It turned out that the “new approach” was anything but new. He asked you the same questions that other psychiatrists have already asked you before. How much time have you been feeling like this, when was your last happy memory, what was the event that triggered your suicide attempt… He asked about your feelings, about the times someone had let you down, about your frustrations, about the times you had been heartbroken… One hour into the chat, you already had enough.

Is not that the talking bothered you, he was some sort of nice, a lot nicer than your usual shrink. However, telling him those things when he could read them from a file… that bothered you. It was mostly due to the lump in your throat and the tears that came in to your eyes when something especially difficult came out.

You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand for the fifth time in the session. You haven’t asked for a tissue and he hadn’t offered one. You liked the fact that he acknowledged your sadness, by giving you time to breathe when you needed  it and not pushing you to talk about certain issues, but didn’t tried to make you accept it in his owns terms, like making you blow your nose in a undignified way.

“Tell me. Why are we doing this?” You finally cut him in the middle of one particular long question. “You can read everything about me in my file. You don’t need to ask. Why are you asking me?”

Somehow, asking him a question felt great. It almost felt like you were the one in control now. He seemed kind of puzzled like he didn’t expect that small rebellious move from you after playing his game for an hour.

“I want to hear things from you.” He said “There’s a lot of what you are saying in the way you said things. And that is not reflected in a file”.

“I still think this is useless. What am I telling you right now that you couldn’t just figure out of my shrink notes?”

“That what almost killed you was loneliness. That even if you know what you have to do in order to get out of here, you won’t do it because you don’t trust yourself alone at your house and you are way too afraid to turn at your family or friends for help because you fear they would turn their backs at you. You dread than, but you also kind of want for it to happen so you can prove you are right.”

His voice was calm. You wished you had that calm with you. You knew he was speaking the truth, but you didn’t want to face it because, once faced, it would be up to you to fix things and take initiative and you didn’t have that in you.

The grin in his face annoyed you terribly and in that instant you only wanted to erase it. It wasn’t like a smirk or anything. He didn’t feel superior to you. Actually, his smile held some sort of polite affability. However, it still annoyed the hell out of you.

You wanted him to leave and take with him that sense of vulnerability that came with his words, with his truth. It weakened you and you felt like crying again. You tighten the grip you had been holding on your bed sheets and frowned. At that point of your life, you had become quite an expert on pushing people away of your life.

You knew you couldn’t just hurt him like you had hurt your family and friends, mostly due to he was a stranger and your words wouldn’t mean anything to him. However, you knew how to scare off hospital staff when they tried to be nicer with you than usual, when they started to make you feel good, feel at ease. Those feelings never last, your experience had taught you that much, and when they were gone, the pain was too much to bare.

So you let the grip you held on the sheets go and you bend forward to reach for him. You almost made it, but he was fast and, even if the didn’t expect your sudden advance, he was able to dodge it. He immediately got up from the armchair he had been seated in and looked at you puzzled. His knuckles were white as he held the iPad where he had been taking notes into. You had clearly upset him, which had been your ultimate goal. Sure, getting a taste of those lips would have been a nice bonus, but the mission had been accomplished and that was the important thing at the end.

He didn’t only seemed upset, but also puzzled. His right hand moved and he seemed to be quickly searching through files. He finally found what he was looking for and he chuckled. He looked at you like he was looking at you for the first time and nodded, almost imperceptibly. He seemed to be fighting against something, words maybe, but his professionalism clearly lost the battle when he spoke.

“So, when in your record says you have an history of assaulting staff members, it doesn’t mean you go around giving people nosejobs… You are giving away s, instead. Good to know that you prefer making love instead of war.”

You gritted your teeth and closed your fist.  He wanted war? You’d give him war. He noticed the tension in your shoulders and that seemed to made him go back to his professional self. What he had just said was inappropriate and both of you knew it, but you have started it by trying to kiss him in order to scare him off.

“The counselor said you’d lost your iPod privileges, so I’ll be taking this.” His hand grabbed the piece of technology that laid on your nightstand and you opened your mouth to protest “I’ll give it back to you in our next session, if you behave. See you in two days”

And he left, leaving you there with your mouth hanging open while you couldn’t just believe what had happened merely minutes earlier.