Thoughts and Random Things

Serendipity

Just a little something-something I wrote for Creative Writing class. I'm pretty proud of it.

“Thalia,” Brian sighed, the movement of his lips causing the wiry graying hair of his beard to bob with each word, “I think your problem is that you’re worrying too much over a thing that has slim-to-none odds of affecting your future in the slightest. The only way this issue is ever going to come back into your life is if you keep bringing it back through memory. You’re a smart girl, Thalia, but it’s silly how much you consider the past as something that can be changed.”
   
“The past can be changed,” I argued, crossing my legs at the ankles. I was laying on the low, aging couch in Dr. Brian Flelling’s office, my legs hanging over the arm at one end of the couch with my head resting on a firm green pillow at the other end. My hands were folded politely over my belly button, similar to the way corpses were typically positioned. (I had, however, once attended a wake for some distant uncle who apparently loved rock music; in his casket, he was holding his beloved guitar, his arms set up to look like he was about to start playing. So I guess not all corpses were prepared the same way.) “It’s like if someone were to move to Canada. In the past, they used to live in America, but they moved, and now they live in Canada. They’ve changed the past, just like that.” I continued, feeling proud of my point.
   
“Changing your location doesn’t change the past, only the present,” Brian countered, looking thoughtfully out at nothing in particular. “Just because they now live in Canada doesn’t erase or alter the fact that they once lived in America.” Brian scratched the side of his face, turning his gaze to meet mine. He was seated almost behind me in an office chair, and from my horizontal angle, he looked three-quarters of the way upside-down.
   
I shook my head, smiling. “Y’know, Brian, I think that sometimes the fact that you have a psychology PhD gets to your head, makes you think you're all smart and shit. You don't know everything, though. Keep in mind, you do work in a high school,” I reminded him. He grinned at me, in a way that said, silly Thalia.
   
“As much as I’d love to discuss my career and my feelings towards it,” Brian dictated, pronouncing “towards” such that the second syllable was emphasized, “it’s besides the point right now, Thalia. We’re focusing on you now.”
   
“Ugh!” I whined dramatically, a tad too loudly for the situation at hand. I was being childish, yes, but Brian was no fun when he was being all serious and professional.
   
“Don’t complain, Thalia. You come by here every single day at lunch, and it’s about time we actually try and do something with you.”

“You do do something with me! We joke and eat together! Brian, I’m not in the mood for a psychoanalysis today, okay? Let’s just save it for next week. Please,” I pointed out, wishing he wouldn’t brain-shrink me as he did to his other students. I knew he meant well—after all, being the school psychologist was his job, and he did care about my mental state and well-being. Despite all that, though, I didn’t exactly like him poking through all my business. Something about the thought of it gave me the willies. He had his own problems, and so did I, and so did literally everyone in the school and in the world all around us. And out of all those people, he wanted to work with me. Why? It wasn’t like anything he did would help. My entire struggle was all in the past—and those were his words, not mine. It seemed like shoving therapy down my throat would be pointless.
   
“Bry, it seems like shoving therapy down my throat would be pointless,” I told him.
   
He ignored me. “Thalia, the matter with you is that you can’t tell apart was, is, and will be. You’re under the impression that there’s a possibility that you’ll wake up one day and Claire will be there, having never gone away.”
   
His words ignited a flame of irritation deep in me. He must’ve thought he was all wise and mighty, thinking he knew exactly what was best for me. I knew he only had good intentions, but hell if his speech didn’t tick me the hell off.
   
“Don’t you dare say that fucking name,” I seethed through gritted teeth. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but I must have sat up at one point, because suddenly my shoulders weighed a thousand pounds each, something I wouldn’t have noticed had I still been laying down. A little voice piped up in the back of my mind, chastising me for being so irrationally angry at a trusted person who wanted to help me, but I ignored it. I was pissed. This was what I had tried to warn Brian about. This was why I was trying to reject his guidance.
   
“You know, I can’t begin to help you if you have a hissy fit every time we discuss this,” Brian informed me, addressing me as if I were a child, his bushy gray eyebrows raised.
   
“Let’s not discuss it, then,” I urged. I really, really wanted to keep my feelings internalized. The only person I could ever talk about this with was Claire, and I knew she was never coming back. I slid over to the other end of the couch, toward the arm off which my legs were previously dangling. Leaning over the arm, I saw my lunch plate, on the coffee table where I had left it. I knew my burger would be cold and tough, and so I instead opted for a sip of orange juice. Brian watched my every move. He seemed creepier than usual today.
   
“Thalia, I’d like to tell you about my wife,” Brian said, acting out his trademark pensive-gaze-into-the-distance. He was completely still, like a statue, and I had never heard him speak so emotionlessly—it was as if he was reading off a script he thought was terribly written. I swallowed a sip of juice. Brian had never opened up before, especially not to me. I was a shitty sophomore who just kind of plagued his life for an hour every weekday from noon to one. What in hell possessed him to come to me with his marriage issues? Wasn’t he supposed to be my psychologist anyway?
   
Something dawned on me. Brian had no wedding ring. He never had worn a ring, at least not one that I’d ever seen.
   
He opened his mouth to speak, and the first chirp of an incipient “I” came out of his mouth, but I interrupted him before he could go any further. “But I’ve never seen you wear a ring.”
   
Brian’s shoulders fell. He removed his thick-rimmed glasses and pulled at the hem of his un-tucked shirt, wiping at one lens, then the other. A long stretch of silence descended as he did this, and once he had returned the spectacles to their spot teetered on the tip of his too-large nose, no one had said anything for a good forty-five seconds. Brian pulled at his beard. I suddenly wondered if his wife liked said beard on him, or if he had decided to grow it out when he had decided to stop wearing his ring. I sat up straight at the edge of the hideously emerald-green couch, waiting for Brian to explain. He didn’t. In fact, by the time he finally decided to speak again, I had managed to completely drain my entire carton of orange juice. (I still hadn’t taken a single bite of the burger.)
   
“Thalia, try not to ever get married,” was what Brian chose to say after his little moment of pondering.
   
“Brian, frankly, I did not know you were anything close to married,” I replied, trying to portray to him that I was open-minded and ready to hear whatever he had to say next.
   
“I have mentioned my son to you before, have I not?” Brian told me, his voice speaking on a high pitch that he didn’t bother to resolve. Yes, he had mentioned his son before. Back in the first few weeks of sophomore year, after having not seen Brian for the whole summer, he seemed to be reminiscing a lot about his son’s childhood days. He’d say stuff like; “I smoked, Thalia, over the summer. Haven’t done that since Gilbert was only two. Guess now that he’s out of the house, it won’t matter if I fill the place up with smoke, ah?” And then he’d give me a friendly slug in the arm, or a jovial rustle of the hair, things I assumed he had done with his son back when they were both younger and Brian still had light in his eyes. I took a good look at Brian, seeing his face clearly through his newly-cleaned glasses. He didn’t have any light in his eyes, not anymore.