"Are you quite sure you don't want me to go in with you?"
"Mum. Mother."
Anthony felt a little guilty, hearing the exasperation in his voice - Elaine was only trying to help, and he knew that other people would give their eyeteeth to have supportive parents... like Sören, whose guardians had been the opposite of supportive. But Anthony felt bad enough that his mother was taking the time to drive him to and from appointments - yes, she was retired, but she still had a life - and he felt like he would look ridiculous, the only adult in the waiting room whose mummy had to sit with him. Even two decades after the fact, Anthony still vividly remembered the bullying he'd endured as a kid. Mummy's boy. Fag. Being chased up into a tree, stones thrown at him on his way up, crying. Cry for your mummy, fag.
Anthony reached to put his arms around his mother, to soften the harsh tone of his words. "I'm sorry. I'm just... keyed up." He looked at the building of the mental health clinic, and back at his mother. "Nerves."
Elaine patted him with a reassuring little smile. "I know, dear." She pinched Anthony's cheek. "That was why I offered to go in with you, I know how nervous you are..."
"Yeah, I know. But this is just... something I need to do for myself." That was true, too, Anthony already felt like an idiot for getting professional help, never mind clinging to his mother in the waiting room. He didn't want to be so needy, so reliant on other people. It was bad enough he needed Sören the way he did, to the point where he was willing to endure the indignity of going to therapy to get him back.
Elaine kissed his cheek. "Go on, then. Give me a ring when your session is over and I'll drive back to pick you up." Elaine was going to browse some shops nearby while Anthony was in the office, and though Anthony's session was for an hour, Anthony knew from experience with other appointments that it could run overtime or finish a little early.
"OK. Thank you, Mum." Anthony climbed out of the car and waved over his shoulder before he began limping towards the clinic. He was approaching the building just as another person was, a woman, young-looking, a little too thin - she was wearing short sleeves in the late August heat and Anthony noticed very obvious scars on her arms, which looked either like heroin tracks or self-injury scars, perhaps both - and she looked at him, noticing his cane, noticing the way he shuffled with the cane. Anthony's heart beat faster, fighting the urge to get back in his mother's car and say fuck this, not wanting anyone to see him like this and pity him, and the urge of flight got stronger when the young woman held open the door for him. Anthony mumbled his thanks as he stepped through, face on fire. Before the accident, he would have held open the door for her, or anyone else as common courtesy. Don't you fucking pity me. It became a mantra with each step. Don't you fucking pity me. Don't you fucking dare pity me.
Anthony braced himself, preparing for unwanted small talk, but the woman walked ahead of him without saying anything, and Anthony breathed a sigh of relief. He gathered she was probably just as uncomfortable with strangers as he was. The truth was, Anthony had always been uncomfortable with strangers, and had to get in the habit of "faking it" to handle clients and the courtroom. But after the accident, that discomfort was on an amplifier. And now Anthony was embarrassed by how embarrassed he was at having a door held open for him. It's just a bloody door. She was just being polite.
Anthony preferred to err on the side of arriving early for appointments, which had been true even before the accident had made him need extra time for getting around. In addition to wanting to have time to spare to walk to the building and to the waiting room, he also knew that with this being his first appointment he'd have paperwork to fill out for intake. Now he approached the desk, feeling that rush of nausea as he couldn't avoid having to talk to a stranger. He gently cleared his throat as the secretary looked up at him. "Hewlett-Johnson," he said. "I have a 10 o'clock appointment with Helen Bennett."
The secretary smiled at him, and after checking identification and insurance, he was given a clipboard and took a seat, preferring to sit in the corner with a few empty seats between him and others, back to the wall, in clear view of the exit. The paperwork was routine, and Anthony found himself pausing at the place to write the date and make his signature. Even though he was usually good about remembering dates, especially when he had appointments, his mind drew a blank for a moment because of nerves. It didn't help that since the accident, he was home so much that one day blurred into the other. Anthony jogged his memory; it was Monday, August twenty-fourth. "Right," he said under his breath as he wrote the date, feeling like an idiot.
He went back to the desk with his paperwork, and then he sat down again. He still had some time to kill before the appointment started. There was a table with magazines on it, and a magazine rack closer to the door, and though the selection wasn't entirely terrible, with some National Geographic issues among the fashion and health magazines and celebrity gossip rags, Anthony felt too wound up to read. He found himself reaching for his phone - working on languages on Duolingo helped calm his nerves, making him switch gears mentally more than reading in English did - and now he began a lesson on Duolingo, on the Norwegian course. When he got close to the end of the lesson the app asked him to translate the sentence:
Han viser typiske symptomer på depresjon.
The correct translation was "He is showing typical symptoms of depression." "Way to call me out, Duo," Anthony muttered under his breath, then realized he had said it aloud. Great. I'm talking to a green cartoon owl like he can understand me, and these people think I'm talking to my phone and of course that doesn't look crazy at all.
Anthony finished the lesson and leveled up, with the phone blaring horns of triumph that made Anthony wish he'd turned the volume off. He glanced around the room, feeling sheepish, but there were only two other people in the room besides the secretary and they were both focused on other things - the young woman who held the door open for him was reading a magazine, and an older woman appeared to be playing a game on her phone.
Then a voice called out, "Mr. Hewlett-Johnson?"
Anthony looked in its direction. The voice belonged to a woman who looked to be in her early to mid-thirties, tall, hourglass figure, brown skin, sweet brown eyes, a pretty face, curly dark hair worn natural and loose to her chin, wearing a smart navy pantsuit with a white shirt. Anthony stood up and she extended a French-manicured hand with a diamond tennis bracelet. "I'm Helen Bennett. Follow me, please?" She gave a reassuring smile as she turned and led the way down the long hall.
Helen Bennett had a strong, confident stride, and when it became apparent that Anthony was moving slowly on his cane, Helen slowed down. Her office was of course at the very end of the hall, which made Anthony grumble under his breath - that sort of walk wasn't as bad as it once was, but it was still longer than he would have preferred. Anthony took a chair by the door as soon as he stepped into the office.
Helen's office reminded him a little of his at Garden Court Chambers - the same dark wood panels, a big desk, and a high-backed leather swivel chair. But her office was also a lot homier than his. There was a blue plaid couch along one wall, piled with pillows and blankets and a couple of plush animals. There was a shelf on the wall opposite the couch that had toys like a fidget spinner, koosh balls, a tube filled with glittery fluid, and a few vinyl toys that looked stretchy or squishy, including a shark, to Anthony's amusement. Then Anthony swallowed hard as Helen poured herself a coffee from a coffeemaker plugged in on a shelf behind her desk. "Would you like a cup of coffee?" Helen asked.
"Er, yes, please."
"How do you take your coffee?"
"Two sugars, light cream."
Anthony felt a little weird about his therapist waiting on him, she wasn't a servant, but he also knew it was a courtesy since she'd seen him struggling to move around, and it was yet another reminder of his condition, yet another thing that made him uncomfortable. Still, he knew she was trying to be polite, and he accepted the coffee with a thanks.
Helen saw Anthony looking at the stuffed animals and the toys again, lips quirked with amusement. Anthony said what he was thinking. "Did my information get mixed up? Are you a child psychologist?"
Helen laughed and shook her head. "No. Those are all for adult clients. Sometimes therapy sessions can get intense, and it can be comforting to hold a soft toy, or knead out stress with squeezing a koosh ball."
"I see." Anthony felt like an idiot again for not realizing that - of course therapy could get intense, that was part of the point - and he felt dread slide over him like a shadow. That was also exactly what he didn't want.
"So, Mr. Hewlett-Johnson -"
"Please, Ms. Bennett, call me Anthony."
"You can call me Helen, and fair, Anthony." Helen smiled. She leaned back in her chair. "What brings you here?"
Anthony almost spat his coffee. He looked at his cane, propped up against the arm of his chair, and then at Helen. "It's not obvious?"
"Not everyone with a physical handicap goes into counseling because of it, so no, it's not obvious, Anthony. Besides, I'd rather hear in your own words."
"Right." Anthony looked down. For all of his ability to put speeches together and sway a courtroom, he felt at an absolute loss for words now. He'd known for weeks the therapy session was coming, he'd been on a waitlist. But it was one thing to plan an introduction in his head and another thing to be sitting here, now, with Helen's kind eyes watching him. He felt like he wasn't just under a spotlight, but like he was a deer trapped in headlights, ready to be run over by the truth of everything that had gone wrong over the last two years, and with the road leading up to that years beforehand. He knew his problems weren't even as bad as some people, like most of the clients he'd had since he joined Lincoln's Inn, and yet he still felt fierce shame. When he looked back up, he found himself looking away, staring at the shark on the shelf, which felt like a metaphor for his life - it was a squishy, toothless shark, no harm to anyone, comical-looking; he had once put fear in Crown Prosecution as the Shark of Lincoln's Inn, and he knew if any of them could see him right now they would laugh at him.
There was a clock on the wall on the other side of the shelf, above the side of Helen's desk, and Anthony glanced at it, realizing he had limited time with an hour session. He was just going to have to say whatever came into his head, whether it sounded articulate or not, whether it even made sense or not. He also knew that he was going to have to be radically honest with a mental health professional even if what he said reflected badly on him, not dissimilar to how he had to be honest with his doctor about his sexual history.
"My ex sent me here," Anthony said. "Well... he's... sort of my ex. We both want to get back together, but his terms for that are me getting some counseling."
That was the first big hurdle. Though Anthony knew there was less homophobia in England nowadays, he was still wary - he was not closeted, but he was out on a need-to-know basis, preferring not to broach the subject of anything to do with his personal life unless he felt the person he was speaking to had a reason to know. In this particular case, mentioning his partner had been male was necessary in the interest of honesty, as well as Anthony's own comfort levels. He gauged Helen's reactions now for any sign of discomfort, prepared to terminate the relationship and find another therapist if it seemed she wasn't OK with him being gay. But then she opened up a drawer in her desk and pulled out a rainbow coffee mug. "I'm a lesbian," she said, "if you're worried about what you just said."
"Oh thank god." Anthony gave a little nervous laugh of relief. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't care whether my therapist is straight or not -"
"It's quite understandable. So, go on... why does your sort-of-ex think you need counseling?"
Anthony's nervous laugh got harder and he facepalmed, face on fire. He rubbed his face like an annoyed wet cat. "It's a big, complicated mess."
"Well, let's tackle it one piece at a time. You hinted that your handicap is part of why you're here?"
Anthony nodded. "I was in a car accident in March. I wasn't the driver at fault - the other driver was intoxicated, ran a light, crashed into my car... and the other driver is dead now." He decided to just speak the name aloud, again, feeling honesty was the best policy. "Justin Roberts. Hailed as the next Beckham. When the information was leaked, some football supporters bricked my flat in Kingston."
"That sounds very, very rough," Helen said.
"It was. I have physical therapy twice a week, and it's grueling. I can walk better now than I did in the first few weeks after the accident, and to all accounts it'll be a little better still by the end of the year, but... this is the new normal. I can't run anymore. I will need a wheelchair for long distances, like getting around an airport. I use a chair in the shower. I feel powerless, and it's depressing."
"I'm guessing the accident itself was traumatic," Helen said.
Anthony sighed. "Yeah. Even though I know I wasn't the one at fault, I still... feel..."
"Survivor's guilt," Helen said. "There's a term for that."
"Yes. Survivor's guilt." Anthony pinched the bridge of his nose and winced, then sipped his coffee. "He was still in his twenties. He had a long life ahead of him, a promising career... I didn't know him, but I still feel bad."
"It's a normal, common feeling in these sorts of situations, but you are right that it wasn't your fault."
"I keep telling myself that. Maybe someday my brain will listen." Anthony frowned, and finished his coffee. He put the styrofoam cup down, feeling fidgety, but not wanting to take one of the toys from the shelf, self-conscious about the fidget urge. He'd been very fidgety as a child and gotten made fun of for it.
"Are you doing things to distract yourself? Are you working?"
"I haven't worked since the accident," Anthony said. "I'm a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. I haven't quit, my job is still there when I feel ready to return, but the problem is I don't know if that day will ever come. I have anxiety attacks when I go out in public, never mind all eyes on me in a courtroom."
"Are you taking anything for anxiety?"
"I'm on an antidepressant," Anthony said. "It helps, but only just so. Are you..." Anthony felt a flare of anxiety now. "Are you saying I should go on more meds?"
"I'm only a therapist, I'm not licensed to prescribe." Helen gave him a small, apologetic smile. "That would be something to discuss with your doctor. But if you're having regular panic attacks, an anti-anxiety medication may be worth asking about." Then Helen sipped her own coffee, glancing at him over her cup. "So, did you and your ex break up because of how the accident affected your mental health? Is that why he told you to get counseling?"
Anthony gave another nervous laugh... and wanted to cry. "That's some of it, but that's not all."
Helen waited.
Anthony resisted the urge to grab his cane and bolt - not that he could run anymore, at best he could try to limp quickly for a few paces and wish he hadn't. He closed his eyes, face burning, stomach sinking, as he said, "My ex... Sören... and I broke up close to two years ago. He was working a hundred hours a week, he's a neurosurgeon. I ended up feeling lonely and sexually frustrated and needy and I cheated on him. It was just sex, and it was just once, but I fucked up." Anthony opened his eyes, blurry with tears. "It sounds like I'm blaming him, like I'm saying it's his fault, and... no. I take responsibility for my actions, I shouldn't have done it, I should have swallowed my pride and told him how much I was drowning..." Anthony's voice broke, and trailed off. Oh god. Anthony logically knew people cried at therapist's offices, and Helen had probably seen it a thousand times before, just like Anthony himself had seen many of his clients cry, as a barrister... but he was still embarrassed.
Helen pushed a box of tissues towards the edge of her desk. Anthony got up, took the box, and sat back down. "You must think I'm the scum of the earth," Anthony said.
"No, you'd have to compete with Hitler and Jack the Ripper and a lot of other people." Helen sipped her coffee and put her mug down, tilting her head to one side. "So the infidelity was the cause of the breakup?"
Anthony nodded. "Like I said, it was once, it was just sex, no strings attached, but Sören came home early from work that day, he had flu, and he caught me." What Anthony didn't say aloud was how much that unnerved him to this day - he and Sören had been finely attuned to each other, knowing when something was wrong without being told; Sören had once felt Anthony was in some sort of danger and found out later there had been a bomb threat at Lincoln's Inn. Anthony wondered if Sören catching the flu despite having a flu shot was his body's internal warning system to go home and see what was happening there, and of course that sounded daft, so Anthony wasn't going to tell his therapist that, even though he knew if he was delusional, it was a problem. But Anthony also knew that he wasn't experiencing other symptoms of psychosis, just the occasional "magical thinking" like moments of empathy with Sören.
And the shared dreams. Anthony wondered if Sören dreamed about their "past life" anymore, since the breakup.
Anthony forced himself to focus on the present, and the background context he was giving the therapist. "Sören says, though, that the infidelity was more of a symptom than a cause. He..." Now he really wanted to bolt, feeling stupid again. "I could have told him how I was feeling, and I didn't. Because of pride. He says that's what got in the way, and that's why he sent me here. He and I have talked about getting back together, but... he knows I'm having a hard time and..." Anthony didn't know how to finish that sentence. He exhaled sharply. "He wants me, I suppose, to talk about my issues rather than bottling them up."
"The stiff upper lip," Helen said. "It's deeply ingrained in English culture."
"Yes. My father is even worse with emotions than I am." Anthony loved his father, and he wouldn't characterize their relationship as bad, but it was just a fact that Roger Hewlett-Johnson was not good with feelings, and though Anthony was a high-strung child prone to meltdowns, he had eventually learned to suppress his own feelings as well, not as much as his father did, but still enough - and too much, he knew. One of the reasons why he'd been so taken with Sören was, from the first day they'd met, Sören was all feelings. He would never forget the spitfire look in Sören's eyes as Sören spoke honestly about a colleague charged with criminal malpractice, and the way he'd challenged Anthony for defending that man. The fire in his eyes, in his voice, had been arousing... and it was also refreshing, and he felt like he could let his guard down with Sören in a way he hadn't been able to before.
"And how is your relationship with your parents, Anthony?"
"Good." Anthony thought of his mother, and realized she'd know he'd been crying and was going to make a fuss over him. Mummy's boy, the school bullies taunted in his head. "I moved back home after the accident, after my flat was bricked. My mum drove me here." Anthony was embarrassed by that, too. He knew he probably would never drive again, after the panic attack he'd had after trying to get behind the wheel of a car back in May, and he hated that. Of all the ways his life had changed after the accident, that seemed to be one of the unkindest cuts of all. He had loved his Audi, and he had loved driving. In his mind's eye, he remembered driving Sören out to Brighton, windows rolled down, Sören's curls blowing in the breeze.
"I'm glad your parents are supportive. That's important."
There was a long, awkward pause, as if Helen was considering all the information she'd been given thus far. Anthony felt like he was waiting for a verdict in the courtroom, and kept looking at the clock. He also kept looking at the shelf of toys, resisting the urge to take the fidget spinner and spin it around, like an overgrown kid.
At last Helen broke the silence. "So in a nutshell, you're here because your ex, Sören, said getting back together was contingent on you going into therapy."
"Correct."
"As opposed to coming here because you decided on your own you need professional help."
Oh shit. Anthony squirmed, but then steadied himself, trying to get back some of his old courtroom composure. "He's not forcing me, he obviously doesn't have a gun to my head saying 'do this or else' -"
"That's not what I asked, Anthony. Let me phrase this another way: if your ex had not said that getting back together was contingent on you receiving professional help, you wouldn't be in my office right now, would you?"
Anthony sighed. "No, probably not." He squirmed again, his composure blown. He kicked himself internally - if he was ever going to return to work someday, he needed to not react like this. That was one of the many things he disliked about the way his life had changed, the longer he was gone from the courtroom, the harder it was for him to put the mask back on that he'd carefully crafted for the courtroom performance. And then he realized he'd said "the wrong answer", that he had just admitted he didn't really want to be here - Sören wasn't forcing him, but he wasn't entirely here of his free will either, he was here because he loved Sören and he would walk through fire to get Sören back. "Am I... am I in trouble now? Are you going to tell me you can't help me?"
Helen gave a small frown. "I didn't say that, but I will admit that it will be harder to help you if you don't truly want to be helped, if you don't feel that you actually need to be here."
Anthony looked at his cane, and looked at the stretchy squishy shark on the shelf, and he felt the tears coming again, and he hated it... and he knew then that this powerless feeling he had, he truly did need help and he was afraid of admitting it, afraid and deeply ashamed of his own weakness. He nodded. "I know I need to be here. Not just because of Sören, but because..." Anthony shuddered. "When I woke up from the accident, I wished I hadn't. I'm not suicidal now, but -"
"But it's been difficult, hasn't it?"
Anthony nodded again. He couldn't hold the tears back anymore, and got up to grab more tissues from the desk. This time he just took the box and put it in the empty chair next to him, which he guessed the two chairs together were for couples or a client and a family member or supportive friend. Having the empty chair next to him just reinforced that feeling of loneliness - he had Sören back in his life, and he had his parents, but he really had no one apart from that, and Sören had the kind of schedule where Sören couldn't be his everything. And yet, Anthony hated that he couldn't be more self-reliant, that he needed so much. "I don't want to need help. I don't want to be here. I feel..." Anthony took a deep breath. "One of the hardest things about all of this is how weak and helpless I feel. It's a blow to my pride. Yes, my pride was a problem before. But this is also a problem. I feel like I shouldn't need to be here, like..." Like I'm twelve all over again, just fallen out of a tree, afraid of the world.
"Anthony." Helen compelled him to meet her eyes, warm and full of compassion. "There is no shame in admitting that you need help."
Anthony gave a bitter laugh. "You're paid to help people, of course you'd say that."
"No. I went into this line of work because I truly believe that, and if you search your heart, you will know that to be true, since I'm sure you also went into your line of work to help people." Helen folded her hands on her desk. "It is not a sign of weakness to get professional help. It is a sign of strength to know you have things you need to work on, and start working on them."
"I wish I could believe that."
Helen gave a small sigh. "Anthony, if I dropped you into the middle of the Amazon rainforest right now, you'd be lost, wouldn't you?"
"Well, yes."
"But, if a GPS device dropped down from a passing plane, and gave you instructions on how to find your way out, you'd take it, right?"
"...Yes."
"That's a lot like what therapy is. I can't carry you out of the rainforest. I can't fight off whatever wild creatures you might encounter in the rainforest, I can't get you food and water in the rainforest, you're going to have to do all that work yourself. What I can do is help give you pointers for the way out. And if you were dropped into the middle of the rainforest and you took a GPS device that dropped down from the sky, you wouldn't think you were weak or wrong for needing it, would you?"
"No."
"Life gets us all lost sometimes, some more than others. And one of the hardest parts of the journey is admitting you're lost, admitting you need help finding the way out. But you've also taken the first step forward, today, just by virtue of coming here. You're already one step closer to getting home."
Anthony fell apart, weeping harder. He hated crying like this in front of someone he barely knew, but Helen was trying to smile at him reassuringly, and she finally got up, picked a pillow up from the couch, and handed it to him. Anthony continued to cry as he hugged the pillow but a few minutes later he was calmer.
"I won't make you false promises, I won't give you platitudes, Anthony Hewlett-Johnson. Nothing will be as it was before. But you can get through this." Helen made a fist of solidarity.
Anthony wasn't so sure, but he was willing to try.
chapter 8 | return to Learning To Fly | return to Other Tolkien Fic | return to index