Take Me Away | ✓

» 13

P H O E N I X

My therapist's office was pretty big. It had a large desk on one end of the room and a sofa on the other. An assortment of long leafed plants were spread around the space in attempts to give it more of a homey feel but the only thing they achieved was projecting how they hadn't been watered in a while.

A small table and another chair were placed in front of the sofa which Dr Meyer had told me to get comfortable on as she dealt with something outside her room. In that time I'd focused on a spot of dust on the table, still unsure about how I was feeling about all this.

"Sorry about that." Dr Meyer said as she came in and took her seat on the chair. "Let's get started. First of all, would you prefer I call you Phee or Phoenix?"

I shrugged.

"You do have a rather beautiful name. Does it hold any significance in your family?"

"I was named after my great grandmother."

"Of course." She jotted down something on her clipboard as the small talk came to an end before setting it to one side and diverting her full attention to me. "I understand that you're here because of your brother's recent death-- how has that been for you?"

My throat constricted and suddenly my tongue was too large for my mouth. "People die. It's the way the world works." I said, channelling my inner Kat to help me get through the hour.

"Your relationship with your brother was not well?" She assumed.

I shook my head. "We were fine, best friends even. I just don't see the point of thinking about someone that's never going to come back." That was a lie. All I did was think that by now it had probably become my fatal flaw.

"It's alright to miss someone you've lost, Phoenix." My name on her tongue sounded strange, like it didn't belong there and looking around the room, at the wilting plants and awards on walls, I realised I didn't belong there either.

"I know." I said quietly, taking in a deep breath. "Sometimes, I see him in my dreams. Other times in reality."

"Hallucinations?"

"More like an overwhelming sense of deja vu."

"Could this be achieved by substance use?"

"I don't know." And it was true. Sometimes you can't differentiate between what's real or not when you're high. "A week ago, the bath taps weren't working. I really needed to shower because I'd just come back from track tryouts. I was sweating, tired from the heat." I chuckled to myself, thinking back to it. "I called his number. It went to voicemail."

"What did you say to him?"

"That he needed to come fix the bath taps." I looked at Dr Meyer. "Then I hung up."

"Do you often leave messages for your brother?"

"Only when I'm thinking too much." I realised the room only had two small windows despite its large scale. The view outside of one of them showed the chip shop on the street across the road. The 'c' was close to falling off so you read it as 'hip shop'.

"Perhaps this is your way of communicating with him. It's not uncommon for those who've experienced a tragedy to reach out to the ones they've lost. Whether it be through prayer, going to church, visiting a psychic, it makes the person feel connected."