Psychotherapy || HS

Eight

HELLINGLY ASYLUM

Maximum Security Ward for the Criminally Insane

SESSION SEVEN

 

The session was going particularly well. Harry went more into his self-troubled childhood. His lies, the pain, then the laughter of the pain. Masochist, at best, and it seemed to be his own pain that he enjoyed. Eyes drained of energy, and the ruse he'd put on of pure happiness was failing. The important thing was that I felt our therapist-patient relationship was getting stronger by the minute. I seemed to be the only person Harry trusted, and I needed not to take the for granted.

I suppose I stopped listening for a moment, because he looked up at me. His voice was so soft and nearly cracking. "Sophia?" I looked at him. Bags rested under his eyes, and his muscles relaxed almost too much. "I think the only reason I haven't cracked in this place is because of you."

"Ha-"

"No."

"H-"

He raised his hand, "No. Listen to me." He sighed. "I may not think of strangling people anymore, but this place is designed so those who are exceptionally crazy go even crazier. Trapped in a confined space of worthless individuals. I'm lucky, Soph. I'm lucky they didn't kill me when they found me, but Soph, I can't sleep." I tried looking anywhere but his eyes, but I failed. I failed so horribly that I just bored into whatever possible trap he may have pulled me into. "And when I can't, I think about you. And that makes me not be able to sleep more, because I knew deep inside that you're afraid of me. Maybe not even deep inside, but you're terrified of me. You know that I could do anything to you and no one could stop me, but I don't want you afraid of me. I don't. Because... look. Look around you. What do you see?"

I looked around my office. There was the tape recorder, the many family pictures, the painting Harry had given me, my unorganized desk (which reminds me of the note I placed in there). I saw home. I saw work. Then, I saw Harry, and he was the latter, work. "My office."

"I see your home. But I also see my home. You're the only one I have left, Sophia. That hug Gemma gave me wasn't of forgiveness, it was of appreciation. She knew I was fucking lying, but she knew that I was doing it to spare her feelings. She knew I cared. For once in the near two and a half decades I've been alive, I cared. That's why she hugged me, but I'm a lying son of a bitch. The only person I have not lied to is you. Because you're all I've got." His sudden openness surprised me.

"Harry, are you alright?"

"No!" He stood and the guards peeked through the window in the door, but I shook my head. "Did you not grasp the idea that I can't fucking sleep? Every week I see you, it gets worse! You can go home and get pills to sleep, I can't do that. I lie awake and wait until I can get a shred of sleep, and I don't." Our time was up, but I was determined to spend more time with Harry Styles. "I'll see you next week, I guess." The uncertainty in his voice had terror jolting through me. Harry would take any life but his own, right?

My eyes blinked uncontrollably as Harry began to stand. "Wait." He turned to me and his eyes were, for once, unreadable. As if a path was leading to a dead end of misleading thoughts and troubled thorns. "You're my last patient of the day and I have nowhere to be except bed. Sit." Harry looked at the guards who I'd told to give us more time, then they left. "Take a seat, Harry."

Harry sighed and sat again, then he opened his mouth to speak. "You can stay, Sophia."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not golden." He was speaking of this Jane he'd told me about a few sessions ago. "Her name was Arizona. Because her mother was an escort on the streets of Ass Crack, Arizona and that's where she was conceived. It took ten years for her father to be found through lots of swabbing and testing, but he was dead by the time they found him. Underground drug dealer and whatever. I held her when she found out she would never be able to look into the eyes of the man that, and I quote, 'Owed my mom a hell of a lot of child support.' She was beautiful. To this day, I think I regret killing her. I know she would stand by my side, and before I came here, I had no one else."

The tape recorder kept rolling until he reached over and paused it. "Harry, that's supposed to keep rolling."

"Not for what I need to say. I love you, Sophia. Not like the love I had for Arizona, but like I said, you're the only one I have left. So, I kinda have to love you. I love you like you're the last person on the planet that can give me hope of survival. That's how I love you. Nothing more than that." His elaboration calmed the nerves in my legs. I was glad that he didn't love me as I originally thought he would. He loved me as his only hope, his only dream to live. I was his safe haven, in a way.

"Well then, I love you too, Harry. I do. You're definitely an interesting patient. One of the firsts I can say that I've actually enjoyed. I hope the best for you."

"Is this a goodbye? I feel like this is a goodbye."

"Not a goodbye. Just reassurance that you're not as crazy as you make yourself seem. I believe your nightmares and inability to sleep are rooted from that fact that you do love me as you say you do. That you're trying to hide yourself from the one person that could help you. If you hide from me, I can't help you. Help me help you."

He nodded and bit on his bottom lip until it bled. I sighed and moved over to my desk, where my purse was, and pulled out a tube of chapstick, tossing it over to him. "Thank you." After applying the chapstick, he left it on the table. "You know, you're the first psychotherapist to not be afraid to sit across from me."

"Well, if I'm going to help you, we have to be equals." Instead of sitting in my chair, I sat beside him. "Equals. I have to look into your mind and see what you see. It's observation in its lowest form."

"Then I really like your kind of observation."

---

for clarification: i answered a comment before saying that gemma did not forgive harry. and she didn't, it was a pity hug, a letting it go hug. she knew harry hadn't cared for anyone in the short years he's been alive, so for him to lie to her face to spare someone's feelings other than his own was miraculous; she was grateful. now, before everyone's like, "omG HARRY LOVES SOPHIA AND SHE LOVES HIM.." no, it's not like that. they aren't in love, they just love each other. harry knows that sophia is his only chance of not dying in the mental institution of exhaustion and all the other worries he has, like going back to jail. he knows that sophia is all he has, so he's grateful that she hasn't thrown him away like other psychologists have before. she's trying, and he appreciates that. he doesn't worship her, and she doesn't worship him. they enjoy each others' company, for the most part. they keep their relationship professional while also having heart-to-heart conversations for the greater good of harry's mental health. and while sophia is afraid of the harry the news has exposed her to, she isn't afraid of the harry she knows on a more personal level. she somewhat adores the strength he has to go through all this shit.

ANYWAY, now that that's all cleared, i love you all, and have a great day ♥