Ignite

Chapter 22

The next day is Tuesday and I'm aware, before I even show up to my scheduled appointment with Muhammad, that it won't be one of my finer ones.

All day, I'd walked around with that newspaper article printed on the back of my eyelids, flickering into view every time I blinked.

At lunch, Emmy had brought it up too.

"Can you imagine what might have happened if the public found her before the police did?" she'd said, her eyes wide with a horror. "It would've been a bloodbath."

Her words had echoed ever since.

They whispered as I stared at my maths equations.

Can you imagine.

They kept pace as I ran around the oval, practicing for the school half-marathon.

What might have happened.

And now, as I sit in Muhammad's waiting room, they fill my head.

If the public found her before the police did?

"Claudia."

I jump and look up to find Muhammad frowning at me.

"Are you okay? I called your name several times."

"Sorry," I mumble.

He turns and walks into his office and I stand to follow.

As I sit in my designated chair, he watches me with that thoughtful blankness I presume psychologists take a course in.

"How are you today?" Muhammed asks, taking his laptop out and booting it up.

"Fine."

"You've seen the news."

It's not a question, but I nod anyway, Emmy's voice echoing through my head again.

"How does it make you feel to have that information go public?"

I blink at him, and to my surprise, something deep and carnal rumbles within me, lifting from beneath the fog I've been living under since last night.

"It makes me angry," I say. "She deserves more than what she's getting."

Muhammad leans forward. "Why do you think that?"

"She killed so many people. She doesn't deserve protection. She deserves to be dead."

Silence falls between us, one where I'm sure Muhammad expects me to reflect on my ruthlessness and savagery.

I do not.

"Would that be a fair punishment, do you think?" he asks. "Would that make things right?"

I can't help the unhinged smile that rips its way across my face.

"Right? Nothing about this is right. If they were, I wouldn't be sitting in this chair, talking to you about my feelings when I'm clearly not the one who needs counselling."

"She's getting counselling too, Claudia. I can assure you of that."

I lean back, crossing my arms over my chest and staring out the window at Sydney's skyline. Muhammad lets me stew for a minute, lets the anger roll until I felt more foolish than self-righteous.

"So, you don't think you need these sessions?" he asks eventually.

I open my mouth to snap back that of course I didn't, but then I think of Sylvia and Peter, of how much effort they've put into making things easy for Jake and me.

"I dunno. All you do is ask me the same questions over and over while waving your finger in my face."

Muhammad nods, and I'm surprised to realise that he's listening — actually listening — not just in that psychologist way, which makes you feel like you're talking to an unusually sympathetic wall.

"Do you want me to explain why we keep going over the same memories?"

I stare at him for a moment and then shrug.

"Yeah, I suppose."

Muhammad moves around from behind his desk, perching on the corner in front of me. I can see the city shimmering behind him, wavering with heat and pollution.

"I've been asking you to repeat your memories because traumatic experiences are often easier to push away than confront. You'd agree with that, wouldn't you?"

I nod, and Muhammad continues.

"The issue is that your mind heals similarly to your body. When you cut your hand, your body closes the wound, but if you ignore it and continue to move around normally, the skin will break open. Again, and again, and again.

The same happens with memories. If you refuse to acknowledge them, the damage becomes more permanent, even if the event occurred years before. That's why, when you smelt the smoke at the party, your body reacted. In your mind, the fires are still happening, they're still as present, catastrophic and threatening as they were when you were caught in them."

I shift in my seat, glancing out the window. Muhammad's eyes are fixed on me and it's unnerving.

"The therapy we're doing, when I ask you to repeat those awful memories, is an attempt to activate your mind's natural healing process — to move those thoughts and feelings from your short-term memory to your long. The technique is called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing."

"But talking about what happened doesn't work like that," I say. "Whenever I come to these sessions, whenever I bring that stuff back up, it just gets worse."

I can hear the desperation in my voice, the distress.

"I see fire all the time. Every time I blink, it's there on the back of my eyelids. I'm never going to forget what happened."

"You're right," Muhammad says, "you wouldn't be human if you could. But the technique will push that fire into your long-term memory and change your relationship with it. I'm not saying you'll forget it, but you won't feel as threatened. Your everyday activities won't be impacted by that one event."

I glance down, my fingers wearing at my skirt's edges. The world Muhammad has painted before me, one free of flames and fear, is so beautiful it makes my heart ache. I want to believe he's right and I can get there. I want it badly enough that I could scream.

"Okay," I say. "Let's try again, I guess."

Muhammad pulls his chair out from behind the desk and sits in front of me.

I look up and focus on the finger he's holding up, following as it slowly moves back and forth.

"Can you tell me about what happened when you first smelt the smoke?" Muhammad asks. "When you were on the soccer oval with Jake back in Bellbird?"

I open my mouth and speak.

And for the first time, when the flames crawl out of me, raging their way up the office walls and licking against the ceiling, I don't push them away.

...

Next chapter out in a week :)

- Skylar xx