Page 38 of Beautiful Prey

His eyes drew away from mine as if embarrassed I might see tears. It was such a small moment, but for him, it meant everything.

The sessions went by in a blur and the days with them. We made progress, although he still struggled with the smiling woman.

I asked him the kind of things he’d said to her. His responses were so unexpected I had to bite my tongue a few times to not react.

“I told her if her eyes were any further apart, she’d be a herbivore. She’s so ugly she couldn’t even arouse suspicion,” he deadpanned.

The next time he thought up more unique ways to belittle her, he said it had helped and she’d appeared smaller. I wasn’t shocked.

He might feel a little less stressed seeing her now, but I knew without medication, she would never go away. I had theorized in my paper that he had garnered his hallucinations through substance-induced psychosis. Though, usually, the psychosis was brief in that regard whether from taking the meds or from the withdrawal. But I had no idea what drugs they gave him and what they did to him. With the medication and the trauma from his youth, it was a perfect mixture to trigger the long occurring side effects.

In short, he needed medication in order to stop what other medication had done to him. But therein lay his greatest fear.

I didn’t introduce them right away. But once the week passed and he was showing he was willing to use my therapy and my advice, was willing to confront his monsters, and better his behavior, I decided to attempt presenting them.

Not offer them. Present. The next session, I asked Dr. Hannah for the medication they were trying to force on him. I took a few pills out of the box then, when we sat together once again, and I carefully placed them before him on the table.

Emery stared at them. I couldn’t gauge his reaction from his expression, but he tensed, shoulders squared. It almost felt like the room had grown colder from his icy presence.

“You don’t have to take them,” I said. “And that’s okay. They’ll just remain right there. You don’t have to touch them or anything.”

His sharp eyes turned to me. At first, I worried I’d see a look of betrayal. But there was none, just that fear.

“Can I tell you what they do or would you prefer I not?” I asked.

He shifted uncomfortably. “I know what they do,” he said.

“And what’s that?”

“They…they make me hurt.”

I frowned, sliding my fingers along the table surface. “No, Emery, these help.”

He shook his head as if that were impossible.

“Do you trust me?”

His chest heaved. “Yes.”

“Then I swear to you I would never give you something that would hurt you.” I looked him straight in the eyes as I said it so he knew I meant it. “I only want to help you. I know you went through something awful and traumatic in your childhood. But this is different.”

He looked at me uncertainly.

“Do you want to stop seeing the smiling woman?” I continued. “Or having bad thoughts?”

He didn’t say a word but I knew the answer.

“I won’t make you take them. That has to be up to you,” I stated. “They will just remain here if you decide to, okay?”

We went on with the session as usual after and the medication remained between us. I could tell it made him uncomfortable, his eyes drifting over to them every so often as if they might slide across the table and attack him.

A few more days came and went and he didn’t ask me to give them to him. I knew it would take time. But time was wearing thin. Dr. Hannah, when she came, reminded me how necessaryit was that he started his recovery and each time I told her I was aware but I wasn’t going to force him.

I put out water for him next to the meds but he still wouldn’t touch them. When the end of another week came with no progress, I feared I might have to find another way.

“These things take time,” I said as Dr. Hannah stared daggers into me when I reported back to her and Dr. Langley.

“Yes, they do,” she said. “But Emery has had all the time. Clearly, these soft methods are not working, which isn’t surprising.”

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