This place was clinical and bland. A place with no personality at all. Though I guess the people that sat on the generic furniture weren’t there because they gave a crap about the décor.

The woman who sat beside me picked obsessively at her thumbnail. Her fingers were red and raw, her arms covered in healing scabs. She was obviously a nervous picker. After a few minutes, she moved from her thumb to her lips, where she pulled at a piece of loose skin until it bled.

“Hi,” I said, hoping to distract the lady from her masochistic lip torture. She didn’t acknowledge me at all. Just kept picking away. It was gross.

I turned my attention to the older guy sat across from me. He looked like he was asleep, his head drooping down onto his chest. He let out a snore every few minutes and twitched involuntarily.

There was another guy about my age sitting in the corner but he seemed preoccupied with getting his finger up his nose.

Jeesh, this place was depressing. Government run mental health care at its finest.

I picked up a magazine from the coffee table. It was dated, November 2009. I tossed it back on the pile and leaned back in my chair to stare at the ceiling.

“Clayton Reed,” a nasally voice called out and I jumped to my feet. The lady sat beside me continued to pick at her lip, sleeping guy stayed a sleep and the nose bandit seemed to have struck gold.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I followed the small woman with the sour expression through a locked door. Her nametag read Chloe. Her name didn’t suit her at all. Chloe made you think of ponytails and big tits. This woman wore a turtleneck, even though it was eighty degrees out. She had a run in her tights and lipstick on her teeth. She made me feel like I was being taken to a time out. Maybe she and Roberta had studied at the same scary bitches school.

She led me to a closed door and pointed to another row of chairs along the wall. “Dr. Cary will be out to get you soon,” she said shortly.

“Thanks Chloe,” I said, purposefully using her name. Hey, I could be charming when I wanted to be.

Clearly my charm was lost on Chloe. She didn’t bother to look at me again before heading back to reception. I sat down to wait some more.

After only a few minutes, the door beside me opened and a woman around Ruby’s age came out, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. She was followed by a woman in her late thirties who patted her on the shoulder.

“I’ll see you next week, Robin,” my therapist said. Robin nodded and headed down the hallway, her head bowed down.

Dr. Danielle Cary turned to me and smiled. “Hi Clay. Come on in,” she said smiling. I followed Dr. Cary into her office and sat down on the sofa. I had only been to see the new shrink a few times. Dr. Todd had referred me to her, so I had tried to reserve judgment.

The truth was, I hadn’t connected with her the way I had with Dr. Todd or Shaemus. Dr. Cary (no using her first name) seemed kind of uptight and overly clinical. She was nice enough; she just didn’t put in a lot of time with the whole “make you feel comfortable” thing.

It took me a lot to open up to people I liked, so Dr. Cary was having a rough time with me. I wasn’t trying to be oppositional. I had grown out of throwing therapy temper tantrums but that didn’t mean I was ready to throw up my entire life just because this chick was being paid to listen.

Excuse me if I felt she had to earn that trust. Dr. Todd had talked her up, saying I’d do well with her. The jury was still out.

So far our sessions had consisted of me answering a bunch of questions and looking at pictures, describing what I saw. Stereotypical counselor bullshit.

Tell me what you see in this picture…Tell me how you feel when I show you this photograph…

I had mastered the monosyllabic reply over the years and that particular skill was definitely being put to use now.

Dr. Cary sat down in a chair across from me and crossed her legs. Yes my eyes went there. Even though she clearly wore her panties too tight, I could acknowledge that she was a damn good-looking woman.

But that is where my appreciation ended. Because while Dr. Cary may be the focus of her other male client’s wank fantasies, she definitely wasn’t mine. There was only one woman who made my guy parts twitch and the good doctor wasn’t her.

“How has your week been, Clay? Classes going all right?” Dr. Cary asked, sliding her glasses from her hair to sit on the end of her nose. She put a notebook in her lap and clicked her pen a few times.

I settled into the couch trying to get comfortable. “Fine,” I answered. See, I killed it with the one-word responses.

Dr. Cary’s eyebrows pinched together and she wrote something on her notepad. “How are things at the house? Are you getting along with your roommates?” she asked me, switching gears.

“Yeah,” I said, chewing on a hangnail and looking bored. Dr. Cary seemed frustrated as she put down her pen to look at me.

“Look, Clay, you know how this works. Therapy isn’t new to you. So tell me what we can do to make this a beneficial relationship for you. This is a necessary part of your outpatient care. I have to provide monthly reports of your progress to your case manager. I won’t be able to give her anything positive if you’re not willing to talk to me. Dr. Todd says you are a responsive and interactive patient. I have yet to see that Clayton Reed in my office,” she said sternly.

I didn’t say anything, instead choosing to look out the window. Dr. Cary let out an audible sigh. “I’m sure you get tired of rehashing the same thing over and over again. I don’t want this to be painful for you. This is your therapy. You dictate how this is going to go. So how about, instead of me asking you questions, you tell me what you want to talk about and we go from there,” she suggested kindly and I turned my attention back to her.