Concealed Within

“Why did you ask your Mother if you were a Mermaid yesterday Caja?”

Caja frowned slightly at the memory, a small downward tug on her normal impassive mask that she wore whenever she was not by the sea. She glanced slightly at her therapist – a small balding man who wore expensive suits and spectacles, and asked Caja when he first met her to please, call him Sam - before returning her gaze to her lap and continuing to dig at the large hole she had first formed in her very first therapy session, nearly a year ago. She was determined to dig all of the stuffing out of the chair before she left (if I ever do she had told the sea bitterly one day because I don’t need curing, I just need people to leave me alone – why don’t they get that? The whole thing is pointless). If Sam had noticed the ever growing destruction of his expensive furniture he didn’t say anything.

“Caja, you and I both know you’re perfectly capable of answering the question. Do it please.” Her jaw remained clenched and every fibre of her being longed to be back at the sea, so she could release the pent up frustration that every visit to her ‘therapist’ seemed to cause. A particularly large chunk of foam was thrown across the room as she stabbed into the stuffing viciously but Sam said nothing.

They sat in silence for a while, both seemingly determined to outlast the other. Eventually, Sam spoke, his voice quiet yet authoritative. The tone he used almost made Caja forget that he was a short balding man wearing spectacles, but not quite.

“You know, your parents are paying for me Caja, and I’m not cheap.”

“You should be.” Caja mumbled under her breath, too low for him to hear. As if sensing what she had said, his voice became icier, a steel undertone that she had never heard it before laced every word.

“Every moment you sit there in silence, money is being wasted. Are you really that selfish that you would just throw their money away?” Hot, angry tears threatened to spring forth from her eyes and blur her vision, exposing her weakness to her therapist. Fortunately, Caja managed to blink back the moisture before any tears could fall, but she couldn’t resist clenching her hands into tiny, strained fists. “I’ll say it again, why did you ask your Mother if you were a mermaid Caja? Don’t make me ask again.”

She hadn’t been thinking straight when she had asked her Mother. It had been only minutes after one of those dreams, having been woken up cruelly by her mother just seconds before, and her mind was still among the mermaids that haunted her sleep. It had never been easy for her to shake one of those dreams off and so her mind was clouded. The question slipped from her mouth as easily as a ‘good morning’ or a ‘my day was fine thanks’, it was as if her mouth acted of it’s own accord and it wasn’t until her Mother stiffened and turned away that she realised what she’d done.

Slowly, haltingly and above all resentfully, she revealed this to Sam , the only thing stopping her from clamming up altogether being the thought of how much her parents were paying him. Sam sat silently through the whole thing and when she was done scribbled a few notes down on his clipboard. Caja couldn’t resist throwing the object a quick glance, but she couldn’t make out his hand writing. Before he got a chance to say anything in response a knock on the door sounded the end of their session.

Caja grinned and tugged out one last piece of foam before she grabbed her bag and left, barely giving Sam a chance to yell ‘I’ll see you next week!”. Excitement bubbled up in the pit of her stomach as she realised where she could be in less than half an hour. Her Mother sat in the beaten up Ford that had been bought a number of years ago and seemed calm enough, but she didn't return Caja's smile and wave when she saw her daughter.

It was tense in the car on the way back. It always was.