Trine
This isn’t like any therapist’s office I’ve been in before. There are two Ikea sofas placed diagonally in front of each other, the blinds drawn, the room dark and cozy. It’s warm in here. The walls are painted a neutral shade of pastel blue, and they’re completely bare. There’s a small end table next to the white sofa Dr. Malon O’Mara is sitting in. He gestures for me to sit in front of him, and I do as I’m told.
He cocks his head, his green eyes narrowing before he speaks. "I assume you’ve done this before," he says. "So you must understand that this is rather unorthodox."
"Yeah, there are normally at least intake papers or something," I say, smiling at him. "Are you going to make me do those?"
"I probably should. Like I said, I assume you know this isn’t typical."
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "I thought I was going to have to wait out there for ages. Honestly, I thought about getting back in my car and driving away. You sorta just appeared out of nowhere."
"Well, you probably should have," he says, crossing his legs as he spreads his arms behind him. It’s a confident move, and not one I’ve seen from many therapists. This feels more like…I don’t know. It's weird. Like a date. But maybe that’s just my imagination, since my sex drive has been on overdrive ever since I met up with the exorcists again.
Everything about my life—even my body—feels very different now. And it’s only been a few days.
I need to pull away from them. I need to get the fuck away from those people, and go back to my ordinary, normal life. Where I pretend I was never exorcised. Where I believe people are only exercised in movies, and television, and it has never, and will never, happen to me.
Because why would it? Even the idea of it is preposterous. None of this makes any sense.
I pick my head up to look at the therapist. "So," I say. "Why did you let me walk in? Why did you bring me back here?"
He shrugs. "Call it intuition. I try to listen to it. Some people think it’s pure mumbo jumbo, or maybe they think it’s your body trying to warn you when it comes to certain things."
"What do you believe?"
"I believe we’re not here to talk about me, Trine," he says, his hands suddenly on his knees. "You came to the crisis center, so talk to me about your crisis. Why are you here?"
Oh, fuck. Where do I even start?
Fuck it. There’s confidentiality. He can’t say anything about me to anyone, and even if he could, what would he say? Some girl walked into my office and talked about being possessed. I probably won’t even be the craziest case of the week.
I take a deep breath before I start, my heart hammering in my chest. "A couple of years ago, I had an exorcism performed on me."
He tries hard to keep his expression neutral, but I can tell he’s surprised. "Okay…"
"And I don’t remember most of it. I remember waking up, bound to a bed, surrounded by a bunch of hot guys, so that’s…you know, that’s a core memory now."
"Is that a joke? Are you making a joke?"
I grimace. "I make jokes when I’m nervous, I’m sorry."
"What are you nervous about?"
"Well, talking about my exorcism with a stranger ranks up there for sure," I reply. "I don’t want you to think I’m crazy. You do believe me, right?"
He cocks his head, his eyes narrowing as he considers my question. "I try not to use terms like crazy. And, in any case, I hardly know you. I’m not making any judgments about you yet. You’re here and I assume it’s because you want to process whatever is happening in your life. From an outside perspective, that feels like sound judgment. Do you think you’re crazy?"
I groan. "I know it’s your job, but can you stop turning everything I ask you into a question?"
He smirks. "Okay. You can continue with your story."
I take another deep breath before I do. "I don’t remember much from that time," I say. "And I wanted to keep it that way, mostly because it feels like…I don’t know. Almost like it didn’t happen to me?"
He nods. "Okay," he says. "So you don’t remember much from that time. You remember waking up. Do you remember everything after that?"
"Not everything. It sort of blinks in and out for me. I remember going to the bathroom, then them leaving. I was left with a card and nothing else. I lived by myself at the time, and I just…I stayed at home, trying to figure out what had just happened. When I realized I couldn’t make sense of it by staying at home, I decided to just keep living my life."
"And everything went back to normal?"