Mentally Unstable

Images of blood flash through my mind. There was so much blood everywhere -- mine and his. I’m afraid of blood, so you can imagine how traumatic the experience was for me. Even the word blood makes me cringe.

“Laura?”

I snap my head up to look at my psychiatrist, Ms. Hartman’s eyes. Her mouth is stretched into a thin line because she’s annoyed with me. I would be annoyed with me too. I haven’t said anything this whole time.

“So how does this make you feel?”

I want to laugh in her face. What a typical psychiatrist question. She’s holding up a piece of white paper in her hands. The paper is splattered in red paint. I guess it’s supposed to look like blood, and I guess she is trying to spark some emotion in me. And it’s working. I see, hear and smell things. I see the blood everywhere. I hear the groans, and myself screaming. And I smell the scent of burning rubber. And the smell of the blood, the metallic rusty smell. It kind of reminds me of how pennies smell, and it was everywhere. So, instead of answering I just stare at the floor.

“Please Laura, work with me.” She sighs and puts her hand on my leg. I fight the urge to shove her hand off of my leg. “I’m here to help you, I’m here to listen to you,” she says softly. 

No, she’s not here to help me, she is here because this is just a job. She doesn’t care about me. No one cares about me. Not after what I did. I don’t respond to her. Instead I strum my fingers on the wooden chair, and count the stripes on the carpet. One, two, three, four… 

“Laura!” Dr. Hartman says raising her voice. 

That’s different for her. She never raises her voice and always talks in a whisper. I feel the urge to smile again but that probably wouldn’t help my case. I glance up at her face again.

“You are here,” she says calmly now, “because you want to get help. But I can’t help you if you refuse to talk.” 

I am not here because I want to get help. I am here because my mother forced me to come. I am here to avoid a court case. I am here because his parents said they wouldn’t press charges if I got help. They think I’m mentally unstable because that’s what my mother told them. She lied to them to stop them from pressing charges…I am not crazy.

“Fine, if you’re not going to respond to this photo, then how about this one?” She shifts through her piles of photos and produces another one. She holds it up for me to see. It’s a photo of him, of Josh, my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend. It’s his school photo and coincidently, he’s wearing the same shirt that he wore the night of the accident. How does the photo make me feel? Angry. I’m still so angry with him, even after the car crash that almost took his life. It’s not that I wish it happened, I definitely wish it didn’t happen but I’m still so angry. I clench my fists together.

“Good Laura, good. I see you’re feeling angry,” she says in her stupid whispery voice as she looks down at my hands.

I unclench my hands and keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to talk to her. I tear my eyes away from the photo. I don’t want to see his face anymore.

“Laura I know you must be feeling something. Just talk to me, it will help” Ms. Hartman says, pleading with me. 

This time I don’t even look at her face, because I know that stupid fake smile will be plastered on it. Of course I’m feeling something. Of course I am! I regret that night, the night of the accident and if I could, I would take it all back. It was a Tuesday night and there was no school the next day, so Josh and I were going out for dinner. The whole time, I knew something was up. He was usually so talkative, but that night he barely said a word. And the whole time he was acting so nervous. We were driving back from dinner when he told me he had been cheating on me. I am a junior in college, he’s a senior, and we had been dating since I was a freshman in high school. I thought he loved me, I thought he cared…

“Laura!”

“What!?” I yell back, finally talking. Her eyes go wide. She probably didn’t expect me to talk.

“Laura, why did you do it?” She asks hesitantly.

Why did I do it? Why did I lean over, grab the steering wheel and crash the car, almost causing us to die? Why? Because I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me. I’m not mentally unstable… at least I don’t think I am.