Work Hard Play Harder

6 - Am I crazy (Part 3)

Early Preview before Tuesday

Simone PoV

"Am I crazy for thinking we could be together again?" I asked openly to the bright white room to a person I'd grown to trust.

Upon seeing a blue pair of eyes stare back at me on question, I tried to justify me thinking it would be possibility.

"When we are together - Samuel, Carter and I - it just seems so perfect. It's like he doesn't see me as the old Simone, and he knows I'm different now. And he loves his son, and Carter loves having a dad. And it seems like we really could get back together." My hands started to shake, "I was his first love. The first woman he married and I gave him his first son. All those years I never stopped loving him, and even though he was angry at first, when we spend time together I can still feel the spark between us." I looked towards my shrink waiting to hear her opinion. What would she think about how we connected?

She cleared her throat, and delayed her response. I think she intentionally takes a long time to reply because she knows she gets paid by the second.

"Simone, have you been taking your medication?"

Her question made me take my eyes of the timer on her crisp, shiny, white desk.

"Yes, of course I have" I gulped - a clear sign I was lying. 

"But what's that got to do with anything?" I questioned feeling my temperature raise.

I don't understand why everyone seemed to be asking me that question; even mum. I don't need it. I don't. Only crazy people need to take pills all the time.

My face hurt as it twisted in short term confusion. "You think I'm crazy?" I asked in a high pitched voice.

"I ask you about your medication every session we have." Lucy replied in her infamous monotonous tone that always pissed me off. 

She never showed any type of emotion.

I took a sip of water as I reluctantly agreed. She did ask me every session. I tasted blandness as tried to relax. I need to listen to what I pay her so highly to say.

"It's natural that you will feel that Samuel and you are connecting through your son Carter but your focus seems to have completely changed from our latest session" she put her pen down and then adjusted her glasses.

"Your relationship between Samuel and his son is what is of the upmost importance and that is what we were talking about last session. I'm glad that you are both able to support Carter together, and that Samuel and Carter have been bonding... That's what this spending time together should be all about. Carter."

"It is about Carter" but my voice sounded so quiet, I could hardly hear myself.

Memories of how happy Carter was flooded my mind. He'd be so happy if we were a family and if Samuel never went back. 

"Simone" I snapped out of my trance and studied her face, "what made you change your mind about Samuel 'being nothing but a father in Carters life'?" 

I continuously stared at her. She was pretty but like most blondes she didn't seem to have a brain. I'd just explained it to her. 

Yes... she was repeating what I said to her in my session last week, but not taking them bloody pills have made me see so much clearer now. I didn't need them before I came back to England, and I sure as hell don't need them now.

I smiled to hide my annoyance. "As I said before we've been spending a lot of time together and I feel the spark I felt when we first met."

Her pen scrapped the paper as she wrote more notes, "Last week I suggest you speak to Samuel about  future arrangements concerning Carter specifically for after he goes back to America." 

I nodded.

"How do you think that conversation went, assuming you had the opportunity to speak about it" 

"I didn't want to speak about it in front of Carter, and we're always out together." My smile was real when I thought about the three of us. "In fact we all have so much fun he might not even want to go back" I stated jokingly, though I'd wished it a million times.

I'm his first wife, Carter is his first child. We are his real family. I know because I feel it when we're together and I know Samuel feels it too. I can see it in his eyes that he's happy. 

The woman sitting in front of me didn't smile back at me or chuckle, but I didn't expect her to... she never does. 

A loud buzzer, that meant my hour was up, stopped her words from being heard. 

As I stood I was already thinking of what to cook Samuel and Carter for dinner. Maybe we could go out somewhere or get a take-away.

"Can you sign this form before you leave?" 

I glanced at the white sheet of paper that I sign every week. The form that erases my confidentiality. It gives her the permission to share out conversations with my mother - because she worries about me. 

When I was younger I had always had mood swings. She always tried to make me feel better but nothing she did worked. I was impulsive and uncontrollable, which is why it didn't even occur to me that she'd be worried when I left. But she did worry, and she still worries because though I've built my business and I love Carter she always saw there was something missing. She said she could see it in my eyes. So I agreed to get help and counselling. I agreed to it so she would stop bothering me. 

After the doctor suggested pills. I thought I needed them. They made me think less about all the fucked up things I did before. They made me stop fantasising about what could have been. But now I know it's not a fantasy. He's here and it's possible. My mum doesn't need to worry, because I'm in complete control of what I'm doing and I'm not going to continue 'my impulsive behaviour'. I've got a plan. No more dreaming and thinking: what if? No more reflecting on the past. 

This is about the future.

I'm going to make Samuel mine.

I ignored Lucy who was holding the consent form in her pale petite hands. I don't need my mum trying to step in and change my mind about me trying to get back with Samuel. I don't need her opinion on anything because she thinks I'm crazy, and I'm not. She thinks I need these sessions, and her watching over me but I don't. 

I have a plan. I have a plan and it will work.

"I have a plan" I whispered to myself as I sat behind the steering wheel of my new car, "and it will work"