Thank you for all the love you gave the last chapter. Sorry that this one is a little slow. Just needed to establish some things. Next chapter will have a faster pace, I promise.
Joe asked if he would be allowed to wait in the therapist's waiting room alone. Laura had wanted to join him. Frank too. Joe hadn't wanted a scene. They had spent the night preparing for the first session – court-appointed therapy. They had looked up his therapist – Doctor Vincent Miller. He was a short man with greying hair who had been a forensic psychologist until fifteen years ago. Then he had decided to become a therapist, specialising in trying to help young people who were at risk of being pulled into a life of crime.
Joe was the only person in the waiting room, feeling trapped between the receptionist and the closed door of Dr Miller's office. There was just a pile of old sports magazines for company. Joe had flicked through them, uninterested in the pages upon pages of golf and hockey.
That was when the door opened. Dr Miller stood there, smiling into the room.
"Hello, Joseph," he said.
"Joe," Joe corrected.
"That would have been my first question."
Dr Miller's office was a long, rectangular room. There was a desk at one end, the walls surrounding it taken up by shelves of heavy textbooks and awards. But nearest the door was a small couch area. There was a coffee table between them, a notebook was out between them.
"My name is Dr Miller," the doctor told him, closing the door. "I suppose there is a whole speech I can get into about how this works but I can imagine you've been told about what this will entail from all those social workers you've been dealing with. So how about you ask me what you want to know and we'll go from there."
He guided Joe toward one of the sofas.
"How many of these sessions do I have to do?" Joe asked.
Dr Miller took a seat opposite Joe, studying the young man.
"I'm afraid this isn't a set duration thing," the doctor admitted. "It's… You are here as part of an ongoing program to help you reform. You have a set number of community service hours that stands as a basis for you repaying your debt to society. These sessions will keep going until a court-appointed therapist such as myself deems that you are no longer at risk of turning to a life of crime."
Joe nodded, grim-faced as he looked toward the doctor.
"So never?"
"Not never," Dr Miller assured him. "Your formative years were spent trapped in a life full of violence and brutality. Some of the statements you have given are chilling. You describe men who have tried to kill you for the sake of it. Being kidnapped by all sides of gang wars. Being assaulted. Neglected. Manipulated. All culminating in one of the people you are now living with putting a knife to your throat and the man you saw as a father telling him to kill you."
"That wasn't Frank's fault!" Joe snapped.
He noticed Dr Miller hadn't touched the notebook. Joe was a little frustrated about that. He could read upside down, something his social workers had never considered. Joe had been able to read a lot of what was being written about him by skimming through their notes when they were going through them in front of him.
"I never said it was," Dr Miller told him. "I merely bring it up as an example of a situation that would cause anyone to need therapy."
Joe paused, waiting for the doctor to say more. But the therapist's eyes were fixed on him.
"Do you have any other questions?"
"Will you tell them what we say there?" Joe asked.
Miller shook his head.
"There are certain things I will want to discuss with them but I would get your permission beforehand. However, as a court-appointed therapist with the agreement you have, I do have to notify them of certain aspects of your progress."
When Joe's brow furrowed questioning, Dr Miller told him that he had to tell the authorities if Joe mentioned being in contact with criminals from his past, particularly Marsden, or if he started to begin to show signs of gang affiliation in Bayport.
"But the Hardys don't have to know?" Joe pressed.
Miller nodded. He asked if Joe had any more questions for him. Joe shook his head before asking what the session that day would be about.
"Well, I've been putting together a very loose plan about how I would hope to proceed but you are an extremely unique case and I think one of the most important things I can do for you is to start giving you back your agency, giving you back control of your experiences. So, how about you just tell me about your experiences of Bayport for this session? What is it like living with the Hardy's? Have you made any friends?"
Joe shrugged.
"Bayport is good. The Hardys are nice. I have met the Mortons."
Miller waited for more. Nothing came. He pursed his lips.
"What is your favourite place in Bayport?"
"They're hesitant to let me out," Joe said.
Miller raised an eyebrow.
"Let you out?"
"Yeah."
"It's an interesting way of phrasing it. Implying you're incapable of leaving yourself."
Joe met Miller's eye.
"The Hardys have asked I don't go out by myself for a bit."
"May I ask why?"
"Journalists, criminals and gossips," Joe shrugged.
Miller couldn't help but note it seemed like a very practised list. Still, he had a more important question to ask.
"And you've not left the house by yourself since you came to Bayport?"
Joe froze for a microsecond. If not for his years of training, of dealing with criminals far more accomplished and heartless than the boy before him, Doctor Miller might have missed it. But it stuck out to him immediately.
"I won't tell them," he promised.
Joe nodded. He took a deep breath.
"I went to the park," he admitted. "The playpark where I… The place Joe Hardy died. It felt wrong to ask them to take me there but I needed to see it."
Doctor Miller nodded. He glanced toward his notebook. Joe wondered why it had gotten his attention then. Did he want to write notes? Had Joe said something that had interested him that much? Or did he want it so he could shield his face, keep Joe from seeing the judgement in his eyes?
"What did you think?"
"I like the swings," Joe said. "I didn't… The Bramptons didn't take me to many play parks and gangs hang out in New York parks. I couldn't stay there too long."
"Do you know how to swing?" Doctor Miller asked.
He didn't pick up the notebook. Joe studied him.
"I figured it out."
Joe had something more to say but he stopped himself. He hoped Miller wouldn't notice but the man clearly had. He stared, letting the silence coax more information from Joe.
"There's a fence," Joe said. "At the park. A fence between the park and the road. They must have added it after my accident."
"Yes," Miller said. "Laura campaigned very hard to have that fence put in place. She raised the funds herself. Didn't ever want another mother to have to feel the way she did."
Joe hung his head. He chewed on his lip. Miller cleared his throat.
"You're going to school in a week, aren't you? How do you feel about that?"
"I've been to schools before," Joe shrugged.
Miller nodded, saying he knew that. But that he had been going to different schools, schools which were on his own turf, where he had a reputation and knew people. Bayport was a far cry from New York and the other pupils weren't going to know him as Joe Brampton, Marsden's heir. He would be Joe Hardy, prodigal son.
"Frank won't be in your year either. You'll be left to face this alone."
"I'll have Iola," Joe shrugged.
"And that's Iola Morton, right?" Doctor Miller asked.
Joe hummed his agreement. Doctor Miller reached out, picking up his notebook.
"How about we try a little activity? I'll give you the name of one of the people in your life and you can give me three words describing them."
"How will this help?" Joe asked.
Miller smiled at him, saying that understanding the relationships Joe was forming with the people around him would help in him knowing how best to get Joe to settle into his new life. He waited until Joe gave his approval to the idea before uncapping his pen.
"Let's start with Iola," Miller suggested.
"Um… Girl. Friend."
Joe's eyes snapped onto Miller.
"That was two separate words. Can I see them? What you've written down? Two separate words."
Miller showed Joe the very deliberate full stop between the two words.
"Do you have a third?"
"Helper."
Miller paused to scribble down the final word.
"What about your father?"
"Mr Hardy?" Joe spluttered. "Well… Detective. Cop. Hero."
"And Mrs Hardy?"
"Mother. Research librarian."
The therapist waited for another word. Joe looked at him expectantly.
"Research librarian is two words," Joe reminded him.
Miller didn't bother to argue. Instead, he asked for three words about Frank.
"Brother. Friend. Ally."
Joe didn't like the way the therapist raised his eyebrow at the final word. He considered scrambling to change it but he knew the man before him would only read more into it.
"Ally is an interesting choice of word. Why did you pick that?"
"He helped me. In New York."
"It's very militaristic. It would not surprise anyone to know you view life as a war, Joe. After everything you have been through, it-"
"You got another name?"
Miller shook his head, saying that what Joe had said was very revealing indeed. Joe frowned.
"What did it reveal?"
The therapist informed Joe that wasn't typically how sessions went with him. He didn't relate his conclusions as openly as that because it would often lead to someone actively altering their behaviour to cause him to conclude the things they wanted him to.
"I don't think this is going to work if you are sitting there judging me and I can't even know what you're thinking," Joe told him.
"I am not judging you."
Still, the therapist relented.
"Every word you gave me was a noun. Frank is your brother. Iola is your friend. Fenton is a detective. I have not met Frank or Iola and I would have been able to reel off the objective facts you just gave me. The language you used was detached. You called Fenton a detective and a cop, both of which you have shown a great deal of dislike for. You called Laura your mother, not your mom."
"So what? You think we're nothing more than strangers?" Joe questioned.
Miller shook his head. He put his notebook down.
"I think you care a great deal about them and that makes you feel very vulnerable. So you try to seem detached from them, only give me what you know I know. Which protects you because I never got to know the true nature of your relationship with them. And it protects them because I don't have anything to weaponize against them. You didn't give me anything on them. Only what they were in relation to you."
Joe kept his expression unreadable, even as his stomach twisted. He had picked those words because they were words that seemed vague enough to protect the people he cared about while also being enough to appease Miller. At least, he had hoped they would be. He didn't like how easily the therapist could pick his motives apart.
"How about we end this session with you seeing if you can give me three words on one of your family that gives me some understanding of what they're like?"
"Frank," Joe said.
He could sense Miller was considering it, trying to work out if Frank was a sacrificial lamb being exposed to protect the others or if Joe believed that Frank could handle being put out in the open. Joe knew it was the second one. He had picked Frank because he had seen what he could do and he knew he would run rings around Doctor Miller.
"Smarter than you."
Miller chuckled to himself. He reached out. Joe watched his hand, wanting to understand the intention. He was prepared to leap back. Marsden could be like that, laughing one minute to disarm a person and then lashing out with a strike the moment they let him too close. But Miller extended his hand for him to shake.
"I think we are going to have a lot of fun during these sessions."
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