Page 70 of The Therapist
Janine and I were her targets at school, played with for laughs. I have hated her every day of my life since Janine decided that she couldn’t take Sandy’s bullying anymore. To have her look at me like she didn’t know me was galling. I liked hearing that she was unhappy, that all her beauty had not provided the life she thought she deserved. She deserved nothing as far as I was concerned. But she is smarter than I thought she was. She had me questioning myself, wondering if the way I was responding to her was because of our history, a history she didn’t even remember.
She is smarter than I thought she was but not as smart as I am, and I figured it out so now she is in prison, where her beauty will not be an asset. She is in prison and I am living my life. As a sixteen-year-old, I vowed revenge for my friend, but after I left school, the years slipped away and I knew I wouldn’t get it. I always imagined that Sandy had married a wealthy man and was living a beautiful life. To have her walk into my office, troubled and suffering, felt like a gift. Until I realised that she was using me like she used everyone at school, for laughs, for a game, to satisfy her own needs.
But now it’s over, and as I take a sip of my coffee, I send a message to Janine, as I do every day, closing my eyes and imagining her laughing because she and I did laugh together.We got her, I silently tell my friend.We got her.
For now, I’m concentrating on my patients and my son, embracing the mundanity of the everyday and being thankful for it.
‘Vanessa is here for you,’ says Kirsty over the intercom.
‘Send her in,’ I reply, and I stand and open the door to my office.
I’m good at this. I can help,I reassure myself as I do before every session now.
I can help.
Sandy
I won’t be here forever.
He’s not dead after all. I failed to kill him. So, no harm done really. Pity.
And now, all I need to do is to get Mike to use the house as surety so I can get bail. He refused the first time but I’m hoping that he will see that I’m ready to be a mother and wife and that I’m sorry. I’m working really hard to show him that.
It’s the only reason I keep seeing the children, the small alien beings that came from inside me. I make sure to be the best mother I can be when the social worker is here and she’s so stupid, she believes I love them with all my heart. I tell her that every time. I cry when they leave, struggling to produce the tears that are needed sometimes but I’ve had a lot of practice at tears.
I tell her that I need to be near my children, that they are suffering without me. I’m getting there. I can feel it. Mike will have no choice. He loves the children in the weird way that I never could. He would do anything for them.
And the moment they let me go, the moment I can leave this terrible place and walk out into the sunshine, I will run.
And I will find Ben. I can’t live without my soulmate. And I know he can’t live without me. He didn’t mean to leave me, I’m sure of it. He just got scared and he wants me to find him, to be with him. When he hears I am free he will contact me. Of course he will. He hasn’t contacted me in here because he needs to keep himself safe.
Every day, I wait for a message from him, but he’s being quiet for now, lying low until we can be together. That’s the smart thing to do, obviously.
We didn’t get the two million but the money I took from the mortgage will get us started. We can go anywhere and be together. He’s taking care of it for me.
It was the perfect plan. Lana would kill Mike for us and then I would turn up and claim the insurance money and Lana would go to jail. That was just a bonus, an added extra that I never thought of.
I knew who she was the moment I saw her, recognised her instantly despite the fact that she’s not Lardy Lana anymore. I remember her ugly little friend and how the idiot couldn’t take my little jibes. I was sad when she killed herself because then I only had Lana to play with and she hid out in the library. It was such a delight to see her and know that she was going to be part of the game Ben and I were playing.
I didn’t quite anticipate her figuring things out but I couldn’t control everything.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about her. I want to be with the man who understands me, who has managed to touch a part of my soul that I never thought I had.
They are making me speak to a therapist in here and she keeps telling me that I’ve made a mistake about Ben, that he doesn’t really love me, that it was all a game and I was being played. She’s wrong, she’s absolutely wrong.
We were playing together. We are meant to be together. He’s my soulmate and he can’t live without me. He told me that over and again.
All that keeps me going is thinking of seeing him again. Knowing that he is out there waiting for me helps me sleep at night despite the noise and the light and the crazy women who are in here. I don’t belong here with the mad people, the criminals and degenerates.
Each morning, I wake up, knowing that I am a day closer to being free of everyone and running to the man I love. I see uson a beach together, cocktails in our hands, laughing about what we’ve managed to do.
‘Burkhart,’ the guard says as she unlocks my cell door.
I stand, wait patiently.
‘Your children are in the family room,’ she says and I plaster a smile on my face, make sure that tears shine in my eyes.
‘Thank you,’ I say as I follow her. ‘I can’t wait to see them,’ I tell her, even as my skin crawls at the idea of them touching me. I haven’t seen Mike since everything happened. He has some stupid little restraining order against me but I wouldn’t want to go near him anyway.
