, more than I am—paying for his presence like some sort of tactical prostitute.
My body’s fighting to stay alert against my attempts to sleep.
It’s never stop, or crash and burn—which I do not want to do again.
I suppose I should be proud of myself; I didn’t break anything or stab new holes in someone…
I mean the wall… which he apparently fixes while I’m throat deep in my post-crazed coma.
Mr. Kensington watches me impassively with his smug head tilted to the side—he must not see Liz inches from the thump of his artery with blood red lips.
She’s itching to taste it, to slice him open and let the crimson pour over her corseted chest. I’d let her, as long as it meant I got my medication.
His stare makes my skin crawl—following me, waiting for me to explain and give him the ammunition needed to throw away my key. Maybe Liz will trade blood for eyes today, that would be a spectacle.
Kate rips past him in a blur of charred flesh, wafting his cologne with her hint of decay. It churns my stomach. To top off my dismay, when he speaks, my ear drums swell and rupture on repeat.
Coming here has never been this bad. Usually, Kate gnaws at her cage and thrashes for release from her confinement.
Her teeth chomp at the bit that is his flesh; where she’d sling her head and fling chunks of meat around his office.
Never does she cower protectively in a corner over a rare meal.
No, it’s all for pleasure; a reward for her insanity—an exchange of energy and savagery.
I understand, to a degree. Elias showed me what that felt like, pleasure and reward which still smarts when I sit.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Kensington’s pen raps on his yellow legal pad, impatiently filling the uncomfortable silence with annoyance and displeasure. Every tap makes the fine hairs on my arms jump until they stand at end—swaying in the cool air of the near-deafening roar of the air ducts.
It’s so much.
Him, my demons, the sound of my heart in my ears and how the color blue feels like sandpaper raking across my hypersensitive skin, or the taste of certain words. Nothing’s helping, I’m ready to push my head into a wood chipper just to get it all to stop.
I need Elias.
Finally, Mr. Kensington loses his patience and sighs. At least the obnoxious pen tapping ceases when he drops his notes onto the short table between us. Leaning, his elbows brace onto the tops of his knees as his fingers lace into a solid brain-sized fist—ripe for an industrial blender.
“Therapy isn’t going to work if you refuse to cooperate, Sadie.”
“I’m not refusing, I just don’t have anything to—”
He cuts me off before I can get the last word past my fucking tongue.
“Talking is part of cooperation and compliance. Let me make this clear. A detective contacted the practice a few days ago, asking questions about you. While I’m bound by patient privacy and HIPAA laws, if a warrant is supplied, I’ll be forced to allow access to your patient records.
It’s imperative you begin speaking and put effort into your therapy, or you’ll be in a locked facility before the end of the week.
I already told you if there’s a violent outburst you’d be institutionalized, and it sounds like that may become your reality.
So, let’s try one more time—explain what you mean by spiraling. ”
Have you ever felt dread settle so deep in your belly it sours on contact with the bile?
Or when a bleak existence wrings your heart like a wet rag inside of your chest?
Down the rabbit hole of ‘what if’ you go.
Past coo-coo clocks, flowers on the wall and rocking chairs that tilt upside down, where mist swallows you the further you drop and nothing reaches past the roots of ancient trees for you to grab hold of.
There’s nothing beyond this world, unlike how religious leaders and cults would like you to believe—just a train of time coming for each and every one of us.
Its horn blares, headlamps blind you, and burn the world out of your peripherals with its harsh yellow glow.
Even the Earth trembles under the rattle of iron wheels barreling down the tracks.
There’s no stopping what’s coming for me—even if I try to step out of the way, my feet are rooted in place by the hands of Hell.
“There are days where I can’t remember anything other than lies my brain feeds me,” I begin, betraying myself.
He doesn’t flinch, spying on my soul through the pale windows of my eyes. I want to melt into the couch, let the fibers soak up all that remains of me just so he won’t see as some rat to experiment on.