Her jaw fell open in shock, her eyes searching his face with disbelief that the normally patient and kind doctor she’d known was yelling and treating her like an errant child.
His body leaning forward in his chair, the notepad dangled from his lap from the speed with which he’d moved to close the distance between them. He glared at her, every ounce of frustration inside him a red mask over his skin. With his pen gripped in the fist of his hand, he shook his head when she said nothing, when she failed to respond to the angry and volatile words of a person she believed had no clue as to the thoughts and emotions crippling every part of her body.
“You are running out of time. With every second that ticks forward you are losing ground. And those seconds are ticking, Alice. They’re adding up, moving forward and leading you somewhere I’m not sure you want to be. I’m done playing around with you. Either open your eyes or let it go entirely.”
Tears streamed over her cheeks, her lips trembling where those tears slid along the crease to drip over her chin and down her neck. Fierce sobs shook every part of her and she couldn’t gain control of the fear that blossomed out from deep within her.
Before settling back against his chair, he reached for a tissue to hand to her. Alice didn’t accept it, so he tossed it to land on her lap. Retaking his normal position, he drummed a furious beat with the pen against paper, one final tap louder than the others before he said, “You’re missing every important aspect of these dreams and focusing only on the things that don’t scare you.”
Shock tore across her skin. “How can you even say that? Everything I’ve told you has been frightening. He raped my sister, he forced me to have sex with him, he hurt me and hit me, and threatened to end my life if –“
“You said you loved him already, Alice. Don’t continue lying to me, and more importantly, yourself, about how you really feel about him. He rescued you from your nightmares. He gave you a pretty garden to play in while he was away. If you’re going to rely on dreams to tell you what really happened to your sister, than look at the parts you’re too scared to see. The parts that are, actually, frightening. The parts you have buried deep down inside because you don’t want to admit you were part of them. Those are the dreams I want to know. Those are the dreams you need to discuss. Not the ones that paint a dismal picture of a man who did everything to harm you while also committing abuse against some faceless woman on a television screen.”
Pulling the glasses from his face, he placed them on the table beside him and reached to rub at the bridge of his nose. His eyes were clenched shut, his foot tapping a frantic rhythm where it was crossed at his knee. Finally opening his eyes, he wrote a few more lines in his notepad before retrieving his glasses and resettling them over his eyes.
A breath of frustration rolled across his lips, his voice dropping back to the soothing tone he’d always used until this session.
“I’ve known you for a long time, Alice. I’ve been treating you since you were a small girl and I can’t sit idly by and allow you to continue lying to yourself. We’re running out of time. If you’re going to continue with the dreams, then fine. But tell me the ones that frighten you the most, and for the sake of yourself and the sake of your sister, look at them for what they really are. Look at who Max really is, and look at the truth for what it is. Who is Max, Alice? And how is he connected to you?”
A shaky breath rattled over her lips, her hand reaching up to knock the tears from her skin. “Fine, Doc. I’ll play your game. But don’t blame me when you discover that you’re wrong. These are just dreams. Dreams that have nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my sister.”
He shook his head, a subtle motion that Alice had barely seen.
“Start with the price, Alice. The price for the garden. Perhaps it’s the key to helping you remember.”
“I’m leaving the house for a few hours. You’re allowed outside in the garden during that time. Everything else will remained locked.”
Alice sat in the parlor room staring up at a man that was dressed in a gray suit, white shirt and a crimson tie. Everything about him spoke of money and elegance, refinement that she hadn’t known in her younger life. She was as attracted to him as she was scared of him, her hands trembling in her lap, but she couldn’t understand why.
“Don’t dawdle outside for too long, Alice. You need to remember the price, the tasks I’ve given you to complete. Don’t fuck them up and don’t forget them. You won’t like the result.”
With that, he stepped out of the room, the heels of his dress shoes a rhythmic clap against hard wood until the sound disappeared entirely. A door opened and closed in the distance, and for the first time since she’d been brought to live in the large house that had been Max’ childhood home, Alice breathed out a sigh of relief.
The price.