Andrea barges into my office, ignores my protests, and pulls me to my feet. Without any explanation, she tows me out the door and down the hallway.
“We already exercised this morning,” I protest. “I’m not doing twice a day!”
She continues to ignore me as she takes a right turn and opens a door to one of the empty offices on the floor. Well, it was an empty office according to my map of the floor. Now it’s furnished. How did she manage to do this without me noticing? Oh, there’s a weird looking bed there in one corner, next to an oversized armchair.. My algorithm must have registered this as a bedroom and put it on the ignore list.
Andrea pushes me towards the bed, then takes a seat in the chair. On second glance, it’s not really a bed. Sort of between a couch and a bed. What do they call those things that psychiatrists use in the movies? No idea. But it’s one of those with the headrest oriented to point me away from the armchair. I make a note to look up the name of it later.
“So now you’re my shrink?” I ask her, giving in and laying down on the couch bed thing.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
She hums an affirmative.
“I’m not sure that’s allowed. Plus what do you even know about psychology?”
She doesn’t bother to answer my question, but instead pops a picture of my mother in front of me along with a question mark.
“How do you even have that picture?”
A cardboard box appears, along with a tiny copy of the family jet. I look back through my logs. Of course, I left my whole box of mementos from my grandparents house on the plane. I sigh at the trove of embarrassing details that I can’t remember that she probably pulled out of there.
The picture of my mother and question mark blink insistently.
“Tell me about your mother, huh? I think I heard somewhere the Freudian stuff is all outdated now, but whatever.”
Do I want to talk to her about feelings and all that? Will it even be useful with the way my brain is ruined?
I sigh again. What harm could it do?
“If you’ll give me weekends off of the exercise program, I’ll do whatever you want in here once a week for an hour.”
She pauses a moment, then hums a yes. I guess she’s my therapist now.