Page 96 of In This Iron Ground
“You’re doing—Damien, you’re great. But…don’t you think there are a few things that are still, I don’t know. Haunting you?”
“So I need an exorcist now.”
“I’m not. Damien, I’m not trying to suggest anything bad. It’s the opposite. You’re so fucking strong, it has nothing to do with that. Strength doesn’t have anything to do with it. Hurting doesn’t happen to weak people. It happens to everybody. I just think…I mean, doyouthink that maybe life would be a little better if you had someone—a professional—to help you through things that are still hurting you?”
Damien closed his eyes. The day had been perfect until that moment.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Damien said. Hakan remained silent. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Okay. That’s all I wanted to say. For you to think about it.”
“Okay.”
Hakan’s hand moved softly through Damien’s hair. Damien let it soothe him.
He didn’t want to go to therapy. He didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted the things that haunted him, like Hakan had said, to simply disappear. To not have been true in the first place. But that, Damien had to acknowledge, was impossible.
His parents’ deaths. Foster care. The McKenzies. They had happened. There was no way to undo that. And he wasn’t so far in denial to believe that the wounds that had been dealt to him during those years had healed right. He’d ignored them too long. They had infected and festered and he could still feel their ache. Their pain. Some days, he battled to keep them closed.
Some days, he lost.
But he didn’t see how therapy could help. Talking about it wouldn’t change what happened. It wouldn’t erase the wound. And healing it correctly…God. That would take a purging of diseased skin. It would ask for reopening the wound, cleaning it out, having to watch his raw flesh try to knit itself back together all over again.
The very thought of it was exhausting. The very thought of having to sit there once a week and talk about it. To reveal the mess that had been made of him. That he himself had made. To have to carry all that again. To have to relive it.
But, the truth was, Damien was already tired. He already relived it. He was still confronted by it regularly. The thought of more was too much. But, the thought of more leading to less? Less nightmares, less anxiety, less putrid skin?
There is something clouding your sight.
Camille wasn’t the first Kephale to tell him he couldn’t see clearly the truth of his own worth. Damien thought of his Ousía. How unbalanced was it? How much was he ignoring the needs of his earth?
“Damien.”
Damien looked up at Hakan. Hakan urged him up until they were chest-to-chest, their legs tangling together. He rubbed his cheek against Damien’s as if he wanted to purge every sad thing through his scent.
Damien nuzzled him back.
He could forget about the whole world there, hidden away in Hakan’s warmth.
**********
Damien thought about it. He thought and thought and thought about it.
In the end, it was like Hakan finding him in the forest. Saying,“Just until New Year,”and convincing him to do something that terrified him with a gentle suggestion.
His therapist’s name was Mandy Monroe, “Call me Mandy, please.”Her office didn’t have soft music or a water fountain or a miniature Japanese sand garden. It had a desk with a computer, a big round table surrounded by chairs, and what looked like a big, blue, plastic wardrobe with the doors closed.
“That’s where I keep all my art stuff,” Mandy said when she noticed Damien looking. He nodded, staring at his fingers. There was a stuffed seal in the middle of the table. Damien stopped himself from grabbing it. He wondered if it was some kind of test.
“Okay, well, now that we’ve introduced ourselves, how about this. You can tell me a little bit about what’s going on at the moment that encouraged you to come here, and I can tell you a bit about the therapy I offer. That way you can decide if that seems like a good fit for you. How does that sound?”
“Um, yeah. Sure. But, what ifI’mnot a good fit foryou?” Damien couldn’t help but ask.
“Well, the questions you answered when you first contacted the service were aimed to evaluate if there was a therapist here who could meet your needs and if so, whom. I was happy to take you on as a patient, so I doubt that will be an issue. But rest assured that if I ever think that I am not capable of meeting your needs, I will do everything in my power to help you get access to a service or person that will.”
But what if you don’t likeme?“Okay.”
Mandy asked him questions. Questions, questions, questions. How are you eating? Are you sleeping? Can you go back to sleep after a nightmare? How often does that happen? Where do you feel the anxiety when it happens? Can you give me some examples of a few triggers? Was there any incident that made you think, okay, I think I need a little help with this one?
