Page 59 of Tortured Eyes
Twenty-Two
My time's up. Benson wants the all-clear before he’ll okay my return. Fine. I’ll give him what's required. I'm crawling the walls to be back at work anyway, and the gateway to that is talking to some stuck-up shrink who thinks they know everything about you after a two-minute conversation. In, out and cleared. That’s all I have to think of it as. Rip the Band-aid off and don’t give it any more thought than that.
Bright fluorescents glare down and light the waiting area harshly as if I'm already under the spotlight before entering the office.
“Bryce McCarthy?” A slim gentleman pokes his head out from one of the non-descript doors and looks around for me.
Showtime.
I stand, offer a pleasant 'I’m doing fine' smile and proceed inside the room.
He closes the door and peers over his tablet, swiping at some documents. They're undoubtedly the write up from Benson and my record. Whatever, I've nothing to worry about. I take a seat and wait for the first question, trying to remain in control.
“So, Bryce. This session has been mandated by your lieutenant following your suspension from duty. Something that, looking at what I have here, is quite out of character.” He looks up at me as if expecting me to answer something.
“This is the first time I’ve been requested to have a psychological evaluation.” I keep my words exact and factual.
“Okay, then. Do you enjoy your job?”
“Yes, of course, I do.” The hurt and surprise in my voice are easy to hear.
“You don’t find it difficult to decompress… to separate the work from your home life?” His question makes me think. I’ve never had a problem in keeping everything at a professional distance until Logan Cane came into my life. Maybe I am on the hard side of fucked up about him, but I'm not here to talk about that, no matter how much this shrink might try to make me.
“No. It’s been a part of my life for my whole life. I don’t know any different.”
“Umm. Hmmm,” he muses, while looking at the screen. Three minutes in and I’m already veering towards pissed off.
“It says here that your father was also a cop. Are you close to any other family members?”
“Not locally." I'm not going down that line either. What family I have left had nothing to do with this. "I just had to take care of a matter out of town.”
“Which is why you asked for a few days of personal leave?”
“Correct.”
“But you didn’t check-in and come back when you were expected?”
“No. I was delayed.” The lie stinks. Still, I've got to keep focused on getting back to my job, and this shit is necessary.
“What do you want to get out of this session, Bryce?” Mr Shrink finally looks me dead in the eye, and I see a weary man.
“I want to go back to my job. I have to attend this session to do that.”
“And you have no intention of speaking to me about anything remotely personal to you, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Even if your job depends on it?”
I hold my breath. My assumptions have always been that this is a formality Benson's been following—a tick box exercise I've got to complete to move forward. Especially given that I've already been reprimanded for my missing badge and gun, and my vanishing act, and served a heavy suspension,
“Benson has nothing that would warrant lengthening my suspension. I am fit, healthy and ready to return to work. My job doesn’t depend on spilling my guts to you.”
“I’m so pleased you hold this session, my time and my profession in such high regard.” He gives me a withering look, and for the first time since I entered the building, I consider someone other than myself. He’s right. Maybe I'm being a jerk. That still doesn’t mean I’m ready to confess any of the details surrounding Logan.
“I apologise. That wasn’t my intention.”
“I think you intended to come here to tick the box, Bryce. You have no plans to talk about whatever happened." Yep. Bang on. I sit straighter, keeping my fit-for-work eyes directed at his. He sighs and flips through a folder by his side. "Because there is something that you’re keeping from your boss, colleagues and myself. I can’t make you talk to me, I’m simply here to remind you that you can talk to me if you need to.”
