iTalk
The story of Sam Puckett's therapy sessions.
"So... Samantha, your file here says you're twelve?"
"Yep."
"This is quite a thick file for a twelve-year-old girl."
"That's what they tell me."
A silence descended on the two occupants of the room. The younger of the two, her eyes darting everywhere but at the person across from her, tried to appear bored by lounging against the arm of the sofa, but her rapidly kicking foot that banged into the leg of the table every so often betrayed her anxiety. She gritted her teeth and tapped her fingers on one knee, every so often poking her finger through the hole in her jeans. This was not how Samantha Puckett wanted to spend her next six months worth of Mondays. Not at all.
What Samantha Puckett wanted to be doing was going to the Groovy Smoothie after school, getting her best friend to give her the answers to the math homework so she wouldn't have to do it herself later. Or indulging in a large pack of fat cakes. Or playing with her three legged cat. Or letting her sister style her normally tangled and all around unkempt blond hair while she was home. Or sticking her finger in an electrical socket. Or taking long walks off of short piers. Really, she'd pretty much rather be doing anything else.
But Samantha Puckett had made one mistake too many. At least, that's what her court appointed lawyer had said to her with a snide grin while he tried, for the twelfth time, to straighten his mustard yellow tie. He hadn't liked the little girl since her mother had dumped him for that newspaper reporter a couple of months back.
"So, tell me Samantha," the older occupant, her legs crossed as she leaned back in her own chair, remarked casually, "why are you here?" She had a kind expression on her face, but she was trained to get kids to open up. As she waited for the response to come, she tucked a strand of her chin length, stick straight, red hair behind her ear, and trained her bright green eyes on the girl in front of her.
"What's the matter with you, lady? Didn't you get the same paperwork I did? The judge ordered me here!" She barely refrained from adding on a "duh," and used one hand to tug impatiently on a particularly stubborn blond curl that kept making its way into her line of sight.
"Yes, I know that. I meant, why do you think the judge ordered you here? He could have given you some community service. Or he could have sent you to a detention center." The woman had a yellow legal pad propped on her knee, her pen poised above it. The very thick file she had spoken of was wedged against her side, down in the seat, where she thought the young girl wouldn't try to grab it. They all wanted to see their files. It never failed. She had learned the hard way to keep it close to her.
"Like you said, I've got a thick file." Samantha pursed her lips, almost in a pout.
The silence descended again, interrupted every so often by the scratching of the pen on the legal pad or the collision of the girl's foot with the table leg and barely stifled sighs by both of them.
"Alright, Samantha, why don't you tell me about yourself?"
"Isn't it all in my file?"
"I want to hear it from you."
"Whadya wanna know?"
"Well, what would you like me to know?"
They sat there staring at one another for a few moments before the tiny girl flinging her foot against the coffee table finally gave a groan and bit out, "don't call me Samantha. I'm Sam. Nobody calls me Samantha if they wanna keep their thumbs."
"Sam. Noted." And she scribbled a little on the legal pad to make her point, though she didn't look the least bit intimidated at the prospect of losing a thumb or two. "Well, I'm Dr. Perkins, but you already know that."
"Do I have to call you Doctor?"
"Not if you don't want to."
Sam was quiet again, even stilling the kicking of her foot, and she glanced down at the coffee table. There was a plastic jar there, full of jellybeans. She kept her eyes on it as she asked, "What's your first name?"
"Josephine, but patients don't call me that."
Sam nodded and her mouth quirked up in a slight grin. "Okay, Jo, let me get this straight. All I gotta do is tell you all about my screwed up life for the next six months, and you'll get the charges dropped?"
"Maybe. Depends on how much progress you make." Dr. Perkins didn't comment on the nickname.
"Can I have a jellybean?"
"Sure."
Quickly unscrewing the lid, Sam poured out a pile of jellybeans on the table and proceeded to toss them into her mouth one at a time. She did it with the air of someone who was used to playing with her food, full of easy confidence and relish.
"I thought you just wanted one," Dr. Perkins said with a wry smile.
"Carly says it's rude to ask for the whole thing."
"And who is Carly?"
"My best friend." Sam tossed a purple jellybean into the air and caught it expertly on the tip of her tongue. She didn't miss the raised eyebrow from her new shrink. "And she's not the invisible kind."
"I in no way suggested she was invisible."
"Everybody does at some point." Sam dismissed the statement with a wave of her hand, as if the idea of people accusing her of making up her friends was no big deal. " I got a crazy mom, a goody two shoes sister, and I don't remember my dad. Anything else you need to know?"
Though she did want to get Sam talking, the psychologist could hear the hostility increasing throughout each of Sam's sentences. "That... seems good for now." Dr. Perkins made another note on her paper, though she could still see when Sam rolled her eyes. "Why don't we start with something more... neutral? How was school today?"
"Fine." Sam immediately tossed another jellybean in her mouth and resumed her foot kicking.
"Learn anything interesting?"
With a shrug Sam remarked, "the boys' bathroom has more interesting graffiti than the girls'."
There was a pause then while Dr. Perkins bit down on the end of her pen. It was almost like she was trying not to laugh. Sam waited, trying to gauge her reaction. Adults didn't usually like it when girls were in the boys' bathroom, and she was fully prepared to rebuff a lecture.
"What," the doctor asked after watching Sam eat a few more jellybeans, "what exactly were you doing in the boys bathroom?"
Sam chewed thoughtfully, then asked, "if I tell you I did something illegal, do you have to tell the judge?"
"Well..." For the first time, Dr. Perkins looked a little uncomfortable. "I am supposed to, but... why don't we agree that if it can be classified as a misdemeanor, it can stay just between us? I won't make the same deal for felonies though."
"Okay, cool." Tossing another candy up in the air, but missing it, Sam made a noise in the back of her throat noting her frustration. She began a thorough search of the couch for the missing bean while she spoke. "I followed this guy in there." She picked up a pillow and looked behind it. "He was bothering Carly at lunch." Setting the pillow back down, Sam reached between the two cushions before retrieving the bright pink jelly bean in triumph. "I was just gonna warn him, but he said some things, and I said some things, and then..." She popped the candy in her mouth, couch fuzz and all. "I might have punched him in the face and I might have said that I'd cut off important parts of his anatomy if he bothered Carly again. And I might have left him in there with a bleeding nose while I went to get a fat cake out of my locker."
"I see." Dr. Perkins made a few more notes on her pad, nodding her head, keeping her expression blank.
"The jerk deserved it though. Don't worry. I don't beat up innocent people. Usually... And I'm pretty sure he won't mess with Carly anymore." Sam's eyes flicked from the doctor to the jar of jellybeans again. She had gone through the whole pile she had poured out already.
"Go ahead." The therapist made a gesture toward the plastic jar with her pen. "You're my last appointment today, so no one's going to be looking for them later." That seemed to be all the encouragement Sam needed, as she poured the sweets onto the table top and began to ingest the candy by handfuls. Waiting until Sam had a good amount of candy in her system, Dr. Perkins added, "do you beat up people often?"
"Depends on what you mean by often..." she responded thickly through a mouthful of candy.
"Every day?"
"Nah."
"Every two days?"
"Probably." Sam gave a shrug and started arranging some of the jelly beans in patterns on the table. She grouped all of the purple and pink ones together, then all the yellow and green, and then all the blue and red. She left the black and white ones in their own piles, then meticulously began arranging them in some sort of picture while she spoke. "Ya have to understand though. I only beat people up when they're mean to me, or mean to Carly, or they talk about my family, or they get in my way, or they walk too slow down the hallway, or if they take the last fat cake at the convenience store..." Sam trailed off, biting down on her lower lip while she nimbly moved pieces of candy around on the table.
"That all sounds fairly reasonable," Dr. Perkings encouraged, making a few more scribbles on her notepad.
"I know, right? You'd think Briggs would get that some people are just too stupid to not get beat up. But, no."
"Briggs?"
"She's one of the teachers. A total nutbar. And she's always giving me detention."
"Well, that is part of her job."
"Yeah, yeah." Waving away the therapist's words like she did with so many of the other comments made earlier, Sam began to move the candy pieces around faster, not even glancing up from them to say, "we're gonna have to wrap this up soon. My mom's got an appointment with her plastic surgeon, and if I'm not home before she leaves for LA, she won't remember to pay the water bill on her way out of town."
"Oh, I see." Hiding a smirk, Dr. Perkins nodded her head emphatically, but she stopped when Sam looked up and rolled her eyes.
"I know, you think I'm lying. Trust me, if you meet my mom, you'll understand." Sam gobbled down another handful of jellybeans, leaving the rest in tact on the table. "Same time next week, right Jo?"
"Right, Sam."
Standing up awkwardly from the couch, Sam gave a nod and grabbed her backpack off the floor where she had tossed it on her entrance. She was just in time too. As she opened the door to the office's waiting room, there was a loud "SAM!" from outside the building, followed by a car horn.
"Huh," Sam muttered to herself, "she remembered to pick me up. Guess I didn't need the bus tokens. Oh, well." She shrugged and half jogged from the room.
Dr. Perkins watched her exit, her interest conveyed in her furrowed brow and pursed lips. When she cupped her chin, she was every inch the clichéd intellectual deep in thought. Making a few more notations, Dr. Perkins reached for her voice recorder and clicked the button. "Flagrant disregard for conventional rules aside, Patient 4949 exhibits no obvious signs of psychotic behavior, contrary to the arresting officer's opinion. However, further investigation is needed into family life and friends, possible abandonment issues there. Also, dependence on food during discomfort may segue into more dangerous substances, must find a way to casually tap into possible addiction issues. Subject exhibits signals of hostile behavior when pressed too hard. Must find topics of interest to instigate communication." Frowning, the good doctor leaned forward in her seat and surveyed Sam's make shift work of art on the coffee table. It was a pretty good likeness for the doctor's face. No mean feat since the little girl had only glanced up at her a few times during the entire session. "Possible interest in art may provide an outlet for pent up frustration." She clicked the recorder off and walked the file labeled 'Puckett, Samantha' to her locked filing cabinet.
It wasn't lost on her that Samantha Puckett was the first patient to ask her for her first name during their first session, and she was the only one who did not even chance a look in the direction of her file, not once.
Word Count: 2265
A/N: I thought doing fanfic this year for NaNoWriMo would keep me motivated. Hopefully, I'm actually able to finish this by the end of the month. I warn you that the chapters will likely vary greatly in length. Some will have specific events from the show in them, and those will probably get to be more detailed. Also, as Sam gets to know her therapist, she'll start talking a lot more. And I'm currently working on an outline now that I have a general idea of where I want to go with this, because I don't plan on posting a new chapter everyday. I don't plan on this being thirty chapters, so even though it might look like I'm not writing everyday, rest assured, I will be. Feel free to provide me with feedback :)