The Broken Soliders

Part twenty-four

Walker pardoned Barnes from his scheduled therapy sessions. Apparently, he decided that the three of us would be working with him once Barnes was done with his last therapy session. A session in which Sam and I were being pulled into for whatever reason.

The three of us sat behind a table, me in the middle, in front of Barnes's therapist, Dr Raynor.

"So," she said, flipping through a few pages in her notebook. "Who would like to start?"

"Alright, look, Dr Raynor," Sam said. "I get it, why you want Y/n to talk to Freaky Magoo over here, but I'm 100% fine."

I rolled my eyes.

"You disagree, Y/n?" Dr Raynor asked me.

"I just think that Sam's forgetting that the federal court actually deemed me stable enough to continue on with my life without therapy," I explained.

"I see," Dr Raynor said. "Well, it is my job to make sure that James is okay. And so yeah, this may be slightly unprofessional, but it's the only way that I can see if he's getting over whatever's eating at him."

There was a pause, before Sam said, "This is ridiculous."

"Yeah, I agree," Barnes said, as I nodded.

"See?" Dr Raynor asked. "Making progress already."

I rolled my eyes.

"So?" she prompted again. "Who wants to go first?"

We all stared blankly at her.

"No volunteers? Wow, how surprising. Okay. We're gonna do an exercise. It's something I use with couples when they are trying to figure out what kind of life they wanna build together. Are you familiar with the miracle question?"

We all said no.

"Okay, it goes like this. Suppose that while you're sleeping, a miracle occurs. When you wake up, what is something that you would like to see that would make your life better?"

"In my miracle, they would talk less," Barnes immediately jumps in.

"Wow, yeah, well in my miracle," I said. "you wouldn't be such an arrogant asshole."

"I second Y/n's miracle," Sam nodded.

"You guys are leaving me with no choice." Dr Raynor said. "It's time for the soul-gazing exercise."

"What the hell?" I asked, just as Barnes sarcastically said, "I like this one."

"Alright, let's start with James and Sam," she said. "Y/n, would you please stand up for a moment?"

I stood up from my chair and backed away.

"Good. Now, James, Sam, turn around. Face each other."

"You should really enjoy this," Sam told Barnes.

"I'm going to," Barnes retorted.

"I know you are," Sam said.

"Yeah."

"Face each other," Dr Raynor instructed again.

"Let's do it," Barnes said. "Let's stare."

Once the boys were facing each other, Dr Raynor said, "Good. Now look at each other. You need to look at each other in the eyes."

They complied.

"There, you see? That wasn't so hard." After a few moments of neither guy blinking, Dr Raynor said, "Wait, what are you doing? Are you having a staring contest?"