Chasing Zero

Three

"Mx. Reynolds," Johnathon called out. Snapping my head towards his door, I smiled as I greeted him. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I stood up to follow him into his office.

I always looked forward to my weekly meetings with Dr. Johnathon Myers. He was the best therapist I could have asked for, and it was easy for him to understand my frustrations with my parents since he used to be their marriage counselor.

My parents almost got a divorce around six years ago due to my dad's horrible compulsion to plan out every dime my parents earned. Everything for groceries to bills to clothes were all planned out down to the penny. Since the majority of their money had to go towards bills or were put into savings, my mom rarely had enough money to buy what she wanted. She was sick of needing to ask my dad for permission to have some extra money and didn't think she needed strict limitations on what she could and couldn't buy. But since my parents loved each other and didn't want to split up, they went to counseling to try and figure out how to ease him out of his money compulsion.

Because he worked with my parents, he seemed to know my family fairly well. He understood the difficulties I faced with my parents. It was difficult for him to help in the beginning since he didn't understand how I saw the world in positive and negative numbers, but once he did, he figured out how to help us interact better. With his help, I was able to get on better terms with my mom.

He was also great because he understood that I was gender neutral. He had no problem with it. It was my mother who did, as she claimed that she 'felt the same way when she was a kid' and that I 'would one day know I was a woman.' For all she knew, she was agender like me, not feeling as though she was either male or female or anything at all. It took a while for me to realize that I was. I used to think that you had to have a gender. So when I realized that being female didn't feel correct, I thought I was male. That didn't feel correct either, so I did the research and looked into being nonbinary. For a while, I thought I was bigender, being both male and female, but it only sort of fit, like wearing a pair of shoes that was half a size too big.

It was three months into my sessions with Johnathon that he asked me "Why do you have to have a gender?" And it just clicked in me. Why did I have to have a gender? Who said I couldn't not have a gender? After that session, I went home and looked up what it meant to not have a gender, and I finally heard the word 'Agender.' It sunk in at that moment, and everything made sense. It was the closest to Zero I had ever been in my life.

"Good to see you again, Spencer," he said as he closed the door. Plopping into his chair, he patted his thighs and asked, "Where are you at today?"

"Negative five," I grumbled.

"Bad week, or just a little worse than you would have like it?"

"Well, another idea of mine was shot down."

"The one with the mistress and child?" he clarified, and I nodded. "Damn, I liked that one."

"Please. It was only okay."

"Why not use one of the other books that you already wrote?"

Other than a multitude of short stories and poems, I've written three full length novels. I could have sent them in to Dakota to work more thoroughly on, but they didn't fit the criteria she was looking for, as the realistic fiction novels weren't plausible to actually happen in real life. They were books I wrote for myself and would never share with the world for obvious reasons. Plus, I've matured a lot with my writing since writing those. Going back to edit them would almost seem like a tedious chore with no real payoff. It was better to start with a fresh idea, one I could actually get behind writing.

"They're not authentic enough. Just like that one."

"You're facing difficulties with the authenticity?"