Sketches

5. Grind Me Up

Josiah

Something's changed. I can't quite figure it out yet but something has changed. I looked around Dr Getrude's office trying to figure out what it was. The walls were still the same old bland colours, the fancy framed degree she had was still pinned to the wall behind me and her old humidifier still churned silently in the corner of the room. Everything almost seemed normal. Except it wasn't.

"Josiah." Dr Getrude's voice was neutral as always giving the impression of an automated telephone lady, like the one that tells you ‘the number you have dialled is unavailable please try again later,’ I could see Dr Getrude moonlighting as a voice-over person. Was that what they were called?

"Josiah." Dr Getrude called my name again.

I looked up at her eyes meeting her brown ones. At least they looked Brown under the shadow of her closed blinds. Dr Getrude watched me with her scrutinising look. Given that she was a therapist the look was subtle and you had to have been in therapy with her for as long as I had to know that.

"Tell me what you are thinking of." Dr Getrude said, clipping her pen to the top of the clipboard. A gesture she only did when she was trying to get me to concentrate on whatever we were supposed to talk about.

"It's the couch." I heard myself say.

"What's wrong with the couch?"

I splayed my fingers on the couch cushion beside me, "It's different. I don't like it."

It was different. The colour was the same old boring beige and the texture was still a cross between leather and faux leather but it still felt wrong. Like I was in a strangers house and they would kick me out soon. I looked up at Dr Getrude's face and tried to smile but my cheeks hurt and she almost cracked a smile. Almost.

"It's a new couch." She said leaning back into her seat, "What did we say about new things?"

"That they don't have to be necessarily bad?"

"Exactly. Now, tell me what happened yesterday."

"Oh."

I looked at the beige digital clock that sat on Dr Getrude's desk. Ten minutes past four. Plenty of time left in that hour. I looked around the room trying to find something else to say. Anything but the truth. I couldn't tell Dr Getrude about my ‘tree’ and how he accidentally saw the sketches I was drawing. Especially since said sketches were of the ‘tree’. Dr Getrude patiently watched me like she always did when I took too long to reply. But this time I couldn't tell her. I just couldn't. She would think my ‘condition’ was getting worse. I have seen doctors on tv.

"I think I made a friend."I blurted out.

Dr Getrude's eyebrow raised slightly and she scribbled something short and quick in her book. She didn't comment on my sentence, instead she waited again. Watching, waiting and whatever else therapists did when they silently looked in your general direction.

"He is cool. In a Jessie Usher sort of way. You know, that actor from The boys."

"Yes, I know who Jessie Usher is." Dr Gertrude replied.

"Then you know he is very handsome and he was a ..."

"He has what?" Dr Gertrude asked me pen poised and ready to scribble something about how I fantasised about A-train from The boys.

I shook my head and tried to change the topic, "You said I should do one brave thing."

"Yes, I did." Dr Getrude replied, "What did you do?"

"I spoke to someone." I watched Dr Getrude's eyes widen before she scribbled something messy in her notebook, "Not verbally. I used sign language and I don't think he understood but I did it. And my heart just thrashed loudly against my chest as I did it."