There would never be a time where I wasn't haunted by my past.
My eyes never left the floor as I finally heard the front door open and then softly click shut.
*****
I had called Ivy as soon as I sat down at my desk the following morning. I had a rather open afternoon and told her to come to my office around one. A voice in the back of my head warned me against it. It told me I should tell her I couldn't help her and send her on her way. But another voice was heard as well, one that sounded so much like my mother it was frightening. It told me that I needed Ivy and she needed me. That I should continue with the sessions and do all that I could for her. It was like the scenario of an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.
No matter what the voices said, they didn't stop my memory of the night before from flooding my head. They didn't stop the weakness I felt and the hatred that consumed me once it was over. I sat through the first three sessions of the day in a quiet haze, consumed with my own thoughts and demons. It was a good thing none of my clients had noticed, and if they did, they didn't say anything about it. Instead, I sat in my chair and tried to listen to their pitiful stories of how they weren't able to talk to men, or how they couldn't seem to be intimate without crying. I took my job seriously, and usually spent more time helping them deal with their issues, but I couldn't that day. Today, as I recited my practiced responses to their cries, all I could think about was how Ivy had been able to draw out the shadows that I had kept locked away for years.
I had a very bad feeling that Ivy would continue to lure them out until I was suffocating in the obscurities. Something in the dullness of her eyes spoke to me, and I couldn't identify it, nor could I ignore it.
I checked my watch repeatedly once it turned twelve o'clock. I even left my office door open starting at twelve thirty in the event she arrived early. I wasn't able to accomplish anything as my eyes moved to the small waiting room just outside the door every thirty seconds, willing her to show up. I questioned myself on what I was doing, but I couldn't find an answer. I may not have been a typical therapist, but I still had rules to follow.
I was only allowed to engage in sexual relations with a client when it was part of the plan. And it could only be for that reason-to help them overcome their issues. It would have been unethical to engage in any relationship with a patient outside of the limits set for therapeutic reasons. So my newfound obsession and fear of Ivy concerned me. It was one of the reasons I knew I should've ended it. The other reason was personal, but just as important.
At one fifteen, I finally gave up. Assuming she wasn't showing, I packed up my briefcase and headed out. I didn't want to stay there in the event she did show up. I took it as a sign that I shouldn't be helping her. I locked my door and headed outside, but was immediately stopped in my tracks.
Ivy was sitting all alone on the curb in front of the building. If it had been raining, it would have been the same scene as the first night I had met her. I had seen many patients over the years, thousands even, but none like Ivy. She made me curious, intrigued, scared, and worried.
Letting out a lungful of air into the wind, I walked to her, setting my case on the pavement and taking a seat next to her. I waited quietly until she acknowledged me, which was nothing more than her looking at my black shoes. She was wearing tight black pants and another baggy tank top. It made me wonder if that was all she had in her closet or if she just simply liked to be comfortable.
"I was waiting for you inside. I didn't think you were coming so I decided to leave."
"I was trying to find the nerve to go inside. Your office makes me uncomfortable." Her voice was soft and slightly shaken as though she was scared of something. If my insides had a voice, I was sure it would sound much like hers at that very moment. Nervous and scared-no, petrified of the mess she could turn me into.
"Why does my office make you uncomfortable?" I almost laughed. In the twelve years I ran my practice, not once did someone tell me the atmosphere was anything but relaxing and easy. If it wasn't, I was sure I wouldn't have been able to help as many as I had. In fact, I would have probably been out of business.
"It's too clinical and sterile. It reminds me of the therapists I was forced to see when I was younger."
Well shit … There it was. It was a necessity for a client of mine to have a typical form of therapy. It was the only way I could work with them. But most of the time, their interactions with other therapists were generally introduced to them as adults. Ivy's admission to seeing professional help when she was younger meant all of my previous assumptions of her might've held some merit-the ones regarding child abuse. I realized I had two options. Either refer her to someone more qualified for mental illness, or stick around long enough to find out just how fucked up she really was. The smart decision would have been to refer her and walk away. I was a smart man. The decision should have been easy.
"Well, where would you like to do this at?" I checked my watch. "I have some extra time this afternoon, did you still want to talk today, or did you want to start again maybe tomorrow?" I didn't even wait for her answer before I spoke again, mentally kicking myself in the ass. "There's a pond around the back of the office building. A bench, too. I'm sure it's more comfortable than the parking lot, and it's not at all clinical or sterile."
Without looking at me, she nodded her head. We both stood up and I waited for her to follow me before walking around the building to the pond in the back. In the years I had been at my office, I had never ventured back there. I could see it clearly from my window, but never felt the desire to sit on a bench and watch ducks swim around in what I would assume was a disgusting, slimy body of water. It reminded me of stale bath water and I wanted nothing to do with it. Which made me question myself even more. Why would I suggest going back there? It was a question I was sure I'd never find the answer to. Ivy was the reason, yet that only added more questions to my already confused mind.
"We should probably come up with some kind of plan for you. That's usually what happens at the beginning. But before we can do that, I need to know things about you first so that I can accurately find the best path for your success. Can I trust that you'll be honest with me this time?" I asked with more irritation than I meant to expose.
She nodded, looking at the grass below her feet. I hated that she couldn't look at me.
"I need more from you, Ivy. I need you to speak to me. Answer me with words and not just head movements. Give me the truth when I ask; no more lies. No secrets, no silence. I need these things from you in order to help you. You came to me for a reason, and I cannot do what you need me to unless you give me something."
Her eyes finally moved to mine, and in them, I saw a woman on the verge of breaking. A woman on the edge of giving up, waiting desperately for someone to pull her back to reality. I saw someone so lost and disconnected to the world around her. I could've been looking into my very own eyes.
"What do you want?" she asked me, sounding so helpless.
Her question was simple enough, yet it held so much more for me. It sounded as if she wasn't simply asking what information I needed from her. It felt like she was asking me what I wanted. For the first time in my life, the hidden answers to her question scared me. I shook my head and blocked them out. Knowing they were only there because of something she made me feel. Something I had no business feeling.
"Your eyes," I whispered. I hadn't planned on saying that, but staring at the mixture of grey and red left me with nothing else. "I have never seen anyone with eyes like yours. Are they natural? I mean, are they real, or contacts?"
She quickly moved her eyes from mine and stared off into the distance.
I touched her shoulder, causing her to slightly jump in her seat and look back at me.
"Real. They were blue when I was a baby, but they faded. I don't remember how old I was when they finally settled to this pathetic shade of blue."
"Grey," I corrected her.
She laughed without smiling. "Yeah, that's a fun way of saying blue that lost its color."
"What about the red?"
Her hands tangled in her lap as she bit on the corner of her lip. The motions said something to me. It told me that everything I assumed of her were both right and wrong all at the same time. It made me desperate to peel back every layer of her until I had her bare in front of me, giving me everything she had. Everything she was.
She took a deep breath and answered. "Head injury when I was younger. I was too young to remember most of it, but I remember being told as I got older that it was blood that leaked into my cornea … or something like that."