Another part of the fiction I'm currently writing. The previous part can be found here, even though there is no sequence in my writing for now. Enjoy! :)
"Okay Mr Miller, let's try this again."
"You spin your dice, you shake and squabble and shake them in your palms again and again and again.."
"Mr Miller."
"You put all your hopes in, all your ambitions, the thirst to win.."
"Mr Miller?"
"..only to come up with a number you never predicted..."
"Mr Evan Miller??"
"Life is like a game of dice. It takes all that you’ve got from you, only with a whisper of a better return…"
"Are you with me?"
"You either win or you lose. And even that, in the end, is not up to you.”
"Evan Miller!!?"
Blinking hard, Evan remembered that the woman who sat patiently in front of him had been talking to him.
"Are you alright, Mr Miller?" The middle-aged woman asked, placing the notepad lightly on her lap and Evan nodded in affirmation.
"Okay, good. As I was saying. Let's try this again," she spoke while picking up the pen from the table, “What seems to be the problem, Mr Miller?”
She had a kind face; Evan noted. Like one of those aunties that lived next door who, instead of criticising your lifestyle, brought you home-cooked meals every now and then. She had that caring aura about her, the kind that made you want to relax a bit.
And it was said relaxation, that was proving to be a problem for him.
Because on the rare times Evan did feel relaxed these days, it only made him want to sleep. Sleep never came to him easily after all. Not after…
And the seater, the goddamned seater felt so bloody comfortable under him. If he could just close his eyes…
He could… he could…..
Snapping out of his reverie, Evan remembered that the woman had asked him a question.
Right.
“I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I feel weak and fertigu –”
He knew his answer wasn’t the right one when, just for a millisecond, her face pinched into a pained expression.
“Evan Miller.” she said, tapping her pen on the armrest, “We’ve been at this for the last three sessions. You know I can’t help you if you refuse to talk.”
“I–” hearing her words, Evan snapped his eyes away, “I know.”
And he knew.
He knew that if he wanted to get out of the shit that forced him to actually seek out a therapist for goodness sake— he really needed to talk. But knowing and doing were two different things.
Besides, everything inside him still felt too raw for him to unpack, even now, when it had been months after the incident.
“You need to help me out here, Mr Miller. I can understand that it’s very hard for you. But we have to start somewhere.”
Hearing her words, his mind went blank.
The voice flashed through his memories without any warning. And Evan felt his heart stutter to a halt once again as his vision filled with images of warm doe eyes that held thousands of secrets, and a smile that spoke of tragedies he couldn’t keep.
Right.
This was exactly the reason why he came here.
“Okay.” he said, shaking himself out of it. “Okay.”
He shifted his focus towards the floor-to-ceiling window on his right, where the city buzzed slowly underneath. The sun was setting down in a golden hue outside, painting everything in a warm tone he always loved.
His fingers itched to grab ahold of his camera to take a picture, the same camera that has been lying untouched on his table for months.
Storing memories had been his favourite thing to do in this world. It was cruel that it was the same stored memories that now haunted him day and night.
“Okay, good, good.” the woman spoke, “Now, let’s try it again, Evan — And I request you to not deflect this time — I’m going to ask you the same question.” She spoke softly. “So, tell me, Evan. What seems to be your problem?”
“I —" he halted, "I can’t seem to get over someone.” finally letting the words out, voice low. "And it's making me lose my mind."
The woman nodded. “Is this someone you’ve known for a long time?” she asked.
“Yes. I mean, no, I–it’s...”
“Okay. Can you give me a number of the time you knew them? A month or a year, maybe?”
“Since I started university,” he said.“I’ve known them since my first year.”
“Ahh, okay. As you've graduated this fall, it's been four years." She said as she scribbled something down. "Can you tell me more about this person, Evan?"
And Evan wanted to laugh at her bizarre question.
He could write a bloody long book about this said person and still come up short. Where would he even start anyway? There was no start or end to the man he had met.
Maybe coming here was a bad idea...
"I don't know where to begin." he settled for at the end. It was the truth. He never knew where to begin when it came to David Woods. It was the thing that pulled him towards the man in the first place, and it was also the thing that pulled him apart in the end.
"From the beginning then? Do you remember how you two met?"
"I do."
"So, perhaps we could start from there?"
Letting out a sigh, Evan nodded.
Perhaps they could.
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