The Calling | The House of Voices #1

Thirty - Whole Story

Whole Story

October:

I blinked.

And blinked again. And again. I didn’t really know Darren that well, but I was assuming that what he’d done just before he’d left hadn’t been very characteristic of him. His words echoed in my mind for a few seconds after the door had closed behind him.

I didn’t let myself dwell on them, though. I had more important things to deal with. Like the boy on the other side of the wall that was probably dying to know why I’d jumped out of a window.

Shaking my head as if the action could throw the confusion from my mind, I dropped down to the floor. I was trying to figure out how to initiate the conversation – assuming that Parish would wait for me to speak first – when he piped up,

“What’s going on with you and Darren?”

Damn it.

Suddenly I was more comfortable talking about jumping out of windows.

“Nothing.” I replied. It was the truth, wasn’t it? There really was nothing going on. Darren was just my doctor, I was just his patient. He was just being concerned about me.

“Right.” Parish scoffed. Rolling his eyes at me, no doubt. “Don’t lie to me, October.”

“I’m not lying.” I insisted. “There’s nothing going on. He was just being his usual concerned self.”

“He’s nowhere near that nice or concerned about me. I’m his patient too.”

 “Maybe that’s because I’m easier to be nice to.” I retorted, knowing fully well that I was probably crossing a line with that comment.

“Yeah, maybe.” He agreed, not taking the jab too seriously. “But you and I both know that he didn’t sound like someone who was just being nice. He was practically begging you to open up to him. How many doctors do you know that do that?”

I bit down on my bottom lip. As much as I hated to admit it, Parish had a point. Darren hadn’t spoken like an objective therapist. The plea behind the words was too intimate for that. Parish was right. Darren had been begging me to trust him.

But why would he do that? His begging me to trust him implied that he thought I wasn’t being honest; that I was hiding something from him. I felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. “He doesn’t believe me.” I muttered under my breath.

“What?” There was an edge in Parish’s voice that my mind attributed to the unfairness of Darren being more concerned about me than for him.

“That’s why he wants me to trust him.” I spoke a little louder this time. “He doesn’t believe me.”

“About the voices?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Did he tell you that he believed you?” Parish asked.

“No.” I conceded, “but he once said that he didn’t think I was schizophrenic. So, I assumed that maybe he’d believe that the voices weren’t in my head.”

“October,” Parish’s voice suddenly adopted a gentle quality. That was new. If the past three days were any indication, Parish didn’t do gentle. It wasn’t his style. “believing that the voices are real wasn’t even easy for me; and I’d gotten all scratched up by them. Darren’s a doctor; he probably doesn’t believe in anything supernatural like this. His main interest is helping you get better. If you want him to believe you, then maybe you should just give him time.”