Falling Falling Stars

48 - Sadness

Note: I actually wrote the beginning of this chapter three times until I was happy with it. Whoof.

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'I'm just- I'm sorry about cancelling on Dr Mika last minute,' Efnisien said, within a few seconds of sitting in the seat. 'It's- I mean- Maybe another time or, I don't know, I might break up with Arden, I don't know.'

Dr Gary looked at him steadily, with an evenness that simultaneously made Efnisien feel settled and like Dr Gary didn't understand how terrible and evil Efnisien was, and god, what if he'd managed to somehow brainwash his psychologist into thinking that maybe he was an okay person?

He'd spent the night before drafting break up messages to Arden, feeling increasingly miserable the more he thought about it. Finally, close to midnight, he sent Arden a cloud with lightning coming out of it, and they'd texted, but Efnisien couldn't tell him what had happened. It sounded so stupid. He saw someone who used to be his friend, and didn't want to be his friend anymore, and hated him. And one day Arden would feel the same way about him. It was only a matter of time.

But one thing Arden said was that if Efnisien felt so miserable, maybe Dr Gary would help, and Efnisien had spent the next six hours – gut cramping, fucking miserable between the toilet and his couch – clutching his phone and agonising over whether he should cancel the session with Dr Mika at such short notice. But Arden was right, Efnisien would do better spending time with Dr Gary, rather than Dr Mika.

At nine in the morning, the day of his session, he called Dr Gary's office – not his personal mobile number that he was supposed to call in an emergency, because this wasn't an emergency – and got through to Mack and left a message. Dr Gary called him an hour and ten minutes later, probably after another client, to let him know it was fine, they'd reschedule Dr Mika to another time.

Which made Efnisien feel worse.

He caught about two hours of sleep at his desk while trying to work to distract himself. He drafted more break up messages to Arden, locked up and breathless as he wrote and discarded them.

He put tallies on the whiteboard because the intrusive thoughts didn't leave. He almost missed the days when he used to fantasise about hurting people, because he was getting really fucking tired of imagining Berdella, and the alternatives that his brain threw up weren't helpful. He saw Bridge killing him, which was stupid, it was stupid, because out of the two of them, he was the one who was way more likely to do it.

And worse, memories of Henton bubbled up like lava, melting through the cracks of his sanity until he stood near the toilet, wondering if he was going to throw up, when he hardly ever did that. He felt like he'd cold sweated nearly all of the water he'd drunk, and in the end managed a half-cup of hot water before he walked to Dr Gary's, feeling light-headed, wide awake and incredibly lethargic and weird at the same time.

Now, he felt like he'd fucked up. He could've talked to Dr Mika. He could've done that. Dr Gary probably didn't like to be jerked around like this. Maybe he wanted the break from Efnisien. Maybe everyone did.

'You don't look like you're feeling very well today,' Dr Gary said finally. 'Are you sick?'

'I'm not sick,' Efnisien said. Then he burst into a short clip of ugly laughter. 'Except, you know, up here.' He pointed to his head.

'How about you catch me up to speed, with regards to what's been happening in the last week?'

Efnisien nodded, then picked at his jumper, then nodded again.

'It's just- I know I shouldn't have cancelled, and that Dr Mika was doing something really nice by offering to see me early. And that I shouldn't take- I shouldn't take that for granted, you know, people being nice to me. So if you could tell him... If you could t-tell him I just- I don't know. It's just I don't know if- I thought he could help me, and then I changed my mind. Which is dumb, right? That's so fucking stupid.'