Helpful Manipulations

      Scrutinizing every word and the bubbling body language of Lexi, Alyssa Mayfield discerned nothing less than sincere appreciation from her client. Grinning wholeheartedly at the music theory major’s enthusiasm, Alyssa’s cheek muscles felt stiff from the one-sided session of the latest week’s outstanding progress. The therapist waited patiently, however, with eyes like that of a hungry feline for how the carefully planted nudge played such a pivotal role in Lexi’s progress. But the relief never came. Noticing Cogsworth’s mustache tick to 5:12 pm, Alyssa nearly jumped out of her squeaking swivel chair in surprise at how late their hour session expired.

           Lexi followed the gaze of Alyssa and said, “Oh, sorry, Ms. Mayfield! I didn’t realize I took up so much time.” The young woman’s emerald top began to melt into the cerulean sofa, but Lexi’s hands extended to stop herself. Closing her eyes and breathing, Alyssa witnessed firsthand how the overreaction’s wave receded into a healthier, realistic brush against the shore.

           Alyssa soothed, “That’s good, Lexi. Breathe, and let those initial thoughts go. I’m not upset, and neither should you,” her voice quieted in sympathy, “12 minutes isn’t the end of the world.” Setting a blank sheet of paper and pen to the side, she leaned forward and asked, “How do you feel?”

           After a few moments, Lexi relaxed her shoulders and opened her misty eyes to reply, “Better. It’s not perfect, but I didn’t feel like screaming this time.” She wiped at her eyes and cleared her throat, “I know that our time is up, but can I ask if it would be okay that I keep coming back even if you feel that I don’t need therapy anymore?” Lexi’s voice shrank as she spoke.

           Overcome with sorrowful compassion, Alyssa felt herself loosen and nodded, “My door is always open, Lexi.” The two women shared a heartwarming smile before Lexi pocketed her phone and stood up.

           “Thanks again, Ms. Mayfield; same time next week, right?” Lexi asked, making for the door.

           “Mm! Lemme check here…” Alyssa clicked her tongue, pulling up her schedule for next week. Nearly a full roster, but that didn’t necessarily elicit the annoyance that felt like the whining of nail grating against chalk. “Uh, yes! Next week, I have you at 4 o’clock. And Lexi, before you go..?”

           Lexi halted her exit, curious but graciously innocent of worry, “Yeah, Ms. Mayfield?”

           “We didn’t get a chance to talk about your relationship with your mother. Any news in that respect?” Alyssa asked.

           Lexi’s eyes lit up, “Oh! Right, I’m sorry I forgot to mention – we’re okay now! Great actually! We didn’t need an intervention.” Lexi’s happiness hurt, but Alyssa hid her disapproval in a guise of relief.

           “Just checking. See you next week.” Alyssa said. Perhaps Lexi caught the tone, but she didn’t manage to say anything before Alyssa stood to show her out and close the door. Alone now, she let her head thump against the door and let out her discord in a long, quiet exhale. Locking the door, Alyssa spun and leaned her weight into the door. She rubbed at her eyes, stretching the skin down; she wiped away eye-make-up and the façade she wore. Wanting nothing more than a little time to herself to decompress and recharge, a few clinical thoughts lingered. Though she wrote nothing all throughout their session, Alyssa needed to write something in Lexi’s folder for today, if not for formality's sake, then to reassess and plan how she would manage the overbearing and overcritical aftermath of a matriarch within someone so emotionally vulnerable.

           But when Alyssa slumped into her chair, she found herself spellbound to judge her clients for tomorrow, ‘Michael – barely listens to my advice; little progress. Carol – excellent progress, and she barely noticed the nudge. Jaiden – a slow start but is beginning to appreciate a renewed perspective. Nathaniel,’ her palm caught her scowling jaw. ‘God, what a prick. I’m beginning to suspect he isn’t arguing with me out of misogyny but out of pure narcissism. She recoiled at thinking that word. Someone else noticed the flinch.

           “And how does that word make you feel, Alyssa?” said the apparition on her couch.

           Alyssa glared at the woman from behind her monitor, “I’d rather not do this right now, priss.” She detested the self-assurance in the imposter’s posture, the relaxed, clasped hands resting on a knee-covered skirt assuring undivided attention. She ignored the woman’s lack of facial features, but wondered how she spoke without a mouth.

           “We can talk about something else if you’d like. Maybe we can sort out what we’ll write in Lexi’s follow-up,” the mimicry of consideration from the woman tasted sour in Alyssa’s ears. She continued, “Y’know I can hear your thoughts, right?” Alyssa welcomed a malicious, intrusive thought slip by her better judgment to which the woman shrugged off.

           Alyssa clicked her teeth, “I can handle it myself. Now go away.” The mirage remained; it began to twirl some of the hair on its shoulder into a curl. Alyssa huffed and leaned back into her chair, “What?”

           The woman spread her hands and replied, “You’ve been struggling lately. I’m here if you want to talk.”

           “Clearly, I don’t want to talk.”

           “Clearly,” the woman gestured to herself, “you do.”

           Alyssa ran her hands along her scalp, “Oh my, God, you’re so naïve.”

           “How so?” the woman asked, her tone indicating she ignored the insult.

           Waving exasperated hands to the colorful paper ceiling lanterns, the words escaped out of Alyssa in laughs, “Because people are allowed time to cope? Because you’re not real, and might I add in more respects than one? And, let's not forget this, I know everything that you can throw at me!”

           The woman retorted, “Like how overcoming the aversion to verbalization in of itself elicits the physiological sense of a weight being lifted?” Alyssa could swear she heard the smile spread in that voice.

           “I can’t physically hurt you for gloating, but-“

           “I’m not some best friend that spares your feelings, I’m allowed to talk about the truth.”

           Silence blanketed the bright, cozy room with a foreboding charged with cosmic karma that never seemed to miss its mark in life. Alyssa spoke with that same robust tone to her clients, heightening the pitch of her recent grumble to ensure the smack of reality felt more like removing a thorn than fingering the wound. But hearing it thrown back in her face, she resented the persona she put on for everyone that came to her for help, for peace of mind, for honesty. How ironic.

           “Why do you feel like you’re lying to your clients?” the woman asked. The wound felt like a scab rubbed raw, with blood, vigor, and energy pouring from it.

           “I am lying to my clients. You’re my filter to them…” Alyssa drawled. But faintly, she wondered if the reverse held true as well.

           “I think it could, Alyssa,” the woman nodded. “And I don’t think you’re lying to your clients – there’s no need for that look; it’s not lying when you’re simply putting on a different hat for the role.”

           Alyssa dismissed the woman with a hand, “I’ll be waiting for an Oscar nomination then.”

           The woman took a deep breath, resigned to what she needed to ask, “When did it become a hat for you, Alyssa?”

           Every muscle in Alyssa froze, tension coiling against the course that conversation veered towards. It felt eerily similar to when one thought of a moment in their past laced with guilt or embarrassment, but this ache palpitated her heart to hammer harder in her hollow chest and labored her breathing. Alyssa shot venom with a leer at the woman from feeling her clinical judgment, though, objectively, Alyssa recognized the woman’s focus as genuine concern. She wondered if her clients experienced this every time they relived past pain.

           Alyssa bridged her fingers, steadying her mind, breathing, and voice before saying, “When Brian broke up with me.” She felt the universe groan, and in response, part of the real truth slipped, “When I manipulated Brian to get him to break up with me.”

           Unsurprised but empathetic, the woman hummed to herself, nodding. She remained silent, asking the silence for assistance in drawing out more from Alyssa. Alyssa hated doing this for her clients, oftentimes they would ramble nonsensically. Granted, anyone with a semblance of intelligence could follow along with their tangents, and someone with her refined curriculum could discern the subtext from the filler, but the matter of offering advice tore at Alyssa’s core. It divided her from the woman sitting across from her, it came so easily to the compassionate therapist known to study past the witch’s hour over the latest piece of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

           Unwilling to surrender to silence for too long, Alyssa quipped, “You would have handled the break-up better.” The woman laughed, even raising a hand to cover a non-existent mouth. “Though if I had given you the reigns, maybe he and I would still be together.”

           “Maybe,” the woman mused, “But let’s not fill our head with what-ifs; the world confuses us enough already. Let’s differentiate between what’s in our control and what isn’t – what do we know?”

           “I know you don’t use enough make-up to appear less formal. Well, you would if you-”

           “I know you reserve your ha-ha’s from your clients. And your ‘comedy’ revolves around self-deprecation – makes others less likely to critique your flaws.”

           “I know you’re really good at suppressing the urge the manipulate our clients.”

           “Nudge.”

           “Manipulate, but for their own good, at least.” The truth felt stark to brave, like standing tall against a wave of ice water washing over nerves. It didn’t ease her conscience, but she could sit up straighter. Alyssa cleared her throat, “I also know that you’re better at taking notes,” she shrugged sheepishly.

           The woman tapped her fingers against the armrest, “I know you consider yourself curt.” She lowered her voice, looking, as much as one could without eyes, outside the window to an emptying parking lot, “And how much of a strain it is not to jump at nudging someone…”

           “Really, it’s appalling how they’ll dance around the crystal-clear solution to their life’s problems. But I know that you prefer to teach them how to fish.”

           “I know why the solutions are so clear to you.”

           Alyssa winced, refusing to listen to what the mirror would say. Her head squirmed, shaking itself to say, to beg for this conversation to never happen.

           “We both know that what Brian said to you didn’t hurt you, not really. They came as a relief.” Cowering now, Alyssa curled her head into her lap and felt her eyes mist. The woman didn’t continue; by the grace of God, she fell silent, but now the thoughts that plagued her didn’t need a physical voice anymore. The second-guessing swirled at a presumption that prompted an abrupt shift in tone – months of happiness, trust, and support swept away by weeks of fighting over nothing but lies, purposeful overreactions, and gaslighting. And a nudge to keep Brian at arm’s distance. And Alyssa thought of Lexi and how she didn’t need - how she even forgot - about the perfect solution to all of her problems. What narcissism.

           “I know that you’re full of yourself at times, but neither of us would define you as a clinical narcissist,” the woman reassured.

           Alyssa’s tears flew as she sat up to yell at the woman who disappeared from the sofa her parents purchased for her on her first day on the job, “What do you know?! You’re not real! Brian loved you, not me!”

           Somehow aware without seeing her do it, Alyssa could tell the woman shrugged, “We don’t know that. We never gave Brian the chance to see you.”