Over thinker

She’s nervous.

But they always are when they come to me, and after twenty years, the fidgeting fingers, darting eyes, and sharp intakes of breath no longer faze me.

I smile. I use the one I’ve perfected after hundreds of uses. A bit of pity, a hint of hope, and a dash of understanding.

“Hi, Mikayla,” I say. “My name is Helen.” I use the tone that is most welcoming, the kind that invites the patient to open up.

Mikayla grunts and does not answer.

Typical.

I try another conversation-generating tactic. “I love that band.” I point to the faded Guns N’ Roses t-shirt that hangs loosely on her thin frame. In all honesty, I have never heard a single one of their songs, but relatability is key.

“Okay.”

She’s closed-off, but not rude. I can work with this.

“Tell me about yourself, Mikayla.”

Silence.

A typical moody teen.

“You know,” I elaborate, “what are your hobbies? Your favorite things to do? That sort of thing.”

I can see the internal conflict going on in my patient by the expression on her face. I've seen that look a thousand times. She could either blow up at me. Or she could be polite, answer my questions, and get this session over with.

She chooses the latter option, though I can tell she hates it.

“I like to hunt. You know, kill things.”

Okay, so she seems slightly given to violence. Definately moody. The killing thing is disconcerting.

I keep my tone light. “Neat. I don’t hunt, but my husband does.”

Mikayla is clearly uninterested and lapses into silence.

I allow her a few moments to think, collect her thoughts. I take the time to study my patient.

She’s pretty, certainly not the type I would expect to see in my office. Tall and slender, with dirty blonde hair that frames her ivory face, which is smattered with freckes and boasts a very prominent nose. She's got nice eyebrows, too. Perfectly straight. Her eyes, however, are perhaps her most attractive feature. Silver. I’ve never seen silver eyes before.

I glance at the clock on the wall. We have ten minutes.

“Uh…” I have to play this tactfully. One wrong word and the patient could retreat completely. “Tell me, Mikayla, why you’re seeing me today? I’m sure you’ll feel better getting it out in the open.”

Mikayla rolls her eyes. “Sure. Because you don’t know.” Her words drip with sarcasm. “Aren’t you, like, a therapist? You’re supposed to know all about me and my problems. All I’m supposed to do is sit here in this ugly room and listen to you tell me how to cure myself and then go home and do the same things that got me in trouble in the first place. I shouldn’t have to say anything.”

I fold my hands, thread my fingers together, and sit back against my chair.

She’s right about one thing: I am a therapist. But I actually know nothing about her backstory. My boss thought I wouldn’t want the case if I knew. Something about it being slightly disturbing. So I took on a patient without any prior knowledge of why they were my patient. Although I was told that Mikayla Summers suffers from serious overthinking. I had been intrigued enough to agree.

Mikayla can't know this, though. I have to make her think that I am in control; that I know everything about her and I am going to fix her problems.

So I lie.

“You’re right. I do know. But I want to hear it from your own mouth. Sometimes it helps us to heal if we-”

Mikayla jumps to her feet. Her face grow red with anger and she clenches her fists so tight her knuckles fade to white.

“Why? So you can hear it from my own lips that I am an obsessive over thinker? That I see every slight aggression as a crime against me? That I believe everyone who hurts me in any perceived way is out to get me? Do you want to hear it from my own tongue that I’m glad I did what I did to my brother…” her words stumble to a halt. She obviously thinks she said to much.

Her angry expression quickly gives way to one that is placid and calm. She settles back down into her chair and gives me a smile, an obvious attempt to appear nonchalant. I’ve seen it before.

But something in her has changed. Where her eyes were once dim and afraid, they are now bright and malicious.

And here is a darkness in them that shouldn’t be there.

An unwelcome shiver runs down my spine. My smile falters.

Gosh, I hope Pete is watching over the security cameras. I become intensely aware that it I am alone with Mikayla in the room.

“You have a brother than?" I keep my tone even, despite the fear crawling through my body. "I bet he’s handsome.”

This is an assumption, of course. But assumptions are the master of leaving room for elaboration by the patient. And elaboration gives way to conversation. Or at least, that’s what I was taught by my professors.

“Very handsome,” Mikayla says, that wicked gleam still in her eyes. “Even in death."

Her words are so unexpected and shocking that my smile completely dissapears.

I swallow hard. My heart begins to race.

But it’s fine. I’m fine. Mikayla’s fine.

Her brother just died, that’s all. A tragidy, to be sure. But nothing out of the ordinary.

“I’m sorry.”

Mikayla shrugs. “It was his fault.”

Something in her face, some strange desire in her eyes, urges me to keep questioning.

“May I ask how he died?”

Mikayla draws down her lips in mock sadness. “He hurt someone, and they hurt him back.”

Beads of sweat are forming at my hairline. I suddenly realise how much Mikayla's freckles remind me of drops of blood, and how pale and death-like her skin is.

Mikayla's eyes were now frantic, wild with hatred. "There might be people out there that want to hurt you, but everybody wants to hurt me. Everybody. So I want to hurt them back."

She is clearly mentally unstable. More than that, though. She's crazy. Completely insane.

"What do you mean by that?"

The overthinking part of this girl's case is now clear to me. Something else is also becoming clear. The truth I don't want to understand.

Mikayla reminds me of a criminal caught in a multi-layered, complex lie. They know that they cannot hide, and so they spill the story out as fast as they can.

"Don't you ever feel that twinge of hate when a cashier overcharges by a cent and makes you late for dinner while she re-checks you purchases? Have you ever felt that anger when someone turns on the light by accident when you are sleeping? That little bit of hate that makes you want to swear in their face at the top of your lungs?"

I shake my head, sending a shower of sweat flying from my hair. "No."

"Of course you have. Everybody has, at some time or another."

I know what she means. When I was seven my dad backed over the doll that I'd left in the driveway, ripping it to shreds. I didn't speak to him for weeks.

"So you feel angry when people offend you? As every human does, I suppose."

Mikayla looks angry now. Very angry.

"I don't mean a little annoyed. I mean that when somone does something I don't like to me, I want to make them hurt until they can't take the pain. I want to hurt people."

When kids come to my office, it usually involves being obssessive about something. Obssessive Compulsive Disorder. Obssessive addiction. Obssessing over their body-image. But never this...

Never this much anger over minor offences.

"And this involves your brother... how?"

I know the truth. I don't know why I ask.

But part of me want to hear it from her own mouth.

Mikayla's face twists into another sick smile. Her voice becomes small and childlike as the words I already know drip slowly from her tongue.

"He stepped on my toe. On purpose. He was trying to hurt me. And so I killed him..."

***

"Mrs. Vincent? Are you okay?"

My eyes fly open.

"What?"

"You zoned out for a minute there. Had me worried."

I swallow. My tongue feels like the size of a pillow, and just as dry.

Holly Harper, normal, pretty little Holly Harper who struggles with an eating disorder sits across from me. She looks concerned.

"I'm sorry. It must be this new medication I'm on. My doctor said it might cause mild daydreaming episodes."

I try to look okay. I'm not okay.

Sure, I'm relieved. It was all a dream. Mikayla. Those silver eyes. The murder. All of it.

But it seemed so real.

I think I might need therapy after this.

"Are you sure you're alright, Mrs. Vincent? Do you want me to go get someone."

"No, Holly. Really. I'm okay. Just a very vivid daydream. Now where were we?"

"I was just about to leave when you conked out. You just looked at the wall and your eyes got all glazed. I was a little scared, to be honest."

I smile at Holly. Now that my heart has stoped racing and my mind has settled, I feel pretty good. Relief is flooding all of my senses.

I'm vaguely aware of Holly saying goodbye and leaving. I don't say goodbye back, but I'll see her next week, so it's okay.

I sit back. My office is bathed in the warm afternoon light. The pretty potted plants that sit on my desk look especially bright and cheery. I'm perfectly safe. No phsycopath teenager with blood-like freckles who admits that she murdered her brother because he stepped on her toe.

Talk about blowing every situation out of proportion.

I sigh. I still have meetings for tonight. Just two, which relieves me even more. What I really need right now is a night on the couch pigging out on Cheetos and binge-watching Downton Abbey. Nothing creepy about that.

A scan my list of clients.

I gasp.

My heart flies into my throat.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

The room grows as dark as it did in my dream. All I see are the words on the page before me.

Tuesday, 4:00 p.m.

Mikayla Summers. Obsessive overthinker.