-c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   o n e -

"Guess what," Emma said, tilting her head. "You'll never guess. I've done something terrible, and now I feel like imploding on myself."

"Well, you've come to the right place to talk about it," Dr. Thompson said, looking down at that yellow notepad with her poorly made scribbles that she decided to call handwriting. God, Emma hated this. She loathed the fact that her only hope for salvation lay within this claustrophobic room, with this woman who she knew was paid to care.

"You want to know why I want to implode on myself?"

"You said you felt like you were going to implode a few monents ago, not that you wanted going to end up imploding on yourself," Dr. Thompson said, tilting her head to the side. "Certainly there must be a reason for this shift in your mind."

"It's because I don't want to be here," Emma cooed, placing a false smile on her face. "I just wanted to come here because I didn't want to have to suffer through this alone. I mean, I have nothing but a cat and a cello and paintbrush to keep me company."

"Well, you said you did a terrible thing. Can you share that with me, Emma?"

"I thought you would never ask, Natalie," Emma said, keeping that same facade of a smile on her lips. All it took was a few muscles and a tiny amount of concentration. Then she didn't have to worry about focusing on it. "I did something truly terrible, and now I hate myself for it even more."

"I didn't know you hated yourself to begin with," Dr. Thompson said, ignoring the fact that Emma chose to use her first name just in an attempt to bother her.

"I'm always in hate with myself, Natalie. Funny, because I'm also in love with myself. It's a horrible relationship - maybe it's even abusive. I think I'm going to get a divorce."

"Emma," her therapist sighed, leaning forwards in an attempt to make eye contact and show the severity of the dilemma at hand. "You need to tell me what the problem is. I can't help you if you keep the problem secret."

"You'll think it's just another thing that dumb Emma did, though. I mean, it's so typical of me."

"I'm not a mind reader, Emma. I can't simply look at you and figure out whatever it is that ails you."

Emma looked at her therapist with a slight glow in her eyes for several moments, wondering if she understood just what she'd said. Of course, Natalie didn't understand just how significant her words had been. She just didn't get it, because she didn't live beneath 221B. Maybe she needed to move in - Emma did need someone nearby at all times.

"I slept with my best friend's fiance. And then she found out about, and now the two have broken up. In other words, I managed to ruin my friend's entire life within the duration of a single night, all while going about and doing what I normally do. I am a horrible person, you think?"

"It's my job to help you get past these feelings, not to grind them in until you can't seperate them from your skin," Dr. Thompson replied.

"Then you agree," Emma said, a low chuckle scaping from her lips. "I did a horrible thing, and now I should be paying for it. Oh, yes."

"That's precisely the opposite of what I'm trying to say," Dr. Thompson said. "I want you to move past these ill feelings and get yourself to a better place in your mind. That is why I'm here. I'm here to help you."

"You're here to get money for helping me," Emma corrected. "I don't want you to keep lying to me, pretending like you actually give a damn about a single thing going on in my life."

"If I wanted to get into a job that was purely about pretending, I would have spent more time thinking about going into an acting profession," Dr. Thompson replied, doing her best to deflect these conflicts.

"Well, then. What are you trying to do here?"

"Trying to get you to think differently - and that requires a large amount of questioning. Which is why I am going to ask you, right now, what exactly you confessed to when all of this went amiss?"

"I confessed what I did. And then I told them that it was because I was tipsy. Maybe drunk. Maybe somewhere between the two, but what does it matter? I blamed everything I did on alcohol. I thought it would get me out of the blame, but no."

"And why is that?"

"Why I thought it would get me out of the blame? Because it always has."

"No, why did you blame it on the alcohol? We've spoken about your alcohol addiction in the past, and I thought you were getting better."

"Then it seems I've just been lying to you this entire time," Emma said, shaking her head. "How funny is that? You lie about caring about me, and then I lie about everything else."

"These lies will only hurt you, Emma. But I do want to know - why did you blame it on the alcohol?"

"Because the blame belongs on the alcohol," Emma said, shrugging as if the answer should be obvious. "Just about every bad decision is because of alcohol...but maybe not every decision I made was bad."

"Alcohol helped you to make a good decision, then?"

"Not exactly."

"Please explain this to me, Emma," Dr. Thompson said.

"I've made a good decision, I think," Emma said, attempting to swing her legs above the ground but finding this difficult due to the fact she was too tall to fully lift her feet up from her perch without excess effort. "I mean, maybe it's not for me to decide, as I've made so many horrid decisions as of late."

"Well, perhaps I can be extra perspective you need to understand," suggested Dr. Thompson. "How about you just go ahead and tell me what your decision is?"

"I'm going to give up alcohol," Emma admitted. "I would say I've wanted to do it for years now, but then I'd become even more of a dirty liar than I already know I am. But everyone has always told me to give up alcohol, and it seems that just now I'll finally be able to find a way to stop myself from going through to hell."

"You truly mean this, Emma?" Dr. Thompson asked, her voice filled with a tone of hesitant optimism. Perhaps this was true, but for all she knew Emma could just be bluffing in an attempt to pretend like everything was going just fine despite just the opposite being the case.

"Of course I do," Emma said. "It's only taken a dozen life ruining disasters for me to see it, but I'm not going to wait any longer. I'm going to get myself off of alcohol, forever. It's going to improve many things, I'm sure. Just you wait, Natalie."

"My name is Dr. Thompson to you, Emma," Dr. Thompson sighed, shaking her head. "Now, have you truly thought through everything you plan to do with getting off of your alcohol addiction?"

Emma pouted her lips, offended by this particular question. It seemed as if Dr. Thompson didn't have much faith in her abilities to get through any of it, and she knew she could. She'd put her mind to things in the past and it had worked out well enough for her in the end. This was somewhat different, of course, but Emma wanted to have confidence in herself.

"Well, I'm sure it's going to be difficult," Emma sighed. "But hey, literally every other part of my life has been bloody horrendous. I'm not expecting anything that much better from this, except I know - I know - it will have good results."

"It will be very difficult," Dr. Thompson agreed. "I've gone through this process with several other patients in the past. It's had some major effects, physical and mental, but I think you can manage to get through it. They all did."

"The benefits outweigh anything bad about it, I think," Emma said. "I mean, I won't start sleeping with my friend's fiance any more and then go on to blame it on being tipsy. We would be much better off if it came to me minus the alcohol. I just want to make sure this is what I'm meant to..."

Dr. Thompson wore the most genuine smile on her lips that Emma had seen in what felt like the last handful of years. Although the patient wanted to savour this particular moment, she was getting far too lost in her own thoughts - if this was how positive the reaction was, then she could easily drink in the praise.

But this could only mean one thing when it came to Emma: she would have to make sure to show off everything good about this for as long as she could possibly manage. The more good she could show, the more attention she could get, and it wouldn't be from a negative point of view. She'd actually end up getting good attention, something new for her.

She had Dr. Thompson hanging to each word which came from her mouth, all because she'd made the one good decision. As long as she could keep this particular perspective going, then she would manage to make things work out so well. Even if it were just from one person, she would be getting swarmed with positive attention.

"You know, this is going to be helpful in so many ways," Emma began to gush. "I've been thinking an awful lot about it, and really - it'll help my health. It'll help me have more money for everything else I want. It'll mean I won't make quite as many horrible mistakes as I've made and then blame it on alcohol."

"That is not a definite, but I am sure it will end up being very positively effective on your life, Emma. How long have you been drinking?"

"Since I was a teenager - it's been a long time, more than half my life at the current moment."

"Then it's going to be a major change in your life," Dr. Thompson noted. "Many things are going to be different."

"Which isn't such a bad thing, really. Honestly, the one thing I have to say is that I don't want to continue repeating the same mistakes. I know that if I continue drinking the way I always have, there isn't going to be any change. It's going to be as much of a problem as it's always been, and there is no chance I'll get any better."

"As long as you're serious about this, I can see you working out this dilemma marvelously," Dr. Thompson purred. Indeed, she'd finally managed to chip down this woman's problems and make at least some progress. Even if she hadn't directly influenced Emma's decision to give up alcohol, she'd at least helped to lodge the idea into the woman's mind.

"I'm very serious about this," Emma said, looking somewhat offended at the notion that she wouldn't take this 100% seriously. If anything, she'd never been more serious about any other decision in her life...except, of course the one time she'd nearly ended her own life. "Very, very serious."

"You certainly have the motivation to get yourself through it all," Dr. Thompson noted. "I'm sure you've already started to take the necessary steps to get yourself through this decision."

"I do have the motivation. I don't think I ever realised just how vital it would be to do everything until I found myself in such a situation with my friend. I should be glad that I ave a reason, even if it is a negative reason. Good things are going to come out of something we all thought were bad."

But, in all sincerity, Emma couldn't manage to choke out the few words she needed most to say - she couldn't bear to drink again after seeing how she'd devestated Molly. Every time she looked at a bottle of whisky, all she could think of was how the amber liquid ended up destroying a future marriage and a friendship. She couldn't bear being around it, let alone drinking it.

It didn't matter if she were sitting across from a woman who was meant to be her therapist - she couldn't manage to force the words out without causing herself hordes of pain. Ever since Molly had confronted her on the topic, she'd felt as if a permanent sickness had been put upon her.

The effects on her emotions were so intense that they ended up causing her copious amounts of physical effects. Indeed, she felt physically ill every moment of the day. Even if the thoughts of Molly weren't at the forefront of her mind, she could feel it poking about in the back of her head. It simply refused to leave her alone.

Suddenly, the idea of showing off just how lovely this idea to give up alcohol was didn't seem to want to stay at the front of her mind. The only thing she could think about was how she'd managed to destroy so many things in a chain reaction, as if she'd pushed off a domino and let the entire row collapse.

Yes, alcohol would solve some of her problems and make sure to prevent more in the future, but that wouldn't be enough to end off everything she wanted to chop off at the stem. She would still have dozens of problems.

"I'm just worried it won't fix everything," Emma said. "I have too many problems for it to fix everything."

"There are very few things on this planet which can fix everything," Dr. Thompson replied. "I wouldn't place too much worry into it, if I were you."

"True - but there are so many things attatched to being me. Emma Newman. Living underneath the famed consulting detective in more ways than one. I thought I was going to get married a while ago, and then that man ended up deserting me and I haven't been able to find anyone since. This won't help that. And the fact that I can't seem to talk to my mother any more, even though I did once a while ago..."

"The point of getting off of your alcohol addiction is to fix some of your problems so that it will be easier to fix those that remain afterwards," said Dr. Thompson. "If you're waiting for a miracle to help all those problems, it won't be found simply through giving up alcohol...but it will help you in the end."

"I suppose you're right," Emma sighed. "But I don't know if that will end up being enough."

"Well, it will have to be enough for a while," Dr. Thompson suggested.