The Orchestra - Sinfónia Lifsins - 20. Shrink's Round

“You don’t need to do this.” Not at nine in the morning on concert day.

“Yes, I do. I know you won’t go by yourself.”

“That’s because I don’t need to go anywhere.”

“We’ll see about that once your session finishes.” Arnar almost threw me out of his car, which his wife was driving, because apparently one-handed drivers were against the law. The shrink was already there. I was passed on to her like a sack of potatoes and forced into the uncomfortably fluffy room. Stuck for the next hour.

“Arnar told me what happened yesterday. You know you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to, but he asked for this emergency session so that you could have some help to deal with it. I’m here whenever you feel ready.”

“He’s wasting both of our times.” And I could not fit on the tiny couch. Stupid long legs.

“He’s just worried about you.”

“He probably thinks I’ve been trying to kill myself again.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“Now I wish it was. Then at least I would have a reason to be here. I don’t have time to sit and chat.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” She was definitely not. Arnar’s money was still going to her pocket at the end of the day. She could not care less. “But I believe you if you say it wasn’t another suicide attempt.”

“You’re probably the first.”

“I’m your counsellor. I’m not here to judge you; I’m here to listen.” In other words, she was there to sit in her chair all day and earn money doing nothing at all. Easy life, that.

“Then you want to listen to all the gory details from yesterday?” She probably had a morbid fascination with those things anyway. There would be no reason to be in this job otherwise.

Oh, wait. There was the money. Lots of it, judging by her hourly rates.

“If you want to tell me.” She did not even look disgusted or fearful. It was always the same stupid neutral face.

“I don’t. I don’t want to talk at all.”

“That is fine too.” Still that face. Her waiting game started. She most likely spent her time counting in her head how long until I got bored and spilled something out. I would not be surprised if she made notes about our sessions and was secretly trying to out-do her best time at every new visit.

“Do you really believe me?” I might as well help her improve her records. I did not have the patience to listen to my own thoughts for a full hour.

“Of course I do.”

“How? I’m supposed to be on suicide watch. You’re supposed to blow the whistle at every suspicious thing I do.”

“That’s not how it works. I have been seeing you for a while. I can tell you are more distraught than usual. What happened yesterday was not something you planned for.” She used a false gentle tone to mask her psycho-bullshit about my behaviour. Well played.

“You can tell that because I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes doing exactly what I do every single time I come here?”

“Well, for starters, you spent half those ten minutes talking to me. You never really do that.”

“Because I’m not usually given just an hour’s advanced notice that I have a session, so I’m not usually as pissed when you see me.”

“You are angry and frustrated because Arnar arranged this session without consulting you.” She started her empathic shit. At least her voice was distracting.

“I’m angry because everyone treats me like I’m made of fucking glass.”

“Because they are always overly-careful around you now, and it makes you frustrated.”

“It makes me want to smash something in their heads. They’re lucky I’m so fucking weak.” The bastard, in particular, would have nothing left above his shoulders by now otherwise.

“Your lack of physical strength bothers you.” Congratulations shrink, for spotting one of the many obvious reasons for my constant anger with the world. Would allergies be next?

“It makes me easy to break.” Break my fingers all at once. Break my wrists. Make it look like an accident because I am already so weak anyway.

“It makes you scared. And being scared makes you angry.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I’ve wasted too much time being scared already. I don’t want this shit anymore.”

“You have had enough, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. I’ve had enough of being so fucking easy to break and so fucking easy to kill. I’m tired of people thinking that because I’m so easy to kill I think about doing it every ten seconds.” Well done, shrink. You got me talking. Maybe I should throw something horrible at you to see if at least your face changed.

“You wish people would stop underestimating you.”

“I wish they would fuck themselves and leave me alone. Particularly the replacement.”

“You still hate him?”

“You shouldn’t ask that. Makes me think you think there is a chance I will not hate him someday. But at least he’s doing some amusing things every now than then.” My first sweet memories of the brat. I should see if I could get them to be played out again at some point. “He threw up when I told him what Kresten tried to do. If shit like this keeps happening I might actually get him to quit. Who knows?”

“So you would let bad things happen to you just so that Gunni would leave the ISO?” She raised an eyebrow. I was hoping for something more amusing.

“Why not? Frankly, the alternative is worse. I won’t do anything that could get me killed because it defeats the purpose, but I don’t see why I can’t help the kid realise he’s messing with adult stuff and would be better off back in kindergarten.”

“Having Gunni in Arnar’s place makes you feel so bad you would willingly go through yesterday all over again?” She was actually asking questions now; not just speaking random sentences she hoped were factual statements. That was some progress.

“I fail to see why everyone is so surprised about that. Those people know what my father was like. They know I ran away from home because that man wanted to completely destroy my life and that I would gladly eat shellfish with nuts if he tried to get near me again.” The shrink knew all this too. If her empathic shit was any good she should get my point by now.

“You think even though your friends know what you have been through, they don’t really understand it, and so can’t really grasp how important Arnar has been to you.” It was not a question. She got the point all right.

“Dmitri should. His parents were assholes too.”

“You are disappointed at his lack of empathy.”

“I’m pissed, more likely. He gets it so damn well, he’s now dating the kid. Soon they’ll take over my bedroom and I’ll have to move to Gísli’s and buy earplugs.” And I would have to see the kid every day at home too, because having to endure his presence at work was not torture enough.

“You hoped at least he would understand.”

“I don’t really hope for things anymore.” She raised her eyebrows again. We should play a game of ‘shock the shrink’. It could be fun. “I just let them come and take over. Like the flu I’m certainly going to get in a couple of days. Happened every year so far, though at least it saves me from having to pretend to be cheerful around Christmas.”

“You look forward to getting sick at Christmas?”

“Oh, please. If you know me as well as you say you do it shouldn’t be so surprising. The flu vaccine makes me feel so bad I might as well catch the real thing.”

“I see.” She was looking vaguely interested. Time to start dropping the bombs.

“My father was so pissed when I got sick the day before he was going to the Caribbean that he gave me normal bread so I would get gluten-poisoned. He sent me to the hospital and left me there until January was half over. The year after that he broke my nose when I complained I couldn’t breathe properly. Obviously it only made my nose even more blocked with all the blood accumulating over the snot, but he got me to shut up all right. I was what? Eight? Yeah, sounds about right. It was before he broke my fingers because he wanted to stop me from playing the cello.”

“So compared to those memories, your Christmases now are much better?” There was no visible reaction from her. She was playing though. I would have to up my game.

“Well, I don’t have to wonder which of my bones will have to be mended. And I won’t be coerced into telling ridiculous lies to cover up the ‘accidents’. Did I tell you of the time he made me tell the doctors I had been hit in the face by a swing in the playground? And in case you are wondering, yes, it looked that bad.”

“No, I didn’t know about this incident. If telling it to me makes you feel better…”

“As if I even went to playgrounds.” She was beginning to sound nervous and there was still half a session to go. “I was stung by a bee when I was three years old and was sent straight to hospital with anaphylactic shock. After that there was no reason for me to go back to nature of any kind.”

“Your allergies limit the kind of things you can do.”

“No, they just tend to make normal people think I’m a poor victim of my own body and can’t do things I like because of how excitable my immune system is. And I hate that.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t like to be victimised.”

“Well, duh.”

“And yet you tell me horror stories about your childhood so that I’m horrified and become convinced you’re the biggest victim of all.” She should not be smiling like that. Well played.

And I did not feel like answering that. Or even bothering opening my mouth again.

(...)

“So, how was it?” Arnar hugged me briefly with his one good arm.

“You shouldn’t waste that much money. You’re making her rich without having her to do any work.”

“I’m not wasting my money. You need that kind of help, and I know she’s being more helpful than you let on.” His wife was waiting in the car outside. At least we would be home soon. “You think you can survive the concert now?”

“I would survive it anyway. What Kresten did was no big deal. I’ve fucked him before and I liked it.”

“But consenting to it once doesn’t mean he gets a free pass to your ass whenever he pleases. He disrespected your boundaries; he was wrong and you shouldn’t think it was ok because of whatever went on in the past.”

“Spare me the lecture. I’ve got one from Karen already.” Because apparently it was normal to force you to remember traumatic experiences right after they happened even though the last thing you wanted was to have to deal with that shit all over again.

“Fine, I will trust your judgement.”

Thank you for treating me like an adult. I missed that feeling.

(...)

I got two bodyguards for the dress rehearsal. My three paranoid housemates planned everything while Arnar took me away, so that as soon as we entered the hall Gísli and Karen stuck to my side and the bastard ran for his annoying little kid. Kresten was not even around yet.

“Will you be like this the whole evening?”

“While Kresten is around, yes.” Karen had the kind of gaze that would fit perfectly in a poorly-scripted action movie. She certainly thought of herself as the hero then, with Gísli as her lancer. Obviously, I had been shamefully reduced to poor damsel in distress who passed out at the mere mention of her almost-rapist.

“We could just tell Gummi, you know? Arnar and Siggi’s therapist would confirm our story.” Gísli tried to be the Only Sane Man, but failed due to a crucial detail. Even Karen knew what it was.

“Not happening. Even if we prove that Siggi didn’t want it by the time Dmitri and Gunni found him, everyone saw him leading Kresten to the backroom.”

“But it doesn’t matter when Siggi changed his mind. If he changed his mind at all it counts as…” Gísli knew Karen since they were children. He should know by now it was useless to argue against her.

“But that’s not what most people think. Particularly when someone as famous as Kresten is involved.” And Karen did not like the word ‘rape’ being spoken aloud. I should scream it in her ear some time. “The ISO can’t risk losing one of our regular soloists over something they can’t even prove.”

“Life sucks,” I said to end their argument before more people heard it and decided they had a right to give an opinion. “Now we get on with it.” I walked to my cello without waiting for them. I had not asked for bodyguards, so they would have to deal with it.

The bodyguards did not need bother, though. Kresten did not even look at me. He only had eyes for the replacement. Every time he walked to the stage it was obvious he was having wild paedophilic fantasies concerning our ‘leader’. After the concert I did not see the kid or the bastard until it was time to go home.

(...)

The Annual Christmas Fever hit later that night. It started with a stupid nightmare about fire, my father, and Kresten. Fire became blood and my body burned in it. Then the bastard woke me up because apparently I had been screaming for a while.

“Should I go get some ice?” The bastard was being weirdly pragmatic. There was not even a stupid joke about my body heat.

“Whatever. I don’t care.”

“Your head hurts too?”

“My whole body does.”

“Shit. Let’s take you to the doctor in the morning. Is there any medicine you can take?” His hand was burning against my skin.

“I can’t remember. Check the list,” that giant piece of paper that was supposed to be just a normal card, but as per usual, had to be ridiculously oversized to explain all my allergies. Lights came on. My eyes hurt.

“Definitely no aspirin, but we knew that. Those other chemical names are hurting my head, though. I can’t concentrate.”

“Then leave it. Just bring some ice.”

“Are you sure? We can call Karen and…”

“Just bring the damn ice. I’m burning up already.”

“Yessir!”

As soon as he left, the room began to spin and everything burned and everything hurt and there was a foul-smelling, sticky mess all over my chest and all over the covers and then it was all dark again.

I woke up in a familiar hospital bed, looking at one of the nurses who knew me by name and could locate all my birthmarks and scars with her eyes closed. Of course this would be the year my annual sickness decided to innovate and become something more deadly.

Christmas season had officially begun.