Dr. Wiseman: Hi Ethan, I’m Dr. Wiseman. I nod, trying to maintain eye contact He’s the third one this year, and who knows how long he’ll last, but I promised Rachel, so here we are. I look around the office. Cool institutional blue walls, modern art, nothing representational, overstuffed chairs that look like they came from someone’s attic, and a big round glass table in the center with fidget spinners, Rubik’s cubes, and nerf balls. I sit in a chair that is as deep in the corner of the room as possible with a view of the door. He sits directly across from me, so the table is between us. “No couch.” I state. Dr. Wiseman: (smiling) Nope. Do you think I should get one? I shrug and stare at him. Dr. Wiseman looks like tool. He’s maybe late 40s or 50s, but fighting aging tooth and nail. He’s sinewy like someone who never eats carbs and goes to the gym before and after work. Not married, no kids, I conclude. He looks up from the form I filled out in the waiting room. Dr. Wiseman: I see your birthday was last week? How was that? The memory washes over me like the slow motion nausea of car sickness. I draw my arms in tighter. I’m not going to discuss that. I swallow, gnaw at my thumb nail, and he continues. Dr. Wiseman: You turned 21. Right? That’s a big milestone. How did you celebrate? I suppress the pained grimace tugging at the corners of my mouth. “I got drunk,” I say flatly. He laughs to let me know that this is totally normal. Nothing wrong there. I have no desire to enlighten him. Dr. Wiseman: Your first time? I nod and fix my gaze on the swirls of blue and green just over his right shoulder. Dr. Wiseman: Not what you expected? I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t even plan to drink. But since you asked, no I didn’t expect getting drunk to be so completely humiliating. He doesn’t press with another question, and I don’t hurry to fill the silence. “I didn’t say that,” I finally mumble, but I don’t look at him. Dr. Wiseman: You don’t want to be here? Do you? Understatement! The only therapist that ever gave a damn was Rachel. The worst of them drugged me, caged me, and manipulated me for her own twisted agenda. “I didn’t say that either.” Dr. Wiseman: I know you’re pretty attached to Rachel. How long has she been working with you? He knows perfectly well how long she’s been my therapist. I’m here because of all the crap about her being my step-mother now, but that’s a specious argument. She’s been with my father for well over two years. Before PSI. Since the fire. I ride another wave of nausea. I was a different person then, I remind myself. He set the fire, that other Ethan, the one I loathe, the one I wish I could eradicate from everyone’s memory for all time. A smile tugs at my mind. I could do that, eradicate him from every memory one by one. I shake off the thought. “Three years or so, I guess.” The guy looks at his note pad. He hasn’t written a single thing yet, but he studies it nonetheless. After another long silence, he sighs. Dr. Wiseman: Why don’t we talk about your family. That’s usually a good place to start. Would that be alright? My family is definitely NOT a good place to start, but I’d rather talk about them than myself, so I nod. “What do you want to know?” Dr. Wiseman: Let’s start with your parents. What’s their story? Well, shit! Can of worms doesn’t begin to describe my parents and their story. Besides I’m pretty sure the good doctor already knows this part of my sad history. “I don’t know much about my parents,” I say. I’d like to stop there, but I elaborate. “When Elena and I were four, my mom died, and my dad took off.” I spare him the details about how she set the house on fire and burned alive while I watched, while I held her hand. I pull my sleeve down over the burn scar on my left arm and hand. “My grandmother kept us.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. The guy is writing furiously now. I wait till he stops. Dr. Wiseman: What was she like your grandmother? I scoff a little, and he starts writing again. “Iron-lady. Sage called her Iron-lady.” Dr. Wiseman: She passed away? “A couple of years ago.” Dr. Wiseman: I’m sorry for your loss. “Don’t be.” I sound angrier than I really am. “She didn’t like him - I mean me - very much.” Dr. Wiseman: Did she like your sister? I nod. “Everyone loves Lane … Elena.” Dr. Wiseman: Really? Why is that? I shrug. Dr. Wiseman: Do you like her? “She’s my twin!” A million thoughts, memories, and emotions close in around my throat. I would have died without Elena. She was my only friend, my care-taker and confidant. She is the other half of me. There is no way to talk about her with words, so I don’t. I don’t tell him about how much I love her or about how angry I am with her about PSI and signing our lives away without even asking me. I don’t tell him about how worried I am about her since we got back or about how hard it is to talk to her now. Dr. Wiseman: Do you still live together? I nod. “Grandmother left us her house in the will.” Dr. Wiseman: Is it just the two of you? “Not exactly.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sage lives there too. And Finn in the garage apartment. And then there’s Jo who’s there pretty much all the time too.” Dr. Wiseman: Finn? Who’s that? “My asshat cousin.” Dr. Wiseman: (laughing) And Jo? “That’s Lane’s girlfriend. She’s cool.” Dr. Wiseman: How so? I don’t have any idea how to convey the overall cool that is Jo. “She just is,” I say. Jo has not had it easy. Shit happened with Sage’s pervy dad. And Jo has every right to be pissed off and hate Sage, but that’s the thing, she never judges or holds grudges. Jo is strong and clear-headed. She keeps Lane from going completely off the rails. Actually, she keeps us all from completely blowing apart. Dr. Wiseman: OK. And Sage, how does she fit in to your family? Sage. How does she fit in? I could start with the fact that we are all in love with her. Me, Lane, Jo, and Finn. We don’t just love her; we are stupid in love with her. Sage is the reason I am. She brought me back into the world and made me want to be something more. My whole life is divided into two parts. Before Sage and after. The before part is where he lived. Then Sage came and I was woke. There are no words. “She’s my step-sister, I guess. Rachel’s daughter.” Dr. Wiseman: You guess? “Technically, legally,” I correct myself. He’s kind of staring at me with one eye brow raised. “I don’t think of her as a sister.” Dr. Wiseman: You have feelings for her? Yeah. We aren’t going there. “I have a half-sister too.” Dr. Wiseman: Okay. “Fiona. She’s Sage’s half-sister too. She’s almost two.” Dr. Wiseman: Right. She must be Rachel and your dad, Jesse’s child? I nod and look away. Dr. Wiseman: Didn’t they recently adopt a child too? A boy? “Cayde.” Dr. Wiseman: He’s just a little younger than you, isn’t he? Do you get along? Cayde is actually a lot younger than I am. He’s sixteen, a sophomore in high school. But he’s taller than I am and braver, and better in probably every way one human can be better than another. Cayde was my first friend aside from Sage. “Yeah, he’s okay.” I smile without meaning to. Dr. Wiseman: And your dad, Jesse, he came back? What was that like? I really haven’t thought about it that way. When Jesse first came back, he was more like Finn’s dad than mine. I think he was disappointed in what I was back then. He couldn’t relate to me on any level, and I hated him for the bits and pieces I remembered about him. Now it’s more like he’s just some guy who’s married to Rachel. I hardly think anything about him at all. “I don’t really care. It’s not like he was ever a dad to me.” Dr. Wiseman: I can understand that. Families can be fraught with conflict. What are the best and worst things about your family? Yup total tool. Who uses words like “fraught.” And more importantly who asks questions like that. Unfortunately, now that he’s put it out there, it’s going to gnaw at my mind. Best thing – Twin powers. Lane and I are . . . connected and gifted or cursed depending on which of us you ask and on which day you ask it. Worst thing – Finn. It seems impossible to me that his mom and my dad were related. And even more fucked up, that our moms were in love. Dr. Phil would have a field day with my family tree. “I don’t know.” I cross my arms over my chest to stop chewing my fingernails. I think we’re about done here. I am just about to stand up. Dr. Wiseman: Perhaps we should set some goals, Ethan. Talk about what you’d like to see come out of our sessions in the next few months. My eyebrows go up, and I search the walls for some clue as what I’m supposed to say. Goals? Few months? I blink several times trying to wrap my mind around an answer. I have no clue. After only a short argument with Elena’s voice in my head, I decide to go straight to the source to figure out what he wants me to say. I can hear his thoughts a moment after he has them. The past is relative when it comes to my gifts, and I am good at seeing what’s already happened, though I probably shouldn’t according to Elena. Wiseman has just finished running down the list of symptoms and my diagnosis. PTSD with regressive behavior disorder, social anxiety, isolation, enuresis. His mind lights on the last one. Yeah. I’m not talking about that. Rachel and I have spent the last year beating that drum. Alarms that woke up everyone but me, drugs that made me dehydrated and gave me hallucinations, bladder training that helped during the day at least, and even hypnosis, which was amusing, albeit embarrassing. Lost cause. “Sex.” I hear myself say out loud. “I want to have sex.” Dr. Wiseman: Okay. Sex. So what kind of work do you think you might need to do to achieve this goal? I need to get rid of Finn, I think. Still, I wouldn’t want homicidal ideation added to my diagnosis, so I keep that gem to myself. “You tell me.” I say. Isn’t that what I pay you for? He smiles again, but I don’t. Dr. Wiseman: I probably need to know a little more about you, Ethan. Is there a particular person you have in mind? Do you have any experience? What obstacles do you expect to encounter? Okay! Okay! Enough questions already! So much for safe subjects. I think my head might explode. “I kissed her. . . Sage. On my birthday.” I blurt out. Dr. Wiseman: “Oh. Rachel’s daughter? Your sort of step-sister” “I kissed her before too. A few times, but it was different then. I was different . . . then.” The good doctor can barely conceal his excitement. In his head he’s been counting the number of words in each sentence I’ve uttered. He thinks he’s getting through, wearing me down, finding an opening. Soon the floodgates will open, and I’ll bare my soul. I shake my head. Dr. Wiseman: How was it different this time? “It just was. That’s all. She was kissing me.” Dr. Wiseman: Do you mean she was kissing you back? “No!” This is ridiculous. He doesn’t get it. “She was kissing me, not him!” I watch the therapist’s head spin in the way only therapists’ can. He looks through me like he has telepathy. I know he doesn’t, of course. He figures it out and his eyes blink fast a couple of times. Dr. Wiseman: You’ve changed a lot in the time you’ve known Sage and Rachel. Haven’t you? I shrug and look away. I really really don’t want to talk about him. Dr. Wiseman: Do you think Sage sees how far you’ve come? “She’s the only one who see me!” Dr. Wiseman: you might be wrong about that. What about Rachel? What about your sister? He leans forward and picks up a folder from the big round table. Damn, that thing is thick. I pull my focus back. Rachel and Lane loved him, the other Ethan; I’m not so sure how they feel about me. “I’m not going to talk about him,” I say flatly A silence plays out between us while he adjusts his expectations. “I want to talk about how to get with Sage. That‘s what I want help with. That’s what Rachel couldn’t help me with.” I say it quietly, like something I shouldn’t even think let alone say aloud. Dr. Wiseman: Okay. (pause) Tell me more about your birthday party then. What happened after you kissed Sage? “Finn happened. Finn always happens.” Dr. Wiseman doesn’t push me with another question. Even in his head he doesn’t press. He waits patiently. “Before she could kiss me back, he came flying out of nowhere.” The anger comes back like a bitter aftertaste. I ball my hands into fists. “He clocked me.” I feel myself going down on my knees, the concrete tearing the skin on my knees and the glass shards sinking into my palms. Dr. Wiseman: Are Finn and Sage together? Good question! I guess they are. I mean, she sleeps at his place way too often. But then again, no. I don’t think she’s really made up her mind who she wants to be with. Sage isn’t really someone you can hold down with a thumb. “Maybe. I don’t know.” Dr. Wiseman: After you fought, did something else happen? “Nothing.” Except for the warm rush in my crotch, and the burn of humiliation. Then later in my room the ice-cold flex of power when I made them all forget. Despite Elena’s nagging and warnings, I don’t regret that. And I don’t regret kissing Sage either. The only one who knows the whole story beside me is Lane, and she won’t tell anyone what I did, what I can do. She has her own problems and demons to wrestle. She is as lost now as he was before. I saw it over two years ago when I remembered this future. I painted us reversed in the mirror just before we went to PSI. She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t believe in him. She believes me now, though. Now that it’s too late. The shrink is staring at me, waiting for me to go on, but I’m done. This guy is not the kind of guy who wants to hear about remembering the future. It’s hard enough to talk about the stuff he can handle. Rachel wants me to work with a male therapist. She thinks I need men I can trust and look up to. She means well, but she’s wrong. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m tired. Can we stop now?” Dr. Wiseman: We can do anything you want. It’s your dime. (long intake of breath) Do you mind if I say something, offer an opinion . . . about sex? I glance up. I do mind, actually, but I feel myself nod. Social niceties, as my grandmother called them, are becoming oddly ingrained into my interactions. She would see that as a good thing. I’m not so sure. Dr. Wiseman: Liking Sage, even wanting her is perfectly natural, Ethan. But you need to open yourself up to the possibility that this relationship may not work out, and that maybe there are other girls – women who could be right for you. This asshole obviously isn’t listening. Did he even bother to read my ridiculous file? No other girl would want me. Ever. He wanted to hear about obstacles. I could fill the rest of his billable hours for a week listing them. This is not making me feel better. In fact, it’s pissing me off. I get up. “I’m gonna go now. Okay?” I say. My hand is on the door knob before he answers. Dr. Wiseman: See you next Tuesday then. I can’t get out of there fast enough. By the time I get into my Jeep, my hands are shaking. My throat and chest feel tight, like I’m having a heart attack, but I know I’m not. I take deep breaths and close my eyes. I count slowly backward from 100, and the panic passes. I won’t try to analyze why this is happening. That would just pull me back into the attack. I turn over the ignition and back out of the parking space. Driving helps. When I get home, Elena is in the kitchen. It’s nice to see her downstairs. “Coming in or going out?” I ask silently. “Don’t do that,” she says out loud. “Whatever you say,” I think, smirking at her. She rolls her eyes. “How’s the new shrink?” she asks. “He’s an ass,” I say. “Yours?” She shrugs. “You didn’t go!” I can’t believe it. Maybe I can. I don’t know. “Not going at all is better than going and lying to someone you’re paying to help you,” she says. “Were you spying?” I don’t know why I’m asking. She wasn’t there. I would have felt it. “I just know you, little brother,” she almost smiles. I shake my head. “Tomorrow’s the big day, huh?” she says, keeping her back to me, so I won’t notice the furrow in her brow, but her voice lacks its usual melody. “Guess so.” Talking about it is going to freak me out. “Is Sage going with you?” She takes a diet soda out of the fridge and offers it to me. I shake my head. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Only water these days, right?” I nod. “Is that helping?” “Yeah, sure,” I say. I wouldn’t tell her if it wasn’t. “And no. I’m going to meet Dr. Roschan by myself. It’s not like it’s my first time setting foot on the campus. I don’t need her to hold my hand.” “Okay,” Elena says. “Good for you.” She doesn’t believe me. Why should she? I don’t believe myself. I want Sage to hold my hand, but I don’t want to ask her. I don’t want her to think of me like that anymore. The screen door slams, and we both turn. “Hey, wonder twins!” Sage’s easy smile sparkles up to her eyes, and I try to hold her gaze, but she turns to Elena and wraps her in an embrace that makes my arms feel empty. Elena kisses her cheek and smiles back. Sage is one of the few people who can elicit a smile from my twin these days. I certainly have no such power over her. “Having a family meeting without me?” she asks. “Not anymore,” Elena teases. “I was just asking Ethan if you were going with him tomorrow.” “You don’t have to.” I jump in fast because I can see what Elena is doing. She has absolutely no faith in me. Sage turns and winks at me. “I have to go in and meet with my advisor anyway, so you can drive me. Right, E?” I open my mouth to argue, but Sage’s mind is made up. My protests would probably sound pathetic, so I just nod. “Sure.”