I See Fire

55 | Guess who's going to... ?

Farouk laid on the long, light brown couch throwing a blue bouncy ball to the locked, giant, transparent window and catching it. Dr Henry smiled. He knew this patient was going to be a tough nut to crack.

This was the twelfth week and they weren't getting getting anywhere. His notebook remained partially empty with only scribbles of what he guessed were Farouk's attributes not facts he actually got to confirm.

The man wouldn't speak and if prompted to, he delivered an "I'm ok" and went back to either typing on his phone or writing in the journal Yusuf gave him which he refused to give Dr Henry.

There was no greater frustration worse than a patient who wouldn't engage but his doctor understood he was going through a midlife crises that wasn't allowing him to spare some time for a chance to acquire emotional healing.

"Farouk, if you don't share you'll never be able to."

"I know," Farouk helped him finish the sentence "My livid scrutiny will never leave me until I can stop thinking of her."

"Yes," Dr Henry sighs, taking off his glasses and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand before putting it back on "Your mother tells me you won't stop saying her name in your sleep."

"I'm..."

"Let me guess," he interrupts "You're ok?"

"I'm glad you understand." He sits up, looking at the clock and getting disappointed that there was still an hour to go before he could leave "This therapy thing is working somehow."

"Its my job to understand you not the other way around."

"Thank you for your services..." he sits at the edge, holding his face with his hand "... but, Dr..." he mocks "... I know you can help me. Hell, you have a doctorate in helping reverse trauma. That's huge! But I don't want to sit here for hours while you dissect my brain with questions I receive everyday at home."

Farouk held his head in between his thighs, stifling a scream as he felt the tears pierce through his shut eyes. He was tired and Dr Henry could very much see he was carrying a broken heart and a shattered mind.

Dr Henry raises his leg that was sprung around his other leg and he sits forward, dropping the pen in the book and to the table before them. He puts a hand on Yusuf's arm and squeezes "I know you're scared."

"You don't!" Farouk rose his head up and took his arm out of the man's hand "All you know is what my mother told you. So if you think you know me then you're wrong."

"All you have to do is talk so I can be your best friend... " He looks at the clock to count their remaining time left together and back to Farouk "... for the next twenty minutes."

"I don't want a best friend, I want Aisha!"

A name. He'd gotten a name. Waleeda already told him she was his dead girlfriend and nothing more. This moment was the exception in his patients rule and here, he would begin his journey of a final fix.

"Ok," Dr Henry trailed off "Let's about Aisha." He smiled at Farouk once he laid back on the couch with straight legs and bent arms across his chest "I know she was important to you."

"Is." He corrected "Aisha is important to me and I let her down."

Farouk felt if he referred to her in present tense, then, she wouldn't be really dead. His mistake was refusing to accept the truth and quit torturing himself with memories of them together.