Psycho

Day 4

I sat at my desk, filling out paperwork about my patients. Some notes of their progress, conditions I've diagnosed or thinking of diagnosing, etc. It's basically what every lunch break I had consisted of.

A lunch bag was placed in front of me, making me look up from my work to see Theresa. I gave her a smile and closed the file I was working on. "Hey!"

"Hey! How's it going?" She asked.

I shrugged, "The same."

"The same? Are you sure everything is the same?" She raised an eyebrow.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Something tells me you want to talk about Jason McCann," I said, taking my veggie sandwich and taking a bite out of it.

"Well..." Theresa trailed off, both of us laughing. "He's the most interesting person we've had here! I mean, his father was..."

"I don't want to hear anything about Jason," I cut her off.

"It's nothing new, it's all in his files."

"I know, but I want Jason to tell me. It's part of how I gain trust from my patients, I let them tell me what they want and don't go deep into their files unless it comes down to desperate measures," I explained to her. No matter how curious I got, I always let my patients tell me about themselves, not some file.

Theresa shrugged. "It's your system. But you must have noticed how...interesting he is."

"Oh, he's interesting alright," I breathed, taking another bite. There was a sudden bang from the cells, causing both of us to jump and look back. There was a lot of banging now followed by some yelling, probably from cell mates arguing. It wasn't rare, but it also wasn't this loud or chaotic.

"Let me go!" A familiar but muffled voice yelled.

My my eyes widened as Theresa spoke. "Another cell fight, this ones aggressive."

"This one is Jason," I stood up, making my way back to the cells. Usually I wouldn't be this worried, but since Jason has killed people, I felt like I had to go check on him to see the damage and hopefully stop this kind of behavior.

I followed the yelling and banging until I saw two policemen carrying Jason who was kicking and throwing his body, hitting the walls most of the time.

"Excuse me!" I shouted as loud as I could, getting everyone's attention, including Jason's.

"Dr. Hartford, we are in the middle of something right now," One of the police, Greg, told me.

"May I take Jason? I'm on my lunch break right now and have an opening. I'd be happy to talk to him," I suggested.

"Dr. Hartford, I'm not sure that's a good idea..."

"Don't you want him to be a better person? He can't change if you prevent it," I interrupted.

Greg sighed, nodding to the other police, John, and following me to my therapy room. They locked Jason in by his ankles like usual before walking away. "You only have 15 minutes," Greg informed. I just nodded and waited for the two of them to leave.

"Hello, Jason."

"Hello, Katie," he mocked.

"Dr. Hartford," I corrected sternly.

"Why did you do that?" Jason asked, changing the subject.

"I don't believe the whole timeout thing works as well as talking," I answered him. "And with Greg, you probably would've gotten a few hits as well."

"I can take a few hits," Jason scoffed.

"Maybe now...but knowing you, you would continue to get yourself in trouble and a few hits can turn into many. You can only take so much, Jason."

Jason sat there, looking down. "What do you want?"

"What happened in there?"

Jason shrugged. "My cell mate was annoying me, I threatened him to stop, he didn't, I started beating him," he summed it up.

"Why was beating him your first reaction?"

"I mean, I asked him to stop," Jason said.

"No, you threatened him. And either way you still resulted to violence. Why?  Couldn't you think of other solutions?"

"I don't know! Violence is all I've ever known!" He raised his voice, getting frustrated.

I sighed, limiting myself so I wouldn't make him angry. "First of all, we should work on truly asking people to stop, not threatening them. And second of all, we need to work on avoiding violence instead of causing it," I grabbed a spare pen and paper that I always kept in here. I wrote down these notes as a reminder for the future.

"What do you mean by we?" Jason asked.

I looked up at him and stopped writing. "Well, you aren't doing it alone, are you?" I pointed out, finishing writing.

"You're actually trying? You aren't giving up?" He questioned.

I shook my head. "Nope," I put my pen down and looked at him. "I told you I don't do this just to make a salary," I reminded him.

Jason sat there, looking down almost in shock. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, and I didn't have time to say anything myself.

There was a buzz and the door opened. Greg was there to take Jason, getting him out. "Mack will be in with Dan soon," he said, tugging on Jason. The two started walking and I just gave a small grin and a wave to Jason. He stared at me, being pushed by Greg after. Maybe people like Greg don't understand it, but I actually want to change Jason. I felt like Jason was starting to see it too.