Jessica glares at what has to be the worst “therapist” yet. The bitch is typing on her tablet like it could break if her fingernail poked it.
“And do you think that punching a fellow student was the appropriate response?” She asked in a voice so high pitched it made Jessica’s ears bleed.
“Yes, I do.” She responded, making sure to add that special tone like she was talking to a particularly slow child. “She was the one who decided that ruining my art project was ‘appropriate’,” She made air quotes, “and then was stupid enough to admit that to my face. Also, it was a slap.”
“A slap… with a closed fist?” Jessica shrugged, “That’s called a punch,”
The therapist, whose name Jessica refused to remember, sighed and typed some more in her tablet, “Maddie has gotten detention for destroying your project, you on the other hand are being given double the time. Tell me, do you still think that was the right course of action?”
Jessica took a deep breath, “Probably not,” Her mom was going to be pissed. The therapist nods and changes the subject.
“I’d like to talk about where the source of your anger comes from, you have had quite a few incidents over the year, though most were excused for various reasons-”
“You mean my dad wasn’t taking your guys’ shit?”
The therapist just raised an eyebrow, “If you mean threatening a lawsuit everytime they tried to hold you accountable for your actions? Then yes.”
“Funny, if the school did nothing worth suing for, wouldn’t their lawyers call his bluff?” Jessica snapped back, she had taken it upon herself to read up on the laws surrounding Bound. She would never be accepted into law school but she wasn’t about to be tied down by bullshit.
The therapist moved on, “Why do you think you’ve been acting out?”
Fuck you, Jessica wanted to say, instead she played along, if only to end this torture. “Maybe it’s because the people I used to call my friends bully me mercilessly and the school does fuck all?”
“Please watch your language, and this school takes bullying very seriously. If that was happening I’m sure the proper actions are being taken.” The therapist says, “I was talking more about your relationship with your parents.”
Jessica nearly laughed at the bull this bitch spewed. “What about my parents?”
“They separated, I’m sure that was hard for you,” She said, “You went to live-”
“Forced to live, I didn’t get a choice in the matter,” Jessica interrupted.
“How do you mean?” The therapist asked,
“I mean, I was going to live with Dad. The arbiter had already written the separation agreement. Full custody.” Jessica explained.
“According to your file, your parents' separation was decided in court, not by an arbiter.”
Jessica scoffed, raising her arm she showed off the purple band, “That’s cause this happened, and suddenly whoever looked after me would get a fat stipend for keeping me fed. She canceled arbitration, had the courts exclude the previous agreement from evidence, and her texts, and the recordings of the meetings where she explicitly stated, and I quote, “I don’t want the thing,” referring to me, as well as the later texts stating that she ‘deserved that money’.”
The therapist leaned back into her chair, “But all of that was stricken from the record… why is that? Surely there was a reason.”
Jessica had read that case back to front, she could practically recite it from memory now. “It was, again quoting, disparaging of my client’s character and based on little more than words said in the heat of the moment, not indicative of my client’s ability as a caretaker and as such irrelevant.” Jessica sneered, “In other words, it was a really bad look, and the judge removed it. From there, it was a choice between a mother with a job and a father with a disability stipend.”
Jessica glared at the woman, “Like I said, forced.”
The therapist nods, “That must have been hard,”
Jessica shrugged, “Only if you think being stuck in a loveless house next to a porn addict is hard,”
The therapist frowned, “Is she? Addicted to porn? As far as I’m aware porn is non-addictive and legal in the Great City.”
“Please, no one who knows someone like my mother believes that.” Jessica argued, “My mom spent 2000 credits on videos and lives in the last 3 months. If it was booze no one would argue but god forbid we threaten the city’s porn industry!” Jessica puts her hand above her head dramatically, “Think of those poor men and women, where else could they get paid to fuck hot dudes!”
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The therapist takes a deep breath, Jessica gives her another 3 months before she quits. As a Bound she is required to have therapy twice a month. No therapist has lasted a year and she’s pretty sure the city is running out of them.
“We seem to have gotten off track. We are not here to discuss settled science. We are here to talk about you.”
“Well, I suppose the next thing we can talk about is Dad’s restraining order.”
The therapist sighs, “I don’t believe that will be helpful,”
“Really? Because you wanted to talk about me and my anger, and I’m still pissed at my mom for THAT!”
The woman sends me a flat look, “Well, if you need to rant then I can listen at the very least.”
“You are paid by the hour.” Jessica agreed, She leaned back and smiled, she really liked ranting about this. It made her feel just a little bit better.
“You see, when I was 15, I started highschool, and my mother is the principal of this highschool. So surely, she would be able to pick me up every day without issue, seeing as she spent the stipend meant for my care on porn and a new car.”
The therapist puts aside her tablet and takes a drink of water. But… She’s never heard this story, afterall, besides the order itself there’s no record of what actually happened.
“You see, my dear mother decided that since the beginning of the school year was slow, that she would leave early that first day of school. Of course, she didn’t tell me or my dad. So I ended up at the school until dark, waiting for my mother. I called her 3 times and every time she said she would. Then I called my dad. He was pissed, let me tell you.”
The therapist’s flat look turned to one of interest, “Go on,”
“So they have a big fight about it, cause it turned out that she went to this high end place where you can have private virtual sessions with the hotties on the video, using my stipend of course.” Jessica was standing and pacing now. “My dad tried to file a complaint but it was dismissed as an attempt to disparage a “government employee’s reputation”. Naturally, after getting away with it, she does it again. So I just take the bus home, dealing with the inevitable shouting that came from “not waiting for me” and “Don’t you trust your own mother?” which I don’t by the way.”
“I can see that,”
“So one day, I was asked to join the climbing team. The coach of the teams in my school is excellent, doesn’t even care that I’m bound but that’s besides the point.” Jessica laughs. “It ends up raining that day, raining really fucking hard. I told my mom in person and on text that she needed to pick me up since I would be missing the bus and the next one didn’t come until 5:30. I have her in writing that she would pick me up. Well, she took this opportunity to have a field day at home, and must have been in the middle of a big one cause she doesn’t answer my texts or calls.” Jessica grits her teeth.
“I didn’t want to walk in a torrential rainstorm half a mile to the damn bus stop then walk a mile to her apartment. So I call dad. He is furious, of course. He gets to the apartment, only to find enforcers waiting for us.” Jessica turns to the therapist, who is listening very carefully now. “As it turns out… she wasn’t jerking off. No, she left me out there on purpose. You know why? She installed a tracker in my glasses when she bought them, and the moment I began to leave the school, she called the cops to report a kidnapping. You see, because my dad picked me up before, it was a ‘breach of their custody agreement,’ so my mom orchestrated a second violation in an attempt to get revenge for the first time she was interrupted.”
Jessica threw her hands in the air, “If it wasn’t for my fucking texts my dad would’ve been thrown in jail by enforcers. She filed a restraining order, now my dad pays extra in child support because he can’t use money on me directly.” Jessica slumps to the couch, “You wanna know why I'm so pissed? It’s because I’m forced to live with a greedy narcissistic addict who made it so my Dad can’t answer my calls just to get a few dozen extra credits of a fucking combat veteran. That’s why,”
The therapist picks up her tablet and makes her little notes. “You seem to blame your mother a lot. Yet you never said anything of your own actions that day.”
Jessica stiffened, “Excuse me?”
The therapist looked at her cooly, “Your explanation, while detailed, is a bit fantastic don’t you think? I’ve met her and she doesn’t really seem that vindictive that she would risk her own daughter to punish a man who's done nothing wrong.”
Jessica took a deep breath. “Again… I say ex-fucking-scuse me?” Trying to make it clear that she was on thin ice. The therapist ignores her.
“I posit a different theory, one more in line with the records available.” Jessica crossed her arms, she had a distinct feeling she knew where this was going.
“Let me know if this sounds right. I think your mom flaked, or was running late. Already angry after last time, you call your father. Your father knows good and well that he is not allowed to pick you up after school if it isn’t friday. He decides to take advantage of the moment to take more time than he is legally allotted and paid the price for being caught when your mother showed up and you weren’t at school. She naturally called the enforcers when you wouldn’t answer her calls and if it wasn’t for the texts and you begging the enforcers, your dad would have spent the night in jail AND had the restraining order set.”
She leaned back, looking victorious, “Doesn’t that sound more reasonable than the conspiracy theory you just told me.”
Jessica hated these stupid therapists. They weren’t here to help Jessica, they were here to tell her what to think. Her mother had “celebrated” the order with a bottle of whiskey-styled ethanol and drunkenly admitted to the whole thing. The last time she told a therapist that fact she was asked if it helped process things if she lied about them.
Jessica leaned back with an equally victorious look, “No, because as a principal my mother prides herself on always being on time. Always having a proper schedule, always being on top of her work. It would look bad on the council if one of their employees with such responsibility was so… flaky, as you put it.”
The therapist’s smile dropped. She was hired by the council of course, so insinuating incompetence out loud was generally frowned upon. Jessica continued, “My mother is a very smart woman, she’s a narcissist and a bitch, but she’s very smart. She could damn well use those smarts for selfish reasons. Honestly, it feels like you’re trying to blame me for what my mother has done.”
She calmly replies, “Aren’t you doing the reverse, letting your anger at your mother color everything around, then when you do something wrong you blame your mother for being less than you wish she was?”
It was Jessica's turn to frown. Her words cut through Jessica like a laser, calming her down. That was… different. Usually therapists would be spitting mad. But the woman in front of her was calm, she was playing her the entire time, just to get to this point. She had probably read her previous files and seen this story play out. Maybe her name was worth remembering.
Jessica leaned away and shrugged. She looked out the window as the woman spoke. “Don’t play coy, Jessica. You turn eighteen soon, you can’t be punching people. You should have reported Maddie, and you shouldn’t be losing control of your anger, then turning around and blaming your mother.”
Jessica said nothing. The words rang true, at least a little. “As if telling the teachers would do anything.”
“Did you try?”
“Why should I?” Jessica snapped, “I’m Bound, they’ll brush me off like they always do.”
“So now it’s because you’re Bound? I think we know that’s not true, afterall if the school was found ignoring reports of bullying because you’re Bound that would be breaking at least 3 anti-discrimination laws, but you know that. I am aware of your knowledge of the law.”
She leans forward, Jessica’s perception of this woman having completely shifted over the course of a minute or so.
“There are two reasons people don’t report bullying, pride and fear. So tell me, which do you think it is?” Her blue eyes sparkled behind her glasses. They were framed by blonde hair and a smart blazer. Jessica snarled just a bit.
“I’m NOT afraid of that bitch.” Jessica stood, “And I think that’s time.”
The woman nodded, “So it is. Thank you for your time Jessica, I believe in just our first session we’ve made more progress than any other imbecile the council’s thrust upon you.”
She stood and opened the door, “Again, since I’m sure you’ve forgotten my name already, I’m Dr. Lindsay. Please think about why you don’t report Maddie, without blaming anyone, not the school or being Bound or your parents. There is a real reason that you can control, that is what I am here to help you with, gaining control over yourself. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Jessica glared at her, “Are you this bitchy to everyone or am I just special?”
Dr. Lindsey smiled, “You are very special,” and shut the door. Jessica walked quickly out of that blasted building.