Excerpt From "Kilroy Was Here"

Every session starts with the same question.

“What is something good that has happened since our last session?”

I used to not answer because I couldn’t think of anything. Now, I make stuff up in a passive aggressive way to show my disdain for this entire process.

“Yesterday I wore pants outside the house. Hashtag blessed.”

“Are you still having nightmares?”

“Not every night,” I say. “Not like before.”

The man, my court-appointed therapist named Dr. Gilbert Lawrence, looks at a legal pad resting on his knee and twirls a pen in his hand. It’s a nice pen. Sleek. Elegant. I’d like to have it for myself. It’s a rollerball pen and I like rollerball pens. My brain clicks with the instant knowledge that rollerball pens were developed in Japan in 1963. I don’t say this out loud, though. I don’t know how I know this about rollerball pens. This conversation is uncomfortable enough without me blurting out random useless trivia. The awkward silence between us is filled by a staccato clicking he makes with his tongue.

“Do you have something you wanna share?” I ask him. “What’s something good that’s happened to you since our last session?”

“This is your time. This is about you.” He always says that and I hate it. I don’t want to be here sitting in a comfortable leather chair across from a man in a white and taupe bowling shirt who studies me through a persistent smile. I have to, though, because a judge said so. I guess Dr. Gilbert knew I hated the idea of a therapist, so he gave me some advice to ease my anxiety.

“Don’t think of me as a therapist or counselor. Think of me as your life coach.”

Life Coach Gilbert it is, then.

“I still have panic attacks, night terrors, and an irrational fear of things that swirl,” I tell him. He chuckles at that, but doesn’t realize I am being absolutely serious. I won’t even turn my back on a flushing toilet for fear of being sucked into some parallel universe where fish carry guns and Justin Bieber is our dark overlord.

He rests his bearded chin in his non-pen-twirling hand and grins at me. He looks so friendly, so inviting. It should be so easy to open up to him. I really can’t, though. Maybe I could talk about Marlene and feelings and regret, but there’s no way in hell I could tell him about Jeff and portals and Corporate and 8-foot tall purple aliens.

“Are you going to college?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“It’s an important decision. What are your options?”

I pause before responding. “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations – one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it. You will regret both.” He gives me a quizzical grin in response. “Sorry. It’s something someone once said to me. Yes, I’m going to college. I’m going to study becoming a notary public. I like the idea of stamping things.”

“Have you talked to Marlene?” More pen twirling. More grinning. I want to be annoyed by him, but he really is nice. The idea of seeing a therapist conjures an image of men in white coats standing outside his door. I imagine myself answering a question about my mother that prompts the men in white coats to charge into the office and shoot a straightjacket at me from a T-shirt cannon before dragging me away. My remaining years would be spent eating applesauce through a straw while rocking back and forth and mumbling incessantly about vengeful potatoes.

“I have not. Why would I? We broke up.”

“A couple of weeks before prom night.”

“I can’t talk about prom night. I’m under strict orders.” I wince a bit because I shouldn’t have said that.

“Strict orders?” Life Coach Gilbert furrows his brow and leans in. “Strict orders from whom?”

I shouldn’t say things like that because it only makes things harder on people like Life Coach Gilbert who are just trying to help, but I am so sick of everyone wanting to know how I’m doing. I can’t tell them. Plus, no one knows about the nature of my work with Corporate. It’s a secret.

“Well, you know.” My brain scrambles for a viable explanation about who would be giving me strict orders and why. “The voices…inside. They tell me not to.”

“Voices?”

I’m overdoing it.

“Not voices,” I say. “Just, you know. I’m afraid to talk about it, I guess. It’s too difficult.”

Nice save, I tell myself.

****

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