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At his first session, there are a few random objects laid out neatly along the front of Dr. Sharon’s desk. He recognises the colorful fidget spinner first, that was a big fad amongst his players in Wichita for awhile. Next to it is a little yellow stress ball and on the other side, some weird metal ring-like contraption he doesn't think he'd be able to figure out.
He looks up at her with eyebrows raised and she gestures invitingly at the array. He floats his hand down the line of them, briefly hovering over the stress ball, then pulls a pen out of the cup in the corner instead. He immediately starts popping the cap on and off, spins it around between his fingers, the tricks he and his friends had spent hours practicing in middle school coming back without any conscious thought.
At least with this he can pretend this is just a meeting, can convince himself this is just a tool he's going to need at some point rather than the obvious crutch it is.
She puts up with his particular brand of nonsense for a surprising amount of time, giving him at least two session’s worth of jokes and puns instead of real answers to her questions. Her patience seems to finally wear thin midway through the third though, during an inane story about the time he thinks he broke a toe while going for a midnight whiz and how that might be related to his fear of bath mats.
"Ted," she cuts in right when he’s getting to the good part. The word is gentle but there’s a rod of steel underneath. “If you want to get something out of these sessions, you're going to have to put something in. Otherwise you're just wasting both of our time."
"Ouch, Doc. Right to the point huh?"
She doesn't say anything back, just raises her eyebrows and waits.
"Okay," he says, rubbing his moist hands over his khakis. "Alright."
And so he takes a deep, deep breath and then just talks, fingers flipping the pen around at breakneck speed. He tells her about how he gets these feelings sometimes when things happen, or, like with his breakdown in the training room, when the echo of things that have happened bounce back and smack him unexpectedly in the face. How those feelings build and build and he tries to keep them under control, he really does, but sometimes it just doesn't work and he doesn't know why.
"Let me ask you this, then," she says as he pauses to take in a couple of deep shaky breaths. "Why do you feel like you need to push these feelings down?"
“What do you mean?” he asks.
"I mean, have you ever tried…not?" She leans forward, closing the space between them. "Ted," she says. "I know you’re a positive person and all but it's okay to feel sad or bad or mad sometimes."
He bristles, too defensive to even comment on her accidental rhyme. “I know that. Of course I know that. Said as much to the team myself, when we lost the Man City game last season. Be a goldfish, yes, but you know, only once you’re done feeling all the hurt a loss like that is bound to bring.”
“And what about you? What did you do after that game?”
"I did what I told the team - I felt sad, and frustrated, and disappointed. And then I moved on." Onward, forward.
"Right, but what did you physically do? Did you go home? Did you go out with someone?"
"Well, yeah a group of us went down to the pub. I thought it was better that we all mourn together.” He’d felt quite proud of that little speech, in fact.
“And did you have a drink?”
“Sure, we were all knocking back a few. I mean, what else can you do in that situation?”
“And what about at other times?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“When you were dealing with your divorce, for example? Or even when Jamie Tartt was sent back to Man City, that must have been quite a blow for the team. What did you do when that happened?”
“Well, you know, I went and gave Rebecca a piece of my mind and look before you say anything I know I probably shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve controlled my reaction better, not lost my cool. It was rude and unprofessional. But I was just so darn frustrated.”
“Did you do anything after?”
“After I yelled at my boss you mean?” Doc nods. “Yeah, I might’ve drowned my miseries with a couple of pints down at the pub with Beard.”
“So it’s always just a couple of beers? Nothing more?”
He thinks about the day Roy told him to fuck himself, the row of beers readily lined up for him that he’d easily tossed back one-by-one until he’d nearly walked into traffic, thinks about a hotel room in Liverpool with an emptied-out minibar and passing out to images of a Bizarro Keeley, of a lonely Christmas afternoon with a quickly dwindling bottle of whiskey and thoughts on the precipice of something he didn't want to look too much more at.
“Ted,” she says when he doesn’t give voice to an answer. “You don’t always have to downplay everything and be Mr. Optimistic Good Guy all the time.”
“Well, why the heck not?” he says. He’s feeling irritated and he’s not sure why - if it’s for the moments she’s picked out to stitch together a convenient narrative on his drinking habits, or for the way she so easily belittles the effort he expends on putting good energy out into the world. It makes his words gain in both speed and volume, the telltale pangs sharp in his chest. “You said it yourself, right? We’ve got a good thing going here at the club, record aside, and I’m proud of that.”
“It’s not sustainable,” she says, “as you’ve already noticed. You’re blunting every disappointment and heartbreak with alcohol or worse, not acknowledging how deep they cut at all. You need to learn to sit with these things, give yourself proper space to feel them.”
He’s already shaking his head halfway through her words, his throat tightening. “You don’t understand,” he says, the words sounding strangled to his own ears.
“Then help me understand,” she says simply.
“I- I can’t just-” He feels like he’s going to choke. "I can't do what you're asking me to do."
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve seen how this goes!” he explodes. He pauses, catches his breath. He thinks of being sixteen, of rage and despair taking over his entire body. Worse still, he thinks of being seventeen and on some days, feeling absolutely nothing at all.
“Look Doc,” he starts, then scrubs a hand tiredly over his face. “Gotta put something in to get something out, right,” he repeats to himself, rubbing at his jaw. He taps the pen in his other hand rapidly against his knee. “If I’m being honest with you, I’m- well I’m scared.” He looks away. “I just… I don’t want to end up like him.”
“Like who?” she asks and he tries to fight down the urge to just stop where he is, to take it all back. He looks down at the pen, pokes the lid of it into the palm of his hand.
“Ted,” she prompts again, “who don’t you want to end up like?”
He bites his lip but there's no putting the cat back in the bag at this point. “My father,” he admits.
“Right, your father. That was what triggered your attack in the training room, right? The anniversary of his death?" He nods. "And what happened to him?”
“Well you just said it, didn't you?" he snaps and he hates how rude he's being, knows just how much it's going to eat at him later. "He died. Passed when I was a teenager.”
“Yes, but how did he die?”
“Look, why does this even matter?”
“You know it does.” She presses again, relentless. “How did your father die, Ted?”
“He shot himself, okay? Is that what you want me to say? He spent every damn day of his life feeling miserable until one day, he pulled out his gun and stuck it in his mouth. And I didn’t even know. I spent all that time with him. I thought it was just a bit of grumbling, a bit of feeling sorry for himself. He'd had a few knocks after all.” He shoves his hand through his hair, impatiently pushing back the bits that had come loose down his forehead. “How could I not have known how bad it was?”
“You were just a kid, Ted.”
“Still.” He doesn’t say anything else for a moment, tosses the pen onto the desk and slumps back in his seat, suddenly feeling absolutely zapped of all energy. “I just, I don’t want that to happen to me,” he says, head tipped back and eyes on the ceiling. “I’m…” He pauses, but in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. “I’m worried that if I let myself feel all the bad things happening in my life, like really truly think about them and question them and get frustrated or resentful or just so…" He clenches his fists. "So angry about them…” He takes a shaky inhale. “I’m worried I won’t be able to stop. About what I'll do if I can't stop.”
“Alright,” Doc says, her usually-stern voice so gentled that his eyes flutter close against the sudden sting of moisture. “Ted, " she says after a long beat.
“Hmm?”
“Ted, will you look at me, please?”
He squeezes his eyes tight for a second, gives himself a moment to take in a shuddering breath and swipe quickly at his cheeks. Then he pushes on the armrest to lever himself upright.
“Do you trust me?” she asks when he meets her eye.
He looks at her for a long moment and is a bit surprised to find that yes, at this point he really does. He nods.
“Thank you,” she says. “Because there’s going to be a lot of hard work ahead of you and I’m sure at some points you’re truly going to loathe me. But as long as you continue to trust me, we can work on this. Together. Does that sound alright?”
He nods. “I- yeah.” He squeezes his knuckle between the thumb and fingers of his other hand, feeling somehow both exhausted and lit up like a bundle of live wires all at the same time. “Yeah, that sounds alright.”
“Okay.” She pats his knee. “Get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”