He hadn’t called to her like he normally did from the threshold of his office door. Simply sliding open the dark partition, the doctor had stared at her, concern ruffling the skin of his forehead, his expressive lips pulled down into a thin, stern line.
She walked her path across the carpet and sank down against the couch cushions.
…drip…
The silence between them was thick. His leather chair groaned when he took a seat. The clock ticked its measured beat. And the sink dripped endlessly, the sound so grating against her senses, she swore she would tear it from the wall.
“Why haven’t you spoken?” she asked, shame preventing her from looking towards the face of the one person who could judge her for the insanity that lay dormant inside her mind.
“I was waiting to see what you would say.”
“Why?”
He sighed, a rush of breath that betrayed the aggravation seated inside him. “Are you ready to look at these dreams for what they are, Alice? You’ve already told me everything I need to know.”
Limp strands of blonde hair hung down to shield her head. She hid behind it, desperate for something more solid, more full, where she could crouch down and cower, where she didn’t have to learn the truth these sessions were forcing her to face.
“It’s time, Alice. For you and for your sister.”
At the mention of Delilah, Alice’s eyes crept out from behind the curtain of her hair, her head spinning slowly over her shoulders and neck to lock eyes with the man that was guiding her forward. “You finally believe me?”
Her body trembled beneath the weight of a question she asked despite her fear that the answer would be his typical response.
“I’m not saying that,” he breathed out, his aggravation transitioning into a pitiful cadence to his words. “Would you like me to talk? To bring up the symptoms and facts about your dreams that you have yet to acknowledge?”
A single nod of her head was all she could give him, the movement sharp and spastic.
Leaning back in his chair he tapped his pen to a beat of three before scribbling out some note. Like a surgeon’s scalpel, that pen sliced her open, dissected her so that the doctor could look down inside to see all her ugly and weak parts.
“Fine. You’re out of sorts today, so I’ll play along.”
Flipping through the pages, he ran his finger along some line of thought that was a wash of blue against white paper. “Several times now, you’ve mentioned to me that Max seems to know a lot about you. Why do you think that is?”
She shrugged, the movement so subtle and weak, she wasn’t sure she’d actually done it. Bringing her hands into her lap, she stared down on the tendons that pushed up beneath the skin, at the calluses that marred the tips of her fingers, dirt a brown line beneath her fingernails. When had her hands become so ugly, so aged? And would the stains that had come from someplace unknown ever be washed away completely?
“After our session, I had another dream –“
“I’m not interested in the next dream, Alice.” He paused, regaining control of a voice that had become far too impatient. “At this point, all I’m interested in is the answer to the question I just asked you.”
Barely able to swallow past the thickness of her throat, she closed her eyes and let go of every bit of air trapped in her lungs. Another breath brought her more into focus, the filth washed out of her as she exhaled to be replaced by the clean air of the doctor’s office.
“I don’t know. The only reason I can imagine is that Max isn’t real. He’s a part of myself, perhaps.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
Her eyes shot open at the harsh words, the muscles in her neck wrenched by the effort it took to face him fully. “How would you know? They’re dreams, Doc. Dreams! Images and actions that take place entirely inside my head. Every person, every face, every word and every horrible thing is made up by my mind, my recollection, and my brain’s fucked up inability to record memories the way it’s meant to. Of course he knows everything about me because he is me. He’s the vision of somebody in my head so he has access to every memory I hold. That’s the only explanation that makes sense –“
“Or…” he interrupted, his voice booming through the room loud enough to drown out every tick of the clock and every drip from the sink that was slowly driving Alice mad. “…it’s the only explanation you’ll accept as making sense because you are too far gone to acknowledge what it could actually mean. You’re a scared little girl, Alice. One who has sunk so far into herself that you refuse to look closely at the images these dreams are showing you.”