Session Three


"Seeing as our last session was interrupted, I'm going to require your full cooperation today."

I'm sitting across the desk from Dr. Crane, legs politely crossed and hair up in a tight ponytail. I am the very image of cooperation.

"I'm going to get right to the matter at hand, if you don't mind."

"Of course not."

He nods. Good girl, keep it up and you'll get a biscuit.

"The most apparent issue with your behavior is the pattern of impulsive and potentially harmful activities. Theft, drug use, truancy... in my profession, I've found that the root of many of these 'spur of the moment' behaviors is some sort of phobia, latent or explicit... you know what those terms mean, correct?"

I snort.

"Of course."

"Particularly drug use and truancy, which are generally avoidance behaviors. Also, seeing as these behaviors began quite suddenly, I've made the assumption that something traumatic occurred around the time of your seventeenth birthday?"

"Do you know what they say about assumptions, Dr. Crane?" I say, with a smart ass smile.

"Avoidance, Miss Walker?"

"Jessica. Just Jessica, please."

He taps his pen against the desk, impatient. It's expensive metal, and the ping resounds through the room. I bet it's one of those brick heavy thirty dollar pens, that you get in a fancy ass case from your Alma Mater.

"Jessica. Are you avoiding the question?"

Since when did he try to be a real shrink, instead of just giving me suspicious pills and prowling around at diners?

"I think you're avoiding the fact that you gave me Ambien without a prescription last week," I snap back, the nasty smile making a resurgence. Two can play at this game, Jonathan Crane. "And that those nice 'herbal supplements' you gave me, the ones that made me go in to detox? You didn't tell me they would do that!"

He taps the infernal pen and rubs his temple with his left hand, like I'm giving him a migraine. I fucking hope I am.

"Any substance can be harmful if used incorrectly. If I gave you gasoline for your car, and you dumped it on the engine, I wouldn't be liable for the car's explosion. And if I gave you an herbal supplement to be taken orally, which you snorted straight into the bloodstream, I am not liable for your reaction. Now, Jessica, if we could move on from this nonsense... though, snorting the pills is an excellent example of impulsive and destructive behavior."

I'm momentarily tongue tied, and he takes advantage of it, taking his glasses off under the pretense of rubbing the lenses.

"I don't think you're a bad girl, Jessica. I don't think so at all. And I'm here to help you. Just tell me... did something happen to you on your seventeenth birthday?"

My cheeks are flushed. His voice is uncommonly soft and kind, with a hint of something more under the surface. And of course, he's got me in that stare again—if he was a super villain, his power would probably be hypnosis or something.

"Nothing happened to me. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's the truth. I honestly wish I had a better explanation, but I don't. I didn't get raped, no one died, I didn't lose any friends... I just started getting bored."

It's the truth.

He looks frustrated, but doesn't press the matter further, just yet. Instead, he shuffles around some of the papers on his desk.

"Have you applied to college yet, Jessica?"

I practically laugh.

"My college fund is paying your salary. And no, I haven't."

"It's May of your senior year of high school."

"I'm aware," I respond, zero inflection.

"You go to Saint Mary's... I believe they have the highest rate of graduates who go on to universities in the city."

"I guess I'll just have to be the Susanna Kaysen then."

"Excuse me?"

"You know... like Girl, Interrupted?"

He stares at me with a blank expression.

"You know... the book about the girl with borderline personality disorder... doesn't go to college like all her other classmates because she's in a mental hospital..."

"I don't participate in pop psychology," he says, with an unbearably pretentious expression.

"Whatever; you're hopeless. No, I am not planning on going to college."

"Is there a reason for that?"

"Eh, never got around to the SAT's, all that shit."

"I see..." he's scribbling down something about my pattern of avoidance behavior I assume.

"So, doc, what do you think I'm afraid of?"

"Responsibility," he says, all deadly fucking serious.

"Oh God, you sound like my mother."

He frowns at me. It's almost cute.

"Perhaps you should listen to her more often."

I roll my eyes. So much for cooperation.

"Now then, there's a few questions I need to ask you now which might make you feel somewhat uncomfortable. Please try to cooperate with me as much as possible, but let me know if a question bothers you."

So, the doctor who dispenses sleeping pills and "herbal supplements" that make me shake is now concerned about my comfort? Of fucking course. He's probably going to ask me about sex now, and is covering his ass from a harassment lawsuit.

"Are you, or have you been sexually active in the past?"

Nailed it!

"There was a one night stand, back a couple of months ago... I don't remember it terribly well."

He honestly looks a bit concerned.

"And did you use protection?"

"Don't remember. It was eight months ago though, so..."

He frowns.

"Have you been tested for HIV?"

I nod. I'm not fucking stupid.

"Parents insisted upon it after the whole arrested thing."

"Of course. And there's no serious relationship, correct?"

"Nope. Truthfully, I'm more interested in older guys."

I give him a coy grin. He's unaffected, of course.

"How much older?"

This has the potential to be amusing.

"How old are you, by chance, Dr. Crane?"

"Why, do you find me attractive?"

Well, shit. He's going along with it.

"This is making me uncomfortable," I mumble.

"Don't lie to me Jessica. You love doing this sort of thing. You wanted to get a reaction out of me, and you did." He's pissed as hell, I can tell, and he's staring at me and making me feel all of two inches tall.

"...sorry," I whisper.

"I'm twenty-eight."

I'm surprised. He looks really young, but I just assumed he was one of those lucky bastards that doesn't age till they're like, forty.

"Well, fuck me. You're practically my age. How are you a psychiatrist?"

"I was a professor briefly as well. I got my MD in six years; it was an accelerated program. And, I would respectfully decline."

My face is on fire.

"That's... it's a figure of speech."

"Reckless behavior and attempts to manipulate others... those don't sound like desirable personality traits, do they, Jessica?"

"I guess you better lock me up, Doctor."

"Are you still using innuendo, or are you suggesting that you be admitted?"

If I was drinking something, I would have spit it all over the table.

"Neither."

"In that case, I think you can stop the games."

He has this fucking irritating way of cutting right into me when I'm in the middle of a thought. I let out a sigh.

"Am I exhausting you, Jessica?"

I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Who's using innuendo now?"

He shakes his head at me and takes some notes down.

"How have you been doing with sobriety?"

"Excellent, actually."

He looks up at me, as if he can suck the truth out of me right through his eyes.

"Well then, I think we have a pretty solid basis to go on. We'll work on cognitive behavior therapy next week. Continue taking the supplements, and abstaining from narcotics..."

"Brush my teeth, look both ways before I cross the street?"

"Of course," he says. "Always.


I've be a damn good girl all week: getting to school on time, avoiding drugs, taking my pills in my mouth, as Dr. Crane felt the need to specify. It's Friday night, and I've got a whole week before I need to go back for my little audience with Dr. Crane. I got a text from a friend of mine about a little party going on down by the docks tonight. I'll reward myself with some dancing, maybe a drink or two.

So, I swap out my Catholic school issue khaki's and polo for a tight silver skirt and a loose black tank top, before throwing on some makeup that would make the sisters wince. I'm all done up in red lips and smoky eyes with curls in my hair. I accent the look with my darling gold necklace, which I freed from the jewelry counter almost a year ago. Oh, how time flies. I imagine how Dr. Crane would react if I came to therapy all tarted up, instead of in my plain Jane polo's and button downs.

He'd either make some snide-ass remark, or just ignore it all together, pompous dick that he is.

When the clock strikes midnight, I do not turn into a pumpkin, but rather I take my exit. My poor boring parents are sleeping like bricks, and I make it out of the house completely unheard, quite a feat in four inch heels. Traffic is pretty light tonight—the drunks have settled into their favorite bar stool by now—and I make it to the docks in about twenty minutes. The party is in a warehouse; a cliché if I've ever heard one. The light is reflecting off the surface of the chemical laden water at the docks, and it shines with a spooky luminescence, glowing white and yellow and green. It illuminates the hulking silhouette of Arkham Hospital, which towers over the slums, in what appears to be a tragic case of poor zoning. In actuality, the Narrows weren't always so scummy, and the hospital has been around since the 1800's or so. The general consensus is that the insane will outlive the broke.

I park my car by a rusty old storage container that looks like it hasn't been used in years and make my way to the warehouse. I can feel the vibrations of the bass from whatever dance track is blaring. When I get inside, the crowd is decidedly rave-like. I'm in a mass of multicolored bodies, some smeared with paint that glows in the black light, others sucking on pacifiers, and everyone's arms are up to their elbows in rainbow pony bead bracelets. Girls throw themselves around in circles to the beat of the music, not really dancing, just swaying.

I find my friend through the swarm of raver girls—she's the only one here not dressed in rainbows. Her name is Sara, and she's the only girl with similar interests that I ever met in my dump of a school. Sara is done up like myself, in clothes that wouldn't look too out of place next to a bottle of Cristal and a talentless rapper. She's swaying too though, like all the other girls here. When she spots me, she comes running to me and pulls me into her arms. Sara isn't a terribly affectionate person, but she's clinging on to me like a pretty blonde leech.

"I'm so glad you made it, Jessy Bell!"

Who the fuck is Jessy Bell.

"Sara, hey... what's up?" I say, cautious.

"I'm great... I feel fucking awesome, oh man. You gotta try this shit with me, mmkay? It's fucking... it's like an awakening, you know what I mean?"

She's still clinging on to me this whole time, and just about screaming in my ear.

"I'm done with coke, Sara."

Sara shakes her head vehemently.

"It's not coke, it's E! You'll love it, oh my God!"

She pulls herself off me long enough to open her hand and display a palm full of pink pills with what looks like Pikachu printed on them.

"It's...non habitual form..." she struggles to speak, clearly parroting something she was told earlier. Non-habit forming, eh? Pikachu grinned up at me from the pink tablets, so I snatch them up out of her hand and dry swallow. What the hell? It's the weekend.

"This is going to be so much fun, Jessy!"

I'm not a fan of the new nickname.


Everything passes by in a beautiful array of lights and colors. The beat of the music is inside me, it travels through my veins into my heart and illuminates my entire body.

As a crowd, we dance together in beautiful harmony together, sliding our arms around each other in an embrace that feels so intimate and exciting—someone else's skin on my own—I could almost call it orgasmic.

Sara grabs me by the arm, lovely and kind Sara, and tells me we need to go outside and get some air.

"People sweat to death if they don't take a break!"

It's cool outside, and I sit down with my back to the slick concrete walls. I can still feel the boom of the music in my bones, and it comforts me.

"Hey, look, it's the bunny men!" Sara yells, giggling herself into a bent over frenzy.

"What..." I begin, but then I see it. A group of dock workers are tossing stuffed toy rabbits into the back of a station wagon.

"Hey, fuck off, junkies!" one of the workers yells, and the negativity boils off him, in great angry clouds of red. It makes me sad to see such discontent.

"You should come in and dance with us!" I yell, hoping that my positive energy can make a difference in this man's life.

"Oh cutie, if I wasn't working, we could do more than dance."

I shake my head. The man is not someone I would want to sleep with. He's big and ruddy and calloused, like his insides have expanded too far for his skin. I feel a pang of sympathy for him.

"What seems to be the matter?"

The voice is strangely familiar.

The passenger door of the station wagon opens, and to my immense surprise, Dr. Crane walks out of it.

"Oh my God, Doc—Jonathan!"

I struggle to remember his first name for a moment, but it was on the cover of his book. Dr. Jonathan Crane. What a nice name. He's really a good guy, and I've misjudged him terribly—dedicating your life to help the mentally ill—how noble. I should give him a hug; I think he would like that.

"Jessica—what are you doing –what!"

I run across the sparse parking lot separating us and embrace him. His eyes are stunning with the moonlight refracting off them, and for a second, that's all I can see.

"Miss Walker, this is incredibly irregular..."

Dr. Crane is really a gorgeous man, now that I'm taking a good look at him. He has such a nice face.

"Miss Walker, why are you touching me..."

I want him to dance with me, I decide, so I wrap my arms around his shoulders and sway. In the distance, I hear someone yell, "Jessy's dancing with the bunny guy!"

His eyes are absolutely gleaming tonight, stellar blue illuminated by the moon, and they're so spellbinding, that I feel myself losing control of myself, and so I lean in and kiss him on the lips. They're soft.

Then I feel two heavy arms, which are most certainly not Dr. Crane's, latch on to my shoulders, and pull me away from him. I notice now he's not wearing his normal suit, but khaki pants and a dark knit sweater. He looks almost normal, like someone I would know outside of Arkham...

The arms pull me down to the ground, and the last thing I see is Dr. Crane staring down at me, before the world goes black.