[Trigger warning: Talking about PTSD and addiction.]

"I don't like being in control. It's why acting suits me so well."

It's the following morning. The rest of my day yesterday had gone as I expected. After lunch everyone split up, and there was a series of individual therapy sessions.

Those were the ones that were always the hardest for me. It was during the day when I had to talk about my dependencies, talk about my fucked up home life growing up, talk about how that situation morphed into a world where I needed control, because growing up there was so little I could control.

Things just happened to me. I had no say when my mom put me up for adoption. I had no say when no one wanted to adopt me at the foster home. I had no say getting placed in a home where my father abused me mentally, physically, and even sexually once, and my "mother" turned a blind eye.

So of course I was immediately intrigued by what Scott was saying right now.

"I don't like thinking. In acting, you show up, and you're told what to do and what to say for twelve hours a day. Usually I'm so exhausted by the end of the day I just collapse into bed and fall asleep nearly immediately."

I'm sitting with my legs kicked out, ankles crossed, arms folded, head down. However, my eyes are watching Scott, who is looking at the floor as he speaks.

"But sometimes I have trouble sleeping, which led me to getting addicted to pills and alcohol."

When he doesn't continue, the therapist speaks up. "You said you don't like to think. Is there a reason for that?"

Scott glances at me, and I respectfully drop my eyes.

"Well," he says, "I've been told I have, and have been in therapy for, PTSD."

"Stemming from?"

He laughs; a low, cavernous, guttural sound. I pick my head up, surprised at the edge of it that sliced through the air sharp as a scythe. Venom is dripping from his eyes, glaring at the floor.

"That's the thing. We're not entirely sure."

He's suddenly angry, and for whatever reason I just never pictured him angry. I can feel my mouth shape a small "o" as he continues on bitterly.

"I've been in bloody therapy on and off since fucking high school, and we still can't fucking figure out what happened."

"Alright, Scott," the therapist says gently, "I feel like we hit your emotional boiling point. Let's dial it back a bit. Would you like to take a break?"

"Yes, please," he agrees gruffly.

"That's more than okay. We'll come back to you when you're ready. In the meantime, I'd like you to practice some breathing techniques. Try to think of something happy that's happened to you, also." She turned, smiling at a woman with purple hair. "Felicia, it's your turn."

~

"Hey."

Scott had spent the rest of the meeting glaring at nothing. The therapist never came back to him. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see the guy was near a complete nuclear meltdown. Whenever that happened, if the patient never calmed down, they were just skipped over. There was always the next day to try again.

Scott looks at me. He's leaning against the building, smoking. I pull out my own cigarettes and light up. It's only after that do I ask,

"Mind if I join you?"

Scott glares at me. He had all but ran out of the room after the session had ended. I was here because I wanted to make sure he was okay. As I took in a deep drag, I took note of the fact it looked like he had been crying. I wasn't stupid enough to comment on that, though.

Scott briefly glares at me. "Well, you're bloody here already, aren't you?"

Surprised, I hold up both hands. "Sorry, my bad." I turn to leave.

"Bauwens."

I stop and turn around. Scott is frowning at me.

"Sorry," he says, a soft undercurrent to his voice. "I didn't mean to be a right fucking prick. You can join me, if you still want."

I chuckle and shake my head. He reminds me of, well, myself. With that in mind, I walk back to him.

Several moments pass between us silently, with the air between us feeling like static electricity. We both want to talk, but I can tell we both don't know where to start. When I finally can't stand the smothering air anymore, I say what's on my mind.

"So...PTSD?"

"Yup," Scott says, taking a final drag from his cigarette, depositing it in the cigarette receptacle before immediately lighting another.

"And you have no idea from what?"

"Yes and no. I have two really vivid thoughts. Well, images really. One is of a shadowy figure standing in an open doorway. The other is of a creepy as fuck stairwell leading downward." Scott looks at me and shakes his head. "But I don't know who the person is, and that stairwell isn't like any set of stairs in any flat I've ever lived in."

"Dreams that stuck with you?"

"No. Every time I think about it I have a damn near panic attack. Literally." Scott goes back to looking straight ahead instead of at me. "They think they're some sort of suppressed memories."

"Shit. I'm sorry."

Scott shrugs and laughs. "Don't be. It is what it is."

"I guess."

"I mean, it's not like I can change it, just like I'm sure you can't change whatever screwed you up so royally."

"Hey," I snap, for the first time genuinely offended by something he said.

"It's true," he tells me. "If it wasn't, you wouldn't be here."

I frowned. "Yeah, true."

A hesitant pause, and then, "What did mess you up so badly, Bauwens?"

I laugh bitterly. "Do you have nine hours to spare?"

"It's like that?"

I shoot him a wry smile. "It's totally like that. It's to the point where my psychiatrist back home calls me her onion. She thinks she has me figured out and then bam!, I tell her some other horrible thing that took place."

Scott frowns. "I'm sorry."

Now I laugh at him, giving him a playful glare. "Didn't you literally just say, it is what it is?"

"Well, yeah," he tells me seriously, and the way he's looking at me makes a lump form in my throat. And no, it's not because of who he is, or how hot he is. It's from the depths of empathy pouring out of his eyes. "But seriously. I'm sorry."

I'd like to tell him it's okay but it's not. So instead I just kind of shrug and finish up my cigarette in silence.