To You and Back

Deleted Scene 1: I Want to Give Them Back to Him

The waiting room was windowless, surrounded on all sides by wainscotting and cream wallpaper, with a circle of straight back chairs around a low, square, heavy wooden table on deep red carpeting. There was the smell of citrus cleaner, wood polish, and the low hum of the air unit.

Charlie toyed with his blue polka dotted tie, flipping the pointed tip back and forth, then rolling it between his fingers. With an exasperated sigh at himself for fidgeting, he turned to Peter. "Is this really okay?" he asked, in that hushed tone used in quiet places. "Coming here? To him?"

"He's a professional," Peter replied. Sitting with his legs crossed at the knees, he leafed through a boating magazine. "I've been seeing him since I was a teenager. I trust him."

They were the only ones in the waiting room, and they fell into silence. After about five minutes the inner door opened and Dr. Alan Rothmann appeared in the doorway. He was an average sized man, with a slightly heavy frame, a neatly trimmed reddish beard, and hair streaked with grey brushed straight back from a smooth forehead. Green eyes crinkled behind their round glasses as he smiled and greeted them.

"It's been some time since our last meeting," said Rothmann, voice tinted with a German accent, standing back to let them enter. The office was the same as always: a small antique desk writing backing arched windows with reddish brown drapes drawn to let in afternoon sunlight; a couch, a swivel chair, coffee and end tables, and therapist couch on an oriental rug; an antique wood screen in the corner, a wooden globe in the other, and two inbuilt bookcases lined with the gleaming spines of collectable volumes flanking a small marble fireplace with no fire.

"Things have been good," Peter said. He glanced at Charlie out of the corner of his eye. "Well, they used to be."

Rothmann observed the two men as they took seats on the couch opposite, choosing to sit at the ends instead of side by side in the center. "What changed?" he asked, taking his own seat in the swivel chair.

"I don't know," Peter said. "Ask him."

Rothmann looked at Charlie, who sat with his legs crossed at the knees, elbow on the arm rest, the fingers of his right hand twisting a platinum band on his left ring finger. "Charlie?"

The man glanced at him, then away, and said nothing.

"That's what I get when I ask," Peter said. "Dead silence."

Rothmann made a note on the pad on his own crossed knees. "Why don't you tell me what's changed for you, then, Peter. You said things were good; how are they not anymore?"

"He's stopped talking to me," Peter said. Looking down at his hands, his own fingers went to the band on his left hand. "Lately, it's begun to feel like he doesn't trust me anymore."

At that, Charlie's head turned slightly towards Peter, his gaze down.

"Why does it feel like that, Peter?" Rothmann asked.

"Because I feel locked out." Peter frowned down at his hands. "It's.... how I felt when he left for college without saying goodbye."

This time Charlie's gaze lifted to Peter, and he looked at the man beside him for a few moments, blue eyes deep and unreadable.

"Charlie?"

Rothmann's call drew his attention, but Charlie looked away and said nothing.

"Would you tell the man something?" Peter snapped. "You agreed to come with me. Why did you if you're not even going to try?"

"I am trying," Charlie snapped back. "Despite how it looks, I'm trying my damnedest."

"It doesn't feel that way."