Caged Mentality

POV: Khristos Larkin

When a Misfits song sounded from my phone at nine AM the next Wednesday, I turned the alarm off, set the phone back on the nightstand, and returned my face to my pillow. I wasn't going back to the therapist, I was done with that. I'd just get pissed off again. I didn't want to talk to some random dude about all of my issues, I didn't want anything to do with therapy.

I was almost asleep again when my phone rang. Dammit... I groaned and picked it up with an irritated hello.

“Hey, kid, good morning.” My dad greeted in a happy tone. Fucking annoying morning people... “I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget to set an alarm for your therapy sessions. You went last week, right?”

“Yeah, Dad. And I'm not going back today. It's stupid.” I was intent on skipping.

“You have to, it's to help you. We already talked about this. You shouldn't let yourself get angry at the doctor, he's just doing his job.”

Doing his job... Right. There's nothing for him to do. I'm not broken, so I don't need fixed.

“I don't need to be going to a therapist. Just cancel it.”

“No, Kris, now get ready for your appointment. You're going. Don't make me have to drag you there myself.”

That got me pissed.

“Oh, sure, use force when it comes to taking me to the therapist, but not when it comes to taking Mom to rehab!” I yelled into the receiver, standing up. I hated it when he acted so in charge with me, but when it came to him and Mom, she was the one in charge of him.

“Don't start this right now, just go to your therapy session. Take your anger out there, but don't hurt anyone or break anything. You can talk to the doctor as much as you want for an hour, you can yell, you can tell him everything that's ever pissed you off. You've got someone you can tell anything to, Kris. Take advantage of it.”

I just glared at the wall, calming myself down before I had another outburst. “Fine, I'll go, but I still don't like it and I'm not going to spill my guts to him.” Ever. He won't ever get anything out of me. I'm not giving him my fucking life story.

“You'll get there eventually. See you later.”

I'd get there eventually? Right.

“Okay... Tell Roman hey for me.”

“Sure thing. Bye.”

“Bye.” I hung up the phone, tossing it on my bed and heading to the bathroom.

About forty-five minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot, this time wearing a Linkin Park shirt with purple skinny jeans, black sneakers, and purple fingerless gloves. I reluctantly entered the building and checked in, then sat down to wait, playing games on my cell phone. Every minute that passed, I was more tempted to just leave. Ditch the whole therapist thing. It was stupid, I didn't need it. I was fine on my own.

Just when I really was about to get up and leave, I noticed the door open. Dr. Carlin stepped through and took a clipboard from the receptionist, glanced at it, then smiled lightly and scanned the room. His eyes landed on me. “Kris.” He said with a grin. “It's nice to see you again. Why don't we head up to the office?” He moved aside and held the door open for me.

I put my phone away in my pocket as I stood and headed over to the doctor. “You're acting a bit too happy to see me.” I noted as I walked through the door and to Dr. Carlin's office, lying down on the couch, wishing I was still in bed.

“Would you prefer that I act annoyed to see you?” He questioned as he sat on his desk, sipping a Vault. He set it beside him on the desk, then wrote something down onto the clipboard before tossing it aside. What the hell did he even have to write down?

“Yeah, I couldn't care less.” I shrugged, watching him pick up a book and scan through it, then stopped and set it upside down on the desk so it would stay open to the page he wanted. I tried to see what the book was, but I couldn't tell.

“Linkin Park is a great band.” He stated. “Pretty good in concert too.”

“Yeah...” I agreed, staring at the doctor, a bit surprised he knew Linkin Park. “You're really different from how I imagined a therapist. Black nail polish even...” I noted, glancing at the doctor's hand, then my eyes focused on the doctor's arm. “Tattoos? I wanna see.” I stood, walking over and grabbing Dr. Carlin's wrist, pushing up his sleeve to admire the tattoos on his arm. I was very interested in tattoos, I loved looking at other people's body art.

“Younger people tend to be more open with me than others, so they look past some parts of me.” Dr. Carlin laughed. “I've got tattoos up both arms. They're mostly song lyrics from some of my favorite songs or artists.”

I studied every detail of his tattooed arm. A vine and thorns twisted around his upper arm, with lyrics following the general curve of the vine. I recognized all of the lyrics, the ones that were most familiar to me being from Korn, My Chemical Romance, and Papa Roach.

“I'm just not allowed to let people around the office see them. So I wear long sleeve shirts a lot. The nail polish barely anyone ever notices.”

“These are pretty rad...” I said in awe. I took a step to the side and grabbed Dr. Carlin's other wrist, once again pushing back his sleeve to reveal his tattoos. “I never thought of getting song lyrics tattooed on me. I just have my rose tattoo and a design on my chest and shoulder. But I like the rose. I got it last month, I got the other one a few months before that. It was kind of backwards,” I laughed, “My first tattoo was huge. Most people would start with a smaller one.” I shrugged. “But I like getting tattoos and piercings. I would have more tattoos but I figured I should put some time between them.” I looked up at Dr. Carlin, my smile not completely faded yet. Discussing tattoos was way better than discussing my problems.

“I love music.” He said with a smile.

“Hey, you have snake bites. I can see the holes.” I nearly reached out to touch the holes where his snake bites belonged, but stopped myself.

“Yeah, I do. I can't wear them here though. I guess it scares off some people. Usually people aren't close enough to notice them, especially the kids I deal with.” Dr. Carlin leaned back against the desk, his attention still focused on me. He was still smiling. Smiles worked well for him, he looked really charming every time that smile crossed his lips. “I've done a lot of things in my life. So I've got marks and holes all over this body to remember them.”

“So how many other piercings do you have?” I questioned, dropping Dr. Carlin's arm when I realized I was still holding his wrist. “I have seven. My three eyebrow piercings, my plugs, my tongue piercing, and the two cartilage piercings in my right ear.” I listed, absentmindedly playing with the two small hoops on the side of my right ear. I loved each and every one of my piercings. I wouldn't be me without them.

“I have an industrial on my left ear. I also have ear piercings on both ears. Six altogether, for my ears anyway. Then my snakebites and the industrial. So nine total. I wear them only outside of work. Its unprofessional, my normal self, that is.” Dr. Carlin reached behind his desk pulling out a stick of Shockers. He threw some in his mouth. “But I want to help people. So I deal with this whole get-up during work hours.”

“That's cool. You definitely don't fit the usual therapist image.” I took a shocker from Dr. Carlin and popped it into my mouth. “Hope you don't mind sharing.” I sat on the desk next to him, kicking my legs back and forth.

“I don't mind sharing.” He laughed, taking another drink of his soda, then ate another piece of candy. “If I had fit the usual image people wouldn't be so relaxed with me. Who wants to talk to someone who's all like 'and how does that make you feel?' or 'it's alright it'll all be better soon.'” He started laughing so hard he nearly choked on his candy. “I can't stand dealing with therapists like that myself. So I tried to be someone more relaxed and easier to relate to.”

“Yeah, that kind of person would just piss me off.” I stated, eating a couple pieces of candy. “You look a lot younger than most therapists too. How old are you?” I got up and got a drink from the fridge, then returned to the desk.

“I'm twenty-three.” He answered with a nonchalant shrug. “I am the youngest person here. Usually I get all the kids, anyone under the age of twenty-five, unless I have no time open or they request someone else.”

“Oh. So how many years of college did you have? You must have graduated early from high school, huh?” I asked after taking a drink. I was curious to know more about him.

“I did. I went through six years of college.” Dr. Carlin picked up a pen, bringing it to his arm to draw random lines. “I had nothing better to do then study...so I spent most of my time at the library as a kid.”

“How boring... I always hated studying. So yeah, I didn't get the best grades. But I didn't care. My parents weren't happy though... My mom actually cared about things other than alcohol at that point.”

“So she wasn't always as bad as now. When did that start changing?”

“I don't really know.” I shrugged. “It wasn't too long after my graduation I noticed she'd gotten really different. But I don't know if it started happening before my graduation or after, I don't even know if it was a gradual process. It might've just happened all of a sudden.”

“It's likely something happened she couldn't handle and so she resorted to alcohol to 'solve' the problem. It was probably a gradual thing just well hidden by your parents. But that's of course a theory. How old was your mother when she had you? Or when she got married?”

“She was nineteen when she got married and twenty-one when she had me. I can't think of anything that happened that she wouldn't have been able to handle... The only major event around the time of my graduation was my parents finding out I'm gay. That wouldn't make her turn to alcohol.”

“How did your parents react when they found out you were gay?” Dr. Carlin asked, then popped some more candy into his mouth as he looked at the window, then back at me. “Did they not care, did they flip out, or just not say anything?”

“Well, they found out by walking in on me and my boyfriend, so they pretty much flipped out. They started looking at me differently for a while... My dad got over it pretty quickly, my mom never really did... It didn't bother Roman at all though.”

“It must make you a little hurt then that she doesn't accept part of you. That could transform into to anger.” Dr. Carlin mused. “It's hard sometimes to be accepted by others because of that. Do you hate that you're gay?”

“No, not at all. I'm fine with who I am. People should be able to accept me whether I'm gay or straight.” I sighed. “It's stupid that my own mother can't.”

“She's one among many mothers who aren't accepting of their child being gay though. Just parents in general. I know some who kicked out their daughters or sons for it.” The doctor sighed with a vague thoughtful look on his face. “I'm sure she could be worked with though, so she'd accept you better. Maybe it would ease her addictions a little and your anger.”

“Worked with? She's always completely wasted.” I rolled my eyes, then ate a couple more pieces of candy. “And we can't get her to go to rehab.”

“People sometimes need to hit rock bottom before they are willing to change anything about themselves or realize what they are doing. If people don't make her do something to change she won't. You allow her to be as she is by doing nothing to make her change her addictions. But I'm guessing its your father who doesn't force her to change. Which adds to your anger?”

“Yeah. He's such a fucking pansy.” I muttered, clenching my fists. “He was gonna drag me here this morning, but he won't even drag Mom to rehab! I'm pretty sure it's more important that she gets over her addictions.”

“He obviously cares about you more then her.” Dr. Carlin smiled. “That should make you a little happy.”

“He shouldn't. I'm not his wife, he never married me, he's married to my mom.”

“You're his son... He should care about you more than his wife...” He stated, staring at me blankly.

“Well you'd think he'd at least care about her enough to drag her to rehab.” I muttered bitterly.

“He might have other things going on in his mind. You shouldn't be angry at him when you don't know what he's thinking. Maybe you should talk it through with him.”

“I have, it never does any good.”

“Maybe he should come here with you some time. We can talk to him about it.”

“Maybe...” I mumbled, then glanced at the clock. Finally, eleven AM. “But it's time for me to go.” I stood, grabbing my drink and heading for the door. “See you later, doc.”