Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Forty-Three

R E C K L E S S . . .

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

When the psychiatrist walked in I was sat at the edge of a large, soft armchair, looking around the room with a growing sense of foreboding.  My foot was tapping anxiously on the polished wooden floor and my eyes were flitting around the small, white office in a desperate attempt to find an escape.

She came in through the only door, the very one that I’d been led through a few minutes before when my mum had dragged me to see her. The police had insisted that I see a psychiatrist at least once, and I’d managed to avoid it for far too long in their opinion. The incident with the cat had been the last straw – I’d been pretty much proved insane in my parents’ eyes when they had run into my room to see me standing over my dead cat and screaming.

“Anne, I’m so glad that you’ve come to see me,” she said warmly. “I’m Doctor Helyer.”

I didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, my gaze settled on the large window that lay behind her immaculate cherry wood desk, deciding that it was my best chance of escape if anything happened. It showed a view of the long, grassy lawn that stretched out behind the building.

She sat down in the identical chair next to mine, though her pose was as different from mine as it could be – she sank into the plush cushions, looking relaxed, and she was inclined slightly towards me as if we were in a close conversation. "Are you okay?” she asked, smiling kindly.

Doctor Helyer was young, perhaps in her mid or early twenties. She had perfectly straight strawberry blonde hair that went down just below her shoulders, fanning across the white material of her blouse, which was tucked into a pair of dark, high-waisted jeans. She looked perfectly at home in the clean, bright, business-like interior of her office.

“I think you must’ve pretty much established the fact that I’m not okay, since I’m here,” I murmured. I looked her directly in her murky green eyes. “As a matter of fact, I think that everyone has decided I’m insane, regardless of what I tell them.”

“Why do they think that?” she asked. Her elbows were resting on her knees, her hands cradling her head. She leaned closer towards me, looking intrigued.

“The police have told you already, not to mention my own family. I shouldn’t have to recite all the reasons why people think I’m mad.”

“Officer Colon seemed to think that you were blaming these deaths and attacks around your school on something… supernatural.”

“And what if I did?”

“Do you honestly believe that there’s something unnatural about this killer?”

“I think that any killer is unnatural to be honest, Doctor Helyer.”

“But unnatural to a point that they’re not human?”

“As I said; any killer is inhuman in my eyes.”

“So you’re saying that what you told Officer Colon was a mistake? You believe that these attacks were done by a human, but it was an inhumane thing to do.”

“No. That’s not what I said to him.”

She reached for the end table beside her and picked up a previously untouched pad. She quickly scribbled something down with a biro from her pocket and then looked back up at me. “You’re being evasive,” she said, though more as an observation than an accusation.

“I don’t see why you should know anything about this. You’re hardly going to be any help,” I told her. “I’m not insane.”

“Nobody said you were insane. Stop talking like the whole world is convinced that you are.”