Page 1 of The Eleventh Hour

Jax

“Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.” Doctor Sparrow, my psychiatrist of six years, joins his sausage fingers together and lays them over his protruding belly. “You’re a very sick individual, and though you have made a great deal of progress in the last couple of years, we still aren’t there yet. We can’t upset the progress we’ve made by starting fortnightly appointments.”

He doesn’t even bother looking at me when he says it. The condescending tones are so familiar they don’t even upset me anymore. I am a stone in this office. Everything I feel, I bury so deep it doesn’t exist. Except the hate. It’s like a snake coiling and writhing in my chest.

And the fear.

He leans back in his chair, and it tilts with him. A black throne for the dark king, and in this office, and in my life, he reigns supreme. He clicks his overpriced pen that has his name in gold along the side and spins it in his fingers before making a note on my file.

I shift in the uncomfortable egg-shaped chair. It’s a dreary off-white colour and designed to make me feel like there’s nowhere to go. I wince at the way it makes me fold in on myself, the way it presses uncomfortably on my thigh. As I turn my head, a sharp pain in my scalp makes me flinch. I lean forward, free my dark brown hair from the chair, and smooth it down my chest so it’s a silken mane again- it’s the only thing I control in this room. My chair doesn’t tilt back, it’s stiff, hard plastic, and puts my back to the door. Every time I sit here, in the back of my mind, I wonder if today will be the day they storm the room and carry me off.

“Okay, Dr Sparrow.” The meek voice is one I’ve perfected over the last six years. Born out of necessity. I loathe that tone in my voice. It is everything I never was and is everything they’ve forced me to become. It is a sign of my weakness and stupidity. The price I’m paying for the mistakes I made.

“Tell me about what’s been going on in the last week since we’ve seen each other.”

He runs a hand over his shiny scalp, turning the grey strands dark with either sweat or oil. I can’t be certain which, though it could be a combination. The lavender shirt designed to make him look harmless is too tight on his middle-aged man body, the material bulging in between each button to reveal pasty white skin.

The shirt matches the one painting in the room. A lavender tulip watercolour that I had loved the first time I’d seen it, before I knew what it all meant. Before I was introduced to my new reality.

I look down at my own top, making sure my curvy frame is suitably covered. I’ve always been, not exactly self-conscious about my weight, but aware of my body and trying to make sure it’s covered. Don’t be so bitchy, I remind myself. For an instant, there’s guilt, and then I remember who the hell I’m looking at. The man’s my nightmare. I’m going to judge, even if it gets me a one-way ticket to hell.

“Well, everything’s been pretty quiet. I caught up with my friend River, and we watched TV on his tablet. I went to work and went home. Nothing exciting, really.” I shrug and lick my lips, distracted for a moment by a bird flying past the window.

“Anymore of those phone calls?”

I wince. I was hoping we could avoid that subject. The creeper calls are unnerving me. The mouth breather on the other end is winning his psychological game with me. “Yes. Ten more calls while I was at work. It’s no problem, though. I’m not worried. I mean, it’s just some kids or something.” The false bravado should have won me an award.

There is a long, pregnant pause as Sparrow stares straight at me, as if waiting for me to confess. It’s a look I remember many a teacher giving me when I was in school. The consequences are steep now that I’m an adult.

“Eugene contacted me. He’s concerned. He says it’s affecting your work.”

My oxygen seizes in my lungs, the ability to speak stolen as fury washes over me. My boss called my shrink and tattled? Oh, boy, is he going to hear about it. A little voice inside mocks me, “Really? Are you actually going to do something about it this time?” The nasty little voice is right, and it makes me want to cry. There’s nothing I can do. I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood.

“I don’t know who it is. They’ve never said a word. It’s just breathing. Truly, it’s no big deal.”

He writes on his pad and uncrosses and recrosses his legs. “It’s probably no one, but try to focus harder at work. You don’t want poor Eugene’s generosity to expire, do you?”

I grit my teeth, force a smile, and nod. “No, I don’t want that. I’ll do better.”

“Have you met anyone? Any relationship potential?”

I screw up my nose. This question, at least, is a simple answer. “No.” Hell no! Fuck no! Can we get a no in the back? NO!

“You can’t keep living in the past. You aren’t that person anymore. Living with no human contact is not really living. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to push yourself past those barriers you are so afraid of and accept your responsibility to society.”

He hasn’t said it outright, but I strongly suspect Sparrow is one of those men who believe women should be barefoot and pregnant. If that isn’t where he’s going, I’m not sure what other responsibility I could possibly owe to society. However, I don’t really care enough to ask.

“I will. When I’m ready, I’ll go out and socialize more.”

“I’d like you to start working on that over the next week.”

It’s like I didn’t even speak. I cross my arms but quickly unfold them before he can see. My gaze is drawn past him to the huge bookshelf that takes up most of the wall. I’ve read the names on the spines of those books dozens of times. Each one is a peacock's feather flaunting his intellect, his career, his passion. Behavior, Psychology, Psychiatry, Medication, Therapy, Techniques, Neural pathways. Freud, Jung, Schema, Exposure. On and on. A wall of books to show how much he knows about how broken my mind is.

He knows shit about my mind.

I fight the urge to twitch and shift in place. Any sign of impatience will grab his attention, and a barrage of more unwelcome questions will come, and I’ll be here half the night.

“What about the hallucinations?”

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