jace

August: Spite and Misunderstandings

tuesday

Dr. Cassandra Wilson recommended that we have family counseling once a month in addition to my weekly sessions. She said that it would give us opportunities for "Clarity, Closure and Consideration." Courtney was reluctant about agreeing at first, but Dr. Cassandra Wilson and Eli convinced her that it was in my very best interest. She was also doing it free of charge.

She couldn't refuse after that.

The three if us were crowded on one couch while my mother and father. sat in two, heavily cushioned chairs on opposite sides of the room. It seemed as if they couldn't keep their eyes off of each other, but their stares weren't endearing, they were more like murderous.

"How does it feel to be in the same room with each other?" Dr. Cassandra Wilson asked, her eyes darting back and forth.

My father took a deep breath and I could tell that he was about to say something ridiculous--he got animated when he was uncomfortable. "Like I've been hit by a bus and then dismembered with a dull knife."

Mom rolled her eyes, "You're such a jackass."

My father nodded, "Oh, right. Says the Cheater Bitch."

"Fuck you Carter."

Eli and Courtney's heads snapped back and forth as they watched them bicker, their faces contorting with each curse word said. On the other hand, Dr. Cassandra Wilson and I seemed unaffected completely. After all, I had a Rubiks cube in my hands and she was examining the ends of her big hair.

They yelled about Courtney and I and dr. carmichael and money and time. And how my father was never around to love my mother and how my mother did nothing to contribute to our family and how my father "sounded like a jackass all of the time." They argued about my dad "letting himself go" and about my mother's unrealistic expectations and though I heard every word of it, I wasn't processing the information.

It took at least a half an hour for them to run out of insults and pent up realizations to scream, and when they did Dr. Cassandra Wilson stared at them blankly, "Are you done?"

They both shrugged.

Dr. Cassandra Wilson turned to me, "jace, what do you think of what just happened?"

I shrugged, "I figured it would happen."

Dr. Cassandra Wilson pulled a clipboard from her desk drawer and flipped through it's pages. "The notes from jace's previous psychiatrists say that he always reacts outwardly to your bickering. Doesn't it bother you that it doesn't even effect him anymore?"

I looked up then, becuase that wasn't something that I had noticed myself. My parents seemed surprised, though I wasn't sure if it was directed at Dr. Cassandra Wilson or themselves.

After awhile my father shrugged, "Maybe he's maturing."

"Maybe he's adjusting," Eli said.

My mother's eyes narrowed as she glared at him, "Why are you here?"

Courtney tensed beside me, "Because he's a part of our family."

And then the arguing continued from where it left off, with twice as many curse words and twice as many participants. At that moment I considered myself the most mature person in our "family" as I was the only one minding my manners and utilizing the Golden Rule and all of those other things that even children are supposed to know. And I thought that family counseling as a whole was losing it's meaning because there wasn't any clarity, closure or consideration. There was just a lot of spite.

wednesday

"Are you nervous to graduate?" Elizabeth asked. We walked through my neighborhood with our arms linked and the inside of my elbow itched from the fabric of her sweater.

I shook my head, "There's no reason to be nervous. Not anymore." I used to be nervous, but that was before I met Eli and Mr. Searly and before they showed me that disorders aren't necessarily social impairments, they're what make us different. "Are you?" I turned to look at her, and she was snuggling deeper into her sweater, though it was close to 89 degrees that day.

She shrugged, "I don't know, I think so."

"Do you have a plan?"

She shrugged again, "Do you?"

"Intern at Nebraska Psychiatric Hospital, Doctorate in Psyciatry from Harvard, become a psychiatrist. It's pretty simple."

"Harvard," she said as if she were miles away. "Where's that?"

"Massachusetts."

She made a strange noise, as if she were choking and then we weren't moving anymore and she was looking at her feet. She looked sad or confused or some sorrowful mixture of the two. "I think I wanna go home now."

"Oh, do you want me to drive you?"

"No, that's okay." And before I could say goodbye or apologize for whatever I'd said, she was walking down the street, even though she lived an hour away on foot.