(Part 1)



She eyed the files set neatly on the table in front of her, anxious about the order in which she had piled them up for the third time in the last fifteen minutes. Curiously her hands reached out to the top file, fingers itching over the well dusted blue cover of the folder. Staring at her slim fingers atop the folder, she was plunged in a battle of her own.

"You can't arrange them both in sizes and colors altogether. Let it be and please stop touching stuff." He calmly spoke to her from across the table. Shifting in his seat, he eyed her sternly. His fingers tapping over the glass table on their own accord. A habit he had formed when observing something while investing his complete attention into it.

"Get out of my head, psycho." She snapped back and emphasized the last word, making sure he heard her well. To which he only shrugged his shoulders to make it known he wasn't even bothered by her irksome demeanour.

He grabbed a green folder out of the pile and started flipping through the pages until he stopped at one to read the content on it. It only further infuriated her on how he wasn't even reacting to her when she was giving it her best shot.

"You know you should have a couch in here." She casually stated trying to get him to converse, avoiding his eyes upon her. That's what she had been doing since she walked in here.

"You can't sleep here." He retracted, to which she visibly rolled her eyes at him.  "As if I'll even get any sleep here, I hardly sleep anyways." She explained, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation.

He eyed her without changing his blank expression and stretched out his hand to extract his notepad from his drawer. He clicked his pen and started scribbling across his notepad. His expressions changed from blank to thoughtful, as if he was contemplating his sanity being in the same room as her. She wasn't his first to solve. Nor was she as complicated as he had dealt with before but breaking through her core was going to take time. He could give her all the time in the world if only she hadn't refused to speak out, so blatantly during the first five minutes of her visit. Making sure he knew she wasn't going to let him in on any personal information about herself.

She started spinning the paperweight atop the glass table, clicking her tongue as if stopping the words to leave her mouth. Hardly managing to sit still even for the lightest part of a second.  "Out with it." He demanded after noticing how hard she was trying to hold back.

She took a deep breath and sighed, almost ready to explode. "If my sister had set me up on a blind date instead, it would've still been understandable but who on earth sets you up for a session with a therapist.
Oh, wait, my apologies. Sets you up with 'the' best therapist in the city or did she say country? She thinks I've lost it apparently. Maybe I have." She kept on babbling.

"You're not a lost cause. We all at times just need to figure out ourselves and it's okay to seek help." He commented back emphatically.

"Yeah, but how many of those people visit a therapist to seek help or end up in their clinics?" She challenged.

"A lot actually." She huffed back in utter annoyance. He never understood why people treated mental health issues and getting help, some sort of taboo. You could scratch a blade through your own skin but couldn't sit through a session of therapy and take your prescriptions because you'd be labelled insane then. Maybe these labels were what intimidated them all.

"I was expecting some old, wrinkly guy sitting across of me, just questioning me about my life and then jolting down some prescription or something and I'd be done for good. But here I am with you...you're around my age which only increases my discomfort in telling you my life tales. Couldn't my sister have just chosen someone else, ugh!" He continued scribbling down on his notepad.

She sank back in her seat, confounded over the idea of ever agreeing to go into therapy in the first place. She didn't want to rave about her sad stories and he seemed fine with that. She was visibly petrified with the thought of being judged by him. On second thought, she mentally told herself she could either man-up and get help, or she could just run away like some coward. She decided to give into the first thought.

"So, how does this work? I mean the therapy. Can it help anyone figure out themselves?" He raised a perfect eyebrow, utterly amused by her restless persona.

"Most of the times, yes. Normally it works like patients come in and tell me their problems. If they're suffering from sleep deprivation or depression or suicidal tendencies or even seeing and hearing people that don't exist.....and I being the doctor help fix it. Simple as that." She pondered over what he said for a few stretched seconds before speaking up again.

"So, like I'll have to tell you stuff about me in order for you to figure me out and  help me?" She shifted uneasily in her seat, discomfort radiating off her body language. He gave her a warm reassuring smile.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." He reassured her before continuing, "your sister's main concern is you quitting your jobs, constantly changing your friend circles and losing interest abruptly in things and people altogether. There's an inconsistency, which isn't healthy.  Let's just focus on that, alright?"

She took in a deep breath, "you can never figure me out, no one can."

"That's one thing people like you purposely misjudge about others. You love to complicate simple things deliberately and make it so hard for everyone else to understand you. Feels thriving and all until you lose track of the plot yourself. And that's when you end up here."  She let out mocking laughter but deep down it hit a chord. She was indeed in deep trouble and there was no way out of here but to give in to him.

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Wait for the next part to be uploaded soon. Only when I get feedback on this part.