The plastic is crinkling loudly in between his thumb and index finger. He twists it around as he listens to the peppermint click against his teeth as it bounces around, the sound seeming so loud within his head that he stops and just lets it sit on the back of his tongue until it starts to tingle and then he moves it to his cheek and smiles across the room at his therapist.
(Yes, his therapist. He’s surrendered to the fact that maybe, just maybe, he needs this right now. He’s started to think that everyone probably needs this and maybe that’s what friends are supposed to be for. Then he feels even worse, thinking that he can’t even find a friend that would want to listen to his problems so he has his mom paying this guy, what? Five hundred dollars a month? But she insists that it’s fine and that he’s one of the best therapists in the area. He thinks about people who really, really need this, but just don’t have the money and it sort of makes him nauseous.)
He picks up the bowl again just to put his fingers in it and rifle around. Just for some noise to fill the silence that’s fallen on the room.
--------
“You should get some chocolates are something. Don’t get me wrong. Peppermints are great. I’m a huge peppermint fan, but sometimes I just want a good piece of chocolate. And, anyway, having a peppermint in your mouth makes it harder to talk. See? It’s making my worlds are garbled.”
“I’m just saying that maybe the option of having a piece of chocolate would be nice. You should poll your other patients. See what they think. I bet they agree that peppermints aren’t the best idea.”
“Maybe some of those miniature Hershey bars. I could sure go for a Mr. Goodbar right now.”
--------
He’s feeling uncooperative today. He feels like being difficult.
He’s started to grow tired of just feeding this guy exactly what he wants to hear. He’s grown so tired of just telling this guy what he feels. He’s grown tired of that stupid look on his face when he does tell him what he’s feeling. That look like, “Yes, yes. I know exactly why it is that you feel this way and I’m going to tell you why and you’re going to then have some huge breakthrough about yourself.” That look like, “I’m going to fix you.”
Because he never does. Fix him, that is. He’s never once come out of this office feeling any better than we came in. Most of the time, he feels worse. All of his problems now just below the surface of his skin, torn from where they were hiding deep within himself.
And it usually takes him until the next session to finally put them all back where they belong.
--------
“Not a whole lot’s been going on. Uh, my car’s doing this thing where it backs itself into other parked cars.”
“Yeah, totally not my fault. I don’t know what’s wrong with my car. So now my taillight’s smashed and I have to fix it and my bumper’s all twisted.”
“I know. Only three years old, looked like it was brand new. Now it’s got a twisted bumper and a broken taillight.”
“Work? Just the usual. Nothing too exciting besides my boss managing to burn his foot on his George Foreman grill.”
“You really don’t want to know.”
--------
But there’s this other thing that happened at work. It has curls and shiny teeth and skin that he’s sure feels like cream. And it’s convinced that three years ago he was able to turn off any feelings he might’ve had. Or maybe it’s not so convinced, maybe they’re just really great actors.
But today he’s being difficult, obstinate. He’s going to sit here and talk about inconsequential things like his car and his boss and-
--------
“What?”
“You think I can’t make connections with people? I’m not sure what you mean by that. Or-”
“You think I think I’m incapable of connecting? That’s…I don’t know where you’d get that from.”
--------
He’s put a space between her and himself.
And even though the space is imaginary and he could very well go over to her and make her laugh until his breathing came easy again, he doesn’t.
It’s better this way, for both of them.
--------
“I have friends.”
“There’s Mark and there’s the guys I play poker with sometimes…”
“Well, I’ve known Mark since my freshman year of college so almost ten years now.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty close.”
“Maybe I don’t want to connect with these people. To be honest, most guys my age are idiots and-”
“Pam? Yeah, I guess-”
“Okay, fine. I really only feel connected to Pam. Is that what you want to hear? That I don’t have any real friends besides Mark and Pam? That my relationship with Pam is probably the closest friendship I have or maybe have ever had? Are these- I mean, what do you want me to say?”
“Fine. Here’s the thing, I’m good at making friends and I’m good at meeting girls. I’m good at talking to people and getting people to like me, but that’s not enough. You knew that already though, didn’t you? You already knew that’s what I’d say. That plenty of people like me just fine, but none of them know me at all. Not even Mark really knows me. Or my parents or my brothers. This is what you wanted me to say out loud even though you’ve probably already got it written right there on your notepad.”
“Just her. She knows me.”
“It’s just this thing where she’ll look at me and know immediately if I’m in a bad mood or if I’ve got something on my mind. She can just look at me and know.”
“Yeah.”
--------
He isn’t having a breakthrough. These are things he already knew about himself. These are things he doesn’t need reminding of.
He waits for his therapist to move or say something about why he’s like this. Waits for it to be analyzed.
But all that really happens is his therapist takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes with the heel of his hands like he’s tired or frustrated. And then when he’s done, he looks at him with his glasses back on and doesn’t say a word.
--------
“So?”
“Isn’t this the part where you explain it to me? Tell me why it is that I can have so many friends, yet feel so lonely most of the time?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I’m sorry, can’t you just…fix it?’
“Yeah, well, it would be a hell of a lot easier.”
--------
On his way home, he stops at Poor Richard’s to get a head start on getting these things back into their hiding places. Thinking he can drown them out with cheap beer, wash them back into the hollows of his chest.
It’s working brilliantly until he hears a familiar laugh from a corner booth and doesn’t have to look over to know who it belongs to. Then they’re right back where they were before, just bubbling there beneath his skin and behind his eyes.
He finishes his beer and thinks maybe he needs a better therapist.
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali