Three days later Mark stared blankly at the wall, refusing to say much to his new psychiatrist who kept prodding him to talk about how he ‘felt’ and ‘thought.’ He didn’t know how he felt or thought. Too much had changed in less than a week and he still didn’t even know how to react anymore. Anger? Sadness? Could he allow this hollow ache in his gut to envelop his entire being and consume his every waking thought and sleeping nightmare?
Sometimes he wanted to yell and scream, to throw things against walls. He generally wanted to break things. Other times he only wanted to stare blankly at a wall and allow the darkness of his troubled thoughts to overwhelm him.
“We have time,” the man insisted.
A quick glance at the wall clock told him that there was only five minutes left in the appointment. Mark could stand these last five minutes. He’d stared at his bedroom wall for longer than that the night before, after he raged about the cameras again.
“You can’t tune me out forever,” the man calmly prodded. “Eventually you are going to want to talk to somebody and who better than somebody who can help you?”
Still Mark remained silent. What could he tell this man? What he could say to somebody who was hired by his mother? That he felt the loss of his father deeply? That after searching for a few days he’d finally found the hidden camera in his air vent of all places and it had taken him less than three minutes to disable it before he left for his appointment.
He’d left the camera on the table in the middle of the front living room so that his mother could see it.
“I’m going to prescribe you some medications that I think will help. We’ll start the dosages off small and increase them if we need to.” The man droned on and on about the meds that he was going to prescribe and when the best times to take them were. “This isn’t a fix-all, but they will help until we work on your coping skills and strategies.”
Again he said nothing, although Mark suspected that these prescriptions would only help him until, like the doctor said, he could cope.
“I’ll see you again next Monday. Maybe then you will have something to talk to me about,” the psychiatrist called out as Mark walked out of the room as soon as the clock’s hands hit four.
Dr. Paul Chambers watched his newest patient walk out of the door. He understood the teenager’s emotions surrounding the loss of his father and having to put up with his mother.
The entire situation rankled. No assessment. No self-survey. He didn’t even have a clue exactly what Mark was feeling.
Certainly, he could sense the emotions radiating off him like waves. Anger one minute; what Paul wouldn’t do to know what caused that particular feeling, although in his own dealings with Gertrude Hamilton he could only imagine. The next was the average, everyday grief a child felt at the unexpected loss of a parent. Well, as average as to be expected in an unforeseen situation.
Instead, thanks to his being blackmailed, no assessments were given. No second appointment to continue to gauge how Mark was handling the things thrown at him. There were so many first appointments where the patient said nothing until they felt comfortable enough to speak up.
It left a bad taste in his mouth.
The phone ringing interrupted his thoughts. “Dr. Chamber’s office.”
“Paul,” a crisp male voice snapped from the other end of the time. “I expected you call five minutes ago.”
“Mr. King,” Paul responded, holding back his groan. “Mark hasn’t been out of my office for two minutes. The session rang long.”
“How did it go?”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“Have you sent the meds we requested in to the pharmacy?”
Paling, he replied, “Not yet. Are you certain this is necessary? I haven’t had a chance to assess the boy yet.”
“If you don’t send these meds in I will make certain that what I have on you does get sent to the police station,” Clark King threatened.
“Based on our first session, I think he only needs an anxiety med, and only a fast acting one at that.”
Snarling on the other end of the line, Clark was not used to people being so reluctant to do his bidding, especially when he was holding information over their heads. “No, you are sending in the depression meds and the ADHD meds as well.”
“ADHD meds?” Paul’s voice broke. “But, he has no record of an attention deficit disorder.”
“Neither do your children need hydrocodone.”
“Okay,” Paul whispered. The last thing his children needed was for this information to come out. “I’ll do you bidding.”
“Good,” Clark responded before disconnecting the call.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you everything.”
Instead of going home, Mark pulled down a familiar driveway three down from his own driveway. Holden knew to expect him. He had sent his best friend a text before he had even gone to the appointment.
“Did he prescribe anything?” was the first thing Holden asked once he saw his friend. “When Mom’s sister died last year her doctor prescribed Mom some antidepressant or something. It had some weird side effects.”
“He said he was going to. Mom is supposed to pick them up later. I know there is going to be an antidepressant and an anxiety med. I’m supposed to take the anxiety med on an as needed basis, but the antidepressant is one a day. Hopefully it will help.” Mark didn’t tell Holden that he didn’t completely listen to what his doctor had said.
Walking through the house, the boys stopped to talk to Holden’s mother. She asked Mark how he was doing and if he needed anything. After a few minutes of her fussing over him as if he was her long-lost son, Mark realized that Mrs. Frazier was more of a mother figure to Mark than his own mother was.
Finally, the boys escaped and headed up to Holden’s room. While they waited for a video game to load, Holden asked, “Did your mom really install a camera in your room?”
Taking out his phone, Mark silently showed Holden the pictures he had taken after he’d disassembled the camera.
Rolling his eyes, Holden handed the phone back right as it started to ring, Mark’s mother’s name popping up on the screen.
“Mark,” a panicked voice sounded over the speakers. “Where are you?”
“I’m at Holden’s,” Mark simply answered her. “I told you I was coming over here after my appointment.”
“I found your camera on the table when I got home and was so worried,” Gertrude’s voice cried. “And then you didn’t get home when I expected you to and…”
“Mom,” he interrupted her. “I told you before I left that I was going to hang out with Holden after my appointment. You said it was okay.”
“I need you to come home,” she cried again. In the back of his head, he wondered if those were real tears or a show put on for Holden’s benefit.
Sighing, Mark shook his head where only Holden could see him. “Okay. I’ll be home in about seven minutes unless Mrs. Frazier holds me up.”
Hitting the button to end the call, Mark sat there in stony silence for thirty seconds. He really didn’t want to return to that oppressive environment. Whenever he was inside that house now he felt two things: his father’s ghost and his mother’s fake concern. All he wanted was a break where he didn't have to think and she couldn’t even let him have that!
“She sounds worried,” Holden pointed out, breaking the silence.
“‘Sounds’ is the operative word,” Mark retorted. “She knew you were with me. If she were worried she wouldn’t have had her head buried in her phone the entire trip back. She wouldn’t have closeted herself with Clark King last night after dinner.” Standing up, Mark looked his friend in the eye, “Mom was acting because she knew that there was an audience.”
Walking Mark out, Holden looked at him, “I’m right here if you need me. If you need somewhere to crash.”
Giving his friend a short nod, he struggled to grin, “I’ll take you up for that if I can ever escape.”
<
br /> “There’s still August. We’ll be going to school together now,” Holden reminded him.
“We just have to get through the next two months,” Mark sighed, folding himself to fit in the driver’s seat of the car he normally drove when he was home.
When he walked in the driveway ten minutes later, Mark headed towards the dining room where he heard his mother call out for him. Entering the room he noticed that Clark King was sitting right next to her.
“You are late,” Gertrude dryly pointed out, her tone completely different from the one she used on the phone. He had expected the change.
Holding up a casserole dish, “Mrs. Frazier wanted to offer her condolences again,” he explained away, even though the delay was of his own making.
Still holding the glass dish in his hands, he spotted the three pill bottles lined up in front of his mother. Staring at them, he counted the antidepressant bottle, the anxiety bottle, and, “What’s that third bottle?” Mark calmly asked, setting the still warm casserole directly on the table, even though suspicion settled into his gut.
“ADHD meds,” Clark answered him. His mother had started waving at a maid to take away the dish before it left a mark on her perfectly polished table.
“Seriously? I don’t have an attention deficit disorder of any kind,” Mark stated, disbelief coloring his tone.
“Dr. Chambers thinks they might have some added benefit to help balance out the other two pills,” Gertrude added without making eye contact. Mark wondered if she needed some more practice in lying or if she honestly believed that. Or if the possible damage to the table had distracted her.
Slowly, he responded, “But the anxiety meds are only to be taken as needed.”
“Sometimes,” his mother hesitated, “antidepressants can disrupt concentration. The ADHD meds are supposed to help with that.” Even the maid standing outside the doorway could tell that Gertrude was grasping at straws.
Mark reached for the bottle and noticed the dosage. “That’s a large dose.” Narrowing his eyes, “Dr. Chambers said that he was going to start me on a low dose and increase as needed. He didn’t even mention these pills.” He might not have appeared to be paying attention, but he had been paying some attention.
“How would you know,” Clark interrupted. “You didn’t say anything during the entire session.”
“How do you know that?” Mark narrowed his eyes again. A now familiar sense of paranoia made its appearance.
“Your mother told me,” he answered without faltering. “I was there when Dr. Chamber’s called about the prescriptions he was sending in and I was also at the pharmacy when she picked them up.”
“I don’t think my mental health is any of your concern. You. Are. Not. My. Father.” Mark slowly stated each word, looking between Gertrude and Clark with each word. “He has no business knowing about my appointments and my meds and anything else concerning me except for the fact that he’s currently the figurehead of the company that we all know becomes mine as soon as I graduate with my MBA. He doesn’t even have a voice in the company anymore.”
“Mark!” Gertrude snapped. “That’s rude.”
“That’s the truth and it looks poorly on you since you are spending so much time with him after Dad died. He hasn’t even been gone seven days yet. We just got the results of Dad’s autopsy in and you haven’t even flinched about his drinking. Dad didn’t drink! Plus his funeral is in two days! And you are already moving on.” Mark grabbed two of the pill bottles, not even pretending that he wasn’t going to take the ADHD meds.
“Mark,” his mother snapped. “You forgot something.”
“No, I didn’t.” He didn’t even turn around to look at her. For the first time he understood the feeling of anger that overtook the sadness he’d been feeling. He could handle anger.
“You will take these pills,” Gertrude responded to him emotionlessly.
“I have never, not even when I was younger, been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. There is no reason for Dr. Chambers to have prescribed those pills unless…” he trailed off.
“Unless what?”
Turning to look at his mother, he wondered if she’d insisted on the ADHD pills. “Unless you’ve been hiding something from me my whole life and sent me off to boarding school without medication that I needed...” he answered her quickly.
Gertrude coldly looked at her son. “Take the pills, Mark,” she coldly demanded.
Snatching the pills off the table, he decided that he would be flushing them one by one down the toilet. He suspected that she’d be counting his pills when he wasn’t home.
“Also,” she drawled out, staring at her son’s back, “the men will be back to reinstall the camera in your room. If you take it out again you’ll be grounded from your car all summer. That means no visiting Holden.”
“He lives three doors down!” Mark turned around. “I can walk over there.”
“Then you will be grounded to your room with nothing to look at except for the four walls around you,” she sneered. “It’s only for your own good.”
Glaring at her, Mark snarled, “I love you too, Mother,” before storming out of the room, pill bottled clinched in his hands.
Clark leaned forward in his seat, “Aren’t you worried that he’ll figure it out.”
Rolling her eyes, Gertrude reached for her glass of wine. “The only thing I’m worried about is that the pills won’t start working soon enough.”
“I think we can take care of that.”
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