One day later and we’re back to five. It’s like there’s a line of crazies outside, and as one of us leaves they let in another one. Like at those supposedly cool clubs where some idiot in sunglasses stands at the door with a list while a bunch of posers beg him to let them in. But he only picks the really beautiful people. In this case, I guess he’d be picking the unbeautiful people.
Anyway, there are five of us again. Well, maybe four and a half.
I’ll explain. This morning at group there was a new person with us. A girl. At first I thought she was, like, seven or eight, but it turns out she’s twelve. She’s so small and skinny, though, that she looks like a little kid.
Her name is Martha. She sat in her chair hugging a stuffed rabbit. Her arms were wrapped around its middle and her chin rested between its long, floppy ears. She didn’t say a word the entire time. Cat Poop told us her name, but that was about it.
I asked him about her later, though, during our session.
“Can’t she talk?”
“She can talk,” he said. “She just doesn’t at the moment.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“You know I can’t discuss her case with you,” Cat Poop said.
“Come on,” I prodded him. “How am I supposed to make her feel like one of the family if I don’t know anything about her?”
“I notice you’ve been spending a lot of time with Sadie,” he said.
“What do you guys do, spy on us all the time?” I asked. “Or do the nurses secretly film us? Does Nurse Goody have a camera hidden in her hair?”
“Do you feel like we spy on you?” he countered.
This is another therapist trick, answering your question with a question, so that you have to keep talking. I decided to throw it back at him, so I asked, “Why, do you think I feel like you spy on us all the time?”
Cat Poop actually smiled a little when I did that. “You know we don’t,” he said. “We keep an eye on you, but we don’t spy.”
“That’s big of you,” I said. “It’s not like there’s much we can do around here, though.”
“You seem angry today,” he said, ignoring the fact that I was being a smart-ass. “Are you angry?”
Once he asked, I realized that I was angry. I hadn’t really noticed, but I was. And now I was even more angry because he’d realized it before I had.
“I’m fine,” I said.
We sat there for a while with neither of us saying anything. I figured I could probably go the whole session that way, but Cat Poop had other ideas.
“Does Sadie remind you of someone?” he asked me. “Maybe a friend?”
I knew what he was getting at. He wanted to know about Allie. I could have kicked myself for ever having mentioned her around him.
“She’s nothing like Allie,” I said, just to let him know I knew what he was hinting around about.
“How is she different?” he said.
“Well, for one thing, Allie isn’t locked up in a psych ward,” I suggested.
“Is that the only difference?” asked Cat Poop.
“You think I’m in here because of Allie, don’t you?” I said.
“I think you’re in here because you hurt yourself,” he said.
“But you think I did it because of Allie.”
“Did you?”
“No,” I said.
“Are the two of you close?”
“Can’t we talk about my dysfunctional family dynamics?” I suggested. “Or my fear of intimacy?”
“Is Allie your girlfriend?” he asked.
“Can we please stop talking about Allie?” I practically shouted. “Jesus, can’t you just get over that?”
Cat Poop wrote something down on his stupid pad. I thought maybe he’d finally given up on the Allie questions, but he wasn’t done yet.
“Have you and Allie been sexually intimate?”
Like that’s any of his business. I wanted to slap him. I hate to admit it, but I’d actually almost started to think old Cat Poop wasn’t so bad. But as soon as he asked me that, I knew he was a dirty old man. I mean, he’s only like thirty-five or something, but that’s old enough to be a dirty old man. The point is, he just wanted to hear about teenagers getting it on.
“What kind of pervert are you?” I asked him. “Can’t you just look at some porn? Or do you like hearing people talk about their sex lives?”
He didn’t answer the question. I didn’t expect him to. I’d caught him, and he was probably embarrassed. He should be. I mean, some stuff is just private.
“How many times do I have to tell you that nothing is bothering me?” I said.
“If nothing is bothering you, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to talk about why you tried to kill yourself,” said Cat Poop. “Can you do that?”
“Sure,” I shot back. “If I wanted to I could. But I don’t want to. Not with you.”
“Are you saying you’d like another therapist?” he asked me. “I can arrange that if it would help.”
I almost told him to go ahead and do it. Then I thought about having to answer the same stupid questions all over again. As annoying as he was being right then, at least I had Cat Poop trained a little bit. If I got a new therapist, I’d be starting all over again.
“No,” I said finally. “I don’t want a new one.”
“I’m honored,” said Cat Poop.
“But I’m not talking about Allie, or sex, or anything else that isn’t any of your business,” I warned him. “Just so we’re clear on that.”
“Well, think about what you do want to talk about,” he told me. “We’ll pick up tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait,” I said as I stood up. “Oh, and by the way, you need a haircut.”
As I turned to leave, I saw him reach up and touch his hair. Score one for Jeff, I thought as I shut the door behind me.
When I got back to the lounge, the new girl, Martha, was there. She was sitting on the couch, still holding that rabbit in her lap. She was staring out the window at the snow.
I was going to go back to my room, but something made me go over to Martha. She didn’t even look at me when I sat down next to her. I kind of wanted to say hello to her. I mean, I know it’s not easy your first few days in the nuthouse.
“I like your rabbit,” I said.
Martha stopped rubbing the rabbit’s ears and looked at me.
“Does he have a name?”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“He’s your best friend, isn’t he?” I said, and she nodded again.
“I have a best friend, too,” I told her. “Her name is Allie, and I tell her everything. Do you tell your bunny everything?”
Martha nodded and held the bunny close to her, like she was protecting him.
“I bet he’s a good listener,” I said. Then I told her, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. We can just sit here together.”
She buried her face in her rabbit’s fur, but I could see she was smiling. We sat like that for about an hour. I talked about some stuff, nothing important, and she sat there and listened. It didn’t matter that she didn’t say anything. I think she was happy just having company. I guess having a stuffed bunny for your only friend can get a little lonely.