Beyond A Colour - 3. Chapter 3

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“So… there’s been a few things happen…” I started, having settled into the big squishy sofa once more.

“Oh, OK. Do you want to talk about them?” Lorraine asked.

“That’s what I’m supposed to do, right? Talk about stuff.”

“You don’t have to, we can talk about something else… or we could not talk at all and sit here in silence…”

And she did. I looked away from Lorraine, but I swear that lady can look around corners, she was so focused on me. But she has to speak soon, right? We can’t actually just sit here and not talk for a whole session. OK, I can’t do that anyway. The silence was beginning to feel threatening and I had to end it somehow.

“Will you just say something, please!”

I sounded more fraught than I thought I was going to.

“Sure Blue, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. What happened?” She asked.

“So I was at school and…” I started.

“No, no, not that. We can come back to that. What happened just now Blue? You looked terrified when there was silence, what happened just a few seconds ago?”

By now Lorraine was sat on the edge of her chair, leaning forward to be closer to me. Her care for me, about me, was unavoidable, and almost unbearable.

“I don’t know… it’s just… I felt scared, I think, and you weren’t saying anything, and… I don’t like it when there’s no noise. I mean… I do, it’s amazing when there is really nothing but it’s also really scary…”

“OK. And what happens when there’s no noise? Or what might happen that makes it so scary?”

Her voice was just so calm, like, she isn’t as scared of this as I am, which I know makes perfect sense, but still, it feels really weird. But I still didn’t want to say it, not really.

“It’s…. Umm… Sometimes it means I, umm, think too much? I think. And that can make it worse… but then it gets worse anyway because…”

Please, please don’t make me say it, it’s too fucking real anyway without making it even more real.

“It gets worse anyway because…?” She asked.

Lorraine clearly was not going to move on any time soon. Like, why can’t you just ignore this and let’s go back to what happened at school? There was more silence.

“What is it that get’s worse Blue?”

“Alright! Because that’s when they come back, whenever there’s a space they come and fill it, and even when there isn’t any space and there’s way too many things going on and I really, really need them not to, they fucking come back anyway. Why won’t they leave me alone?” I was sounding exactly as desperate as I was feeling.

“They? When you say they, Blue, what do you…”

“The fucking voices, OK? The voices come back and they never, like EVER bring anything good, so I try and keep them away for as long as possible but when there is space, when there is silence, I can’t keep them away on my own I don’t think. At least not for very long.”

“OK, that sounds really frightening Blue. But can I check something with you?”

“What?”

“Have they come back? Now? Are they here now when you are with me?”

“Well…” I had to check. “No… actually they haven’t.”

Lorraine smiled.

“Good. But I can see how frightening it is that they might.” She said. I nodded, unsure if I could speak without the lump in my throat escaping as tears. It didn’t matter as Lorraine continued to speak.

“When it feels like they might come back again, or even if they do come back… can we try something?” Lorraine asked.

“OK?”

“I want you to remember how to breathe.”

“I’m pretty sure I know how to…”

OK, so no, she wasn’t joking.

“Umm… What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, I want you to remember how to breathe. Let me show you, we’ll do it together, now.”

“OK?”

“Sit up, and breathe in… hold it for a second… and breathe out… you with me so far?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. Surely anyone can do this, right? I mean, it’s literally automatic.

“I’m going to go ahead and assume that you can count, right? Eventually, we’ll go all the way up to five, but just one and two will do for now.”

She was definitely taking the piss a little bit now.

“Yeah I can count to five” I said, smiling briefly.

“OK then, so we’re going to start by counting one, two, while we are breathing in.”

Lorraine was slightly exaggerating her breathing in as she spoke, I guess so I could see what she was meaning, and I followed her.

“And then we’re going to hold our breath in for another count of one, two… before breathing out for the count of one, two… and then holding after we have exhaled for another count of one, two…”

I exhaled following her instructions, and realised that I actually had to concentrate on this a little more than I had thought.

“OK, lets try again… breathing in, one, two… holding in for one, two… and breathing out for one, two… and holding for one… two… That’s great Blue, try again without me talking.”

I followed this pattern a couple of times. I’m not sure exactly what, but there was something to it for sure. I realised I had had become slightly lost in it, and looked up to Lorraine again.

“Great, so, that’s something to try if it feels like they might come back. When you’ve been practicing it for a while you can try extending it, counting up to three, then four, then five eventually, but don’t rush it. For this week at least we’ll keep it at two. And later, we’ll try some other little things too.”

“OK?” I mean, is that it?

“So… let’s talk about something else for a while. You started to tell me about something at school.”

I was honestly grateful to move the conversation on, she’s nice and everything but she really has no idea what happens sometimes. Although, I guess I was feeling a bit better.

“Yeah, well… so… there’s this boy… Emmerson, well it doesn’t matter about him, but then in the physics lab there was this other boy, some new boy I don’t know, and he…. It doesn’t matter, he was a dick and then everything went wrong, or started to go wrong. Then Kent arrived and kind of… well I got through the day somehow but then Emmerson was there again at the end of the day and… And then everything continued to go wrong because I got home and I’d forgot that I was supposed to be going to see Alex because our parents were having dinner and stuff and.. Anyway it’s been a bad few days is all, but I’m feeling better again now, mostly.”

Lorraine had been listening, I could tell.

“OK, so you know I don’t know who any of these people are, right?” She asked, smiling.

“Oh, yeah, well, no, I mean…”

“It’s OK, I’ll catch up eventually. But maybe you can help me a bit. So, let’s work backwards… Alex?”

“Alex is… so my mum works with his parents and I guess we hang out sometimes.”

“So he’s a friend?” She asked, completely neutral.

“Yeah, I mean, yeah he’s just a friend.”

“Oh OK. Just a friend?”

Like, I know I said that, but she doesn’t have to pick up on every tiny thing, right?

“Yeah, just a friend, he’s a total himbo who, OK, I used to think was kinda hot, but no way. Just a friend.”

Lorraine smiled.

“A himbo?” She asked.

“What? He is.”

“That sounds kind of judge-y for someone who doesn’t want to be judged.”

“Fine… maybe it is. But he’s very pretty, and very stupid, he just is.”

“OK. So you and Alex…?” She asked.

“Oh god no! I mean… we got drunk on champagne that he took from the kitchen once and messed around a little but that’s all. And that was ages ago.”

“Right… so… you both got drunk? And messed around a little?”

“Yeah… it was another boring night and our parents were celebrating something or other, I don’t know what. We were bored I think.”

“OK… it’s just… “ Lorraine began, and her tentative tone made me feel nervous. It’s just what, exactly?

“… this is the second boy you got drunk with and then something happened. I’m not here to judge you Blue, I’m really not. I’m just trying to understand your world. Does this happen a lot?” She finished asking.

“What!? No! It’s happened literally twice, that’s all. It’s not like I have a problem or anything.”

Because obviously, I wasn’t shouting at my therapist in a defensive way at all.

“OK. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you Blue.”

“I’m not some kind of victim, I’m just… it just happened. Anyway I don’t want to talk about Alex. He’s really not that important.”

“OK, so that’s Alex… Now where were we, Kent?”

“Oh, right, yeah that’s Mr. Kent, he’s my Physics teacher, I was in his class when… he’s really good.”

“When?”

“When this stuff happened, at school.”

“Right. So what should I know about Mr Kent?” She asked.

“So… he’s a good one. I think. And I think he likes me for some reason, not like that, just, he makes an effort to help me in class and stuff.

“OK. And then there’s the new boy?”

“I think he’s just a dick, you know? Sometimes people… they see that they can bully me or annoy me or whatever and… I guess that happens sometimes. But it’s OK, nothing really bad has ever happened.”

“Hmm… that doesn’t sound OK.” She states.

“No… so… it’s not usually a big problem. Mostly they get bored and move on. I’m good at staying out of the way.”

“That still doesn’t sound OK… And then… And then there’s this boy…” She says.

So like, she has this way of using exactly my words, but somehow saying them different. This boy… I definitely didn’t say it like she’s saying it, it’s not like that.

“Emmerson, yeah, he’s… he’s just another boy from school…”

I relayed what had happened in the classroom before getting to the aftermath of it, which was the time wiped out by feeling terrible afterwards.

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