Chapter Text
“So we could rave on, darling, you and I,
until the stars tick out a lullaby
about each cosmic pro and con;
nothing changes, for all the blazing of
our drastic jargon, but clock hands that move
implacably from twelve to one.”
Love Is A Parallax
Sylvia Plath
JUNE 18TH, 2024
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
The wall clock above his therapist’s head ticked and tocked an incessant rhythm that seemed intent on lulling Xavier to sleep. The first session with a new therapist was always a boring one
tick tock tick tock
as they play catch up with each other
tick tock tick tock
picking up where the last one left off
tick tock tick tock
before the inevitable parting of ways.
tick tock tick tock
Xavier had a hard time finding a therapist he liked. He had a knack for smelling bullshit from a mile away, and an even better knack for calling someone out on their bullshit. He had no problem calling out the bullshit he saw underneath the professional mask concealing the bullshit.
tick tock tick tock
The only reason he stuck with Dr. Kinbott for so long was because she was the only therapist in the vicinity. Back at home in New York with his father’s money at his disposal, Xavier had a whole plethora of therapists at his fingertips.
tick tock tick tock
Sitting in silence for the first half of the session was a part of the test. It was Xavier’s way of sniffing out the bullshit.
His new therapist – a young woman in her mid-thirties with strawberry blonde hair and inviting blue eyes concealed by thick glasses – sat patiently before him with a closed notepad laying comfortably in her lap. He was waiting for the uncomfortable throat clearing, fidgeting in her chair, and awkward sigh followed by “so tell me about yourself”. It never came.
tick tock tick tock
“Well,” she said, checking her wrist watch. “That marks thirty. Did you get what you need?”
Xavier leaned back on the white overstuffed couch, crossed his arms, and smirked. “Still to be determined.”
She smiled. “You’re looking for signs of ingenuity. After years of being passed around from shrink to shrink, you’re looking for someone to cut the bullshit and get straight to the heart. No cheesy one-liners asking, how do you feel about that? And, how does that make you feel? You want to have a conversation that makes you feel like your sessions are more than just my paycheck.” She paused and let her words resonate. “Did I get it right?”
He huffed an amused breath and grinned. “Pretty close. How’d you guess?”
“I’ve been in therapy myself on and off since I was thirteen. Just like you have, I’ve gone through my fair share of good and bad therapists so I can empathize with your struggle to find the right one that best connects with you.”
“Well, there’s still one more test you have to pass,” Xavier said slowly, almost impressed.
“You can call me whatever feels natural. I’m not trying to be cool and edgy by demanding you use my first name, and I really don’t need the validation by forcing you to remember that I have a doctorate degree. Dr. King or just Gale works fine,” Dr. Gale King said without missing a beat.
“How about we start off with Dr. King. If you pass the vibe test, I might consider shortening it to Gale,” Xavier said.
“Sounds good.” Dr. King smiled, feeling satisfied. “We still have twenty-five minutes left of our session. Anything you want to talk about? Could be anything. We can talk about your childhood trauma or about your new shoes. Doesn’t matter.”
He cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you want me to catch you up to speed?”
Dr. King set her notepad on the side table next to her and leaned forward. “Well, no sense in rehashing old wounds if you’re not in the mood for it. I’m not here to ‘fix you’, Xavier. I’m here to listen to you and provide support when you need it. You’re the boss of our sessions which means you tell me what you want to discuss. If you’re having a good day, tell me about it. If you’re having a bad day, then we’ll unpack it together. My goal isn’t to force you to go to dark places for an hour, and then kick you back out into the world expecting you to go on about your day as if you weren’t just at your most vulnerable.”
Xavier smiled widely. “Alright. Okay. Well, let me tell you a bit about myself so you can understand how we got here.”
“That sounds like a good place to start.”
***
For the first time since he started therapy, Xavier left feeling light on his feet and a weight lifted from his shoulders. He was really going to like this one.
JULY 2ND, 2024
“Today I want to talk about my father,” Xavier said. He was back on the white overstuffed couch facing the wall clock. The ticking was less deafening, almost unnoticeable unlike two Tuesdays ago when it had been maddening. He could have taken it down – it was his father’s penthouse apartment after all – but the clock would be crucial for Xavier to ensure he savored every minute of his biweekly therapy sessions.
Dr. King put on her glasses and got comfortable in her seat. “Sure. What about him?”
Xavier appreciated her nonchalant approach. He felt open and didn’t feel like he was a specimen under a microscope. “I already filled you in about how he was absent my entire life and how I felt like he didn’t want me, but I didn’t tell you how last fall he suddenly visited me at school and apologized.”
“Oh? How did that go?” Her notepad sat unopened and untouched next to her on the side table. Xavier made a mental note to ask later why she never took notes but still brought it with her.
“It was. . . okay? I mean, it gave me an understanding of why he distanced himself. I have to admit, I don’t think I would have done better if the roles were reversed. And to his credit, he did come running when I told him I needed him. Then over Christmas break, him and I hashed things out a little bit. I was finally able to release some of my pent up anger towards him, and things were okay for a few months. He helped me hone my psychic abilities so I could have better control of them, and even taught me some tricks. But then, I found out why he decided to suddenly be a better father and things went to shit again.”
“What was the reason?”
“He had a couple visions. One, he already told me about. He saw I was in trouble and came to help. Then he had another vision about me and Wednesday.” Xavier’s voice trailed off and he started biting his nails.
“Who is Wednesday?” Dr. King asked.
He shook his head and bit the skin around his nail. “A girl I kind of sort of dated. I’m not ready to talk about her.”
Dr. King nodded slowly and waited for him to continue.
He exhaled loudly through his nostrils and dropped his hand back into his lap. “My dad had a vision about me killing myself.”
Dr. King sat up straighter and put on her professional mask. “Do you have thoughts of suicide, Xavier?”
“I used to,” he admitted. “Not so much anymore. Before Wednesday came into my life, I had a lot of time on my hands to get stuck in my thoughts. At school I’m known as the ‘resident tortured artist’ for a reason. But with Wednesday around, there’s little to no time to get trapped in my thoughts. She keeps us all on our toes.”
“How so?”
“Well,” he sighed and lifted his lips in a half smile. “Ever since she came to Nevermore, we’ve been chasing after monsters, stalkers, ghosts, and occasionally Wednesday herself when she gets bored and out of hand. One time she built a giant guillotine in the quad and beheaded some of Enid’s stuffed animals.” He chuckled at the memory. “Enid was so mad she made Wednesday give Fluffy emergency surgery.”
For once, Dr. King looked rattled. Xavier made another mental note to ease the good doctor in before discussing Wednesday in full. “That’s certainly. . . interesting. Is Wednesday friends with Enid?”
“Oh yeah,” he nodded his head vigorously. “They are two halves of a whole. They’re practically inseparable. Wednesday is just a little eccentric to put it lightly, and Enid does her best to roll with the punches. Separately you would never expect them to ever be friends, but when they’re together it just makes sense.”
“Good to know.” Dr. King gave an affirmative nod and moved on. “Circling back to your father’s vision, do you currently have suicidal thoughts?”
Xavier rubbed his fingers over his lips and shook his head. “No, not really. I’ve been depressed lately, but not to that extent. Honestly his vision came out of left field for me. But that’s the thing about visions; they aren’t entirely reliable. Maybe he saw it because I was going to do it or I was going to think about it, but by showing up and making amends, that just made the vision disappear. Made it so it wasn’t going to happen.” He shrugged. “I guess we’ll either never know or we’ll find out eventually.”
“I hope we never find out,” she said sternly. “Tell me about the monsters, stalkers, and ghosts. That sounds interesting.”
Xavier gave her a brief recap of everything that happened leading up to them sitting in front of each other on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. “I was being manipulated by the ghost of a siren as part of my teacher’s plan to get her sister back, but when my friends saved me, the ghost jumped into Ajax’s mind and did the same thing to him. That’s why my dad came to help. He helped me trigger a vision so I could figure out the master plan and save Ajax. Well, so Wednesday could save Ajax. She’s the one who does all the saving.”
“Did the ghost leave any lasting impact on your psyche? I’ve never heard of that before, but I can’t imagine you’d get off scot-free, you know?”
“Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what’s real and what’s not. That was part of the game with the ghost – Gregory is his name. Gregory got into my mind and played with my fears. I’ve always feared losing control and going crazy like my roommate Rowan before he passed. Gregory made me think I was going crazy. Even without his control, I still think I’m going crazy.”
“What happened to Gregory? Is he still a threat?”
He shook his head. “Bianca was able to track him down by feeling for his siren energy, and Enid cornered him so Wednesday could perform a banishing spell. He was afraid of dogs and Enid is a werewolf. It was pretty entertaining.”
Dr. King smiled and nodded. It’s what she did when she didn’t know what else to say. She herself was a normie and had little to no experience with the supernatural. Even if she did, nothing could have prepared her for Xavier’s unique stories. “Has your father helped you gain control of your powers?”
“Oh yeah. All of my visions happen when I’m asleep. I used to not know I was having a vision until after I woke up and drew what I saw. Now I lucid dream every night. If I see a red ball, then I know it’s just a dream. No red ball, no vision. If I know I’m having a vision, then I pay more attention to details.”
“Have you been having any visions lately?”
“Thankfully no. I only have visions when something bad is going to happen.”
Dr. King nodded, choosing not to state the obvious. Of course having dark visions was a downer. Xavier knew this, and she didn’t need to tell him that. “How has this affected your relationship with your father? Are you closer?”
Xavier raised and dropped his shoulders a little too hard. “I guess. Not much has changed. He’s still busy touring around the world and I’m still left here to fend for myself, but at least he answers his phone and makes an attempt to reach out to me first. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Do you still hold resentment towards him?”
He swiped his tongue across the top of his teeth and nodded with his eyes staring at her manicured toes peeking out of her red sandals. “Yeah. I mean, I was falsely imprisoned during my sophomore year, and he didn’t drop everything to help me. Of course, he gave me an excuse about being contractually obligated to finish his tour and was unable to catch a flight and be back in time, but we both know that’s bullshit. He didn’t start being a father until he thought I was going to kill myself. He still thinks my mental health is bad publicity and that’s why all our sessions are here instead of at your office.”
Dr. King uncrossed her legs and pushed her glasses further up her nose. “Isn’t your father The Great Vincent Thorpe?”
Xavier looked at her skeptically. “Yeah? Didn’t you know this already?”
“Yes, and so does the rest of the world. Here’s a thought to consider: if he showed up when you were imprisoned, it might have made everything worse. He is The Great Vincent Thorpe. People would flock to the prison and reporters would be sneaking in trying to take the million-dollar picture of Vincent Thorpe’s son behind bars. Your face would have been everywhere forever.”
His eyebrows furrowed together, and his bottom lip bled from all the chewing. “Good point. I never thought of that.”
“Going along with that train of thought, maybe he’s not trying to keep your mental health under wraps because it’s bad publicity. Maybe he’s just trying to protect you from featuring on this week’s TMZ news.”
“Have you been talking to my dad?” he asked.
“Nope. Never even met the guy or watched his show,” Dr. King said. “But do you see how easy it is to see things from another perspective when you set your emotions aside? Just because you see it one way, does not make that true reality. Your reality is different from mine and your father’s reality. It’s like a parallax.”
“A what now?” Xavier asked.
“A parallax is the difference in direction. Picture this: you’re a passenger in the car staring out the window. The cars going in the opposite direction are whipping by so fast you can barely see them, but the trees lining the road seem to be walking past at a slow pace. You and your father are living in the same reality, but you have two different points of view that point you to different conclusions.”
Xavier nodded to himself.
Dr. King sighed and crossed her legs again. “But that’s just my take. You can take it with a grain of salt or believe it to be fact. I can’t speak for your father, so that’s something I would discuss with him before we make any kind of assumptions.”
JULY 30th, 2024
“Did you forgive her?” Gale asked. Xavier, who sat with his legs kicked back on the coffee table, had spent two sessions unpacking his relationship with Wednesday. To her credit, Gale handled it like a pro. Nothing about Wednesday was for the faint of heart, and even the most professional doctor on the planet would clutch their pearls hearing about Wednesday’s antics. The last therapist Wednesday was forced to see ended up taking his sabbatical and started seeing a psychiatrist.
“Yes,” he said confidently. Gale cocked her head to the side innocently and waited for him to continue. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure anymore. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Alright, let’s beat that up a bit,” Gale said. “You said she came to your shed to apologize. What happened next?”
“We talked about it for like three hours, and agreed we both needed to work through our issues separately. Ajax and Enid and our friend Eugene helped us a lot at first. Whenever Wednesday and I came to blows, they would be right there to mediate and help us see how stupid we were being. Then one day it all kind of just fizzled out. We stopped talking as much. For me, it was because I was getting tired of talking about it. I don’t know why she stopped.”
“Do you still consider yourselves friends?”
He gave his shoulders a solemn shrug. “Sure. I don’t hate her, and I don’t think she hates me. Last time I saw her we left off on good terms. It’s a tradition of ours to meet at the top of the stairs and say goodbye before we leave. I told her to have a good summer and I stole a hug, and that was it. I haven’t talked to her since.”
“Has she tried to reach out to you?”
“She called me a couple times and sent me a picture of Pugsley on the rack, but I didn’t answer. It’s funny,” he said with a humorless laugh. “Ever since I got her that phone, I never imagined not wanting to respond to every text and phone call from her. I used to jump every time I heard my phone go off. Now I hardly look at the thing. It’s like breathing for the first time after being under water for so long.”
“Perhaps it’s exactly what you needed, to take a breath,” Gale said. “When you go back to school, do you have plans to pick up where you left off with her or do you think you’ll continue creating space?”
“I’ll have to talk to her eventually. We have the same friend group. Enid especially would never let me distance myself from our group.” He let his words hang suspended in the air as he paused to bite the inside of his cheeks. “I’m not sure things will ever be the same between us.”
“What is preventing you from forgiving her?”
“It’s something Tyler said. I know he’s an asshole who just wanted to get under my skin, but he was right. He did absolutely nothing to earn Wednesday’s trust. Meanwhile I was always there watching her back and trying to warn her against trusting him. Look where that got me,” he said bitterly. “Falsely accused and imprisoned and chained by my neck like some kind of animal while she was off kissing him.”
“Has she ever explained why she trusted Tyler instead of you?”
“She just gave some lame excuse that Tyler seemed too normal to be anything but some loser barista,” he sneered. After Wednesday had told him that was her reasoning, Xavier avoided her for a week. He only half believed that excuse, and fully believed she was too stubborn to tell him the real reason. “She’s too protective of her thoughts to let me in.” His mind drifted off to his shed, remembering the harsh look in her eye when he called her out for such a bullshit excuse.
“Do you have the right to know all of her innermost thoughts?” Gale asked after a while.
Her question caught him off guard, having forgotten she was there. “What?”
“No matter how close you are with a person, they will always have deep thoughts and feelings they do not wish to share with you. Wednesday has the right to her privacy just as you do. I’m sure there’s thoughts you have that you do not feel comfortable sharing with her.”
Tick tock
Tick tock
Tick tock
The time passed slowly as Xavier racked his brain searching for any thoughts or feelings he wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with Wednesday. It felt impossible to come up with until he remembered where he was and why he was there. “Okay, there are some thoughts I wouldn’t share with her, but none of that has anything to do with her. If it’s a thought or feeling about her, I’m like an open book.”
“That’s your decision,” Gale said and pushed her glasses up. “You are not Wednesday, and Wednesday is not you. If she chooses to share with you those thoughts one day, then you should give her the time and space to do so. Treat others how you wish to be treated. Nobody likes having a gun to their head.”
“Wednesday would,” he corrected.
“You know what I mean.” Gale smiled patiently. “You know it’s something everyone struggles with. We’re all used to having information at our fingertips because of our cellphones, but that’s not how the world works. There are instances where we may never get the information we want, and that’s okay.”
“You sound a lot like Ajax.”
“Then Ajax must be a smart cookie,” she said and cringed at her own words. “Forget I said something so corny.”
Xavier chuckled and relaxed his posture. His muscles unintentionally tensed every time he spoke about his relationship with Wednesday. She was like a beautiful rose. On the outside her beauty invited him to come closer, until the sharp thorns pricked him over and over again causing him to bleed the more he tried to hold her. It was impossible to hold her for too long as the pain became too much to bear and he started to fall apart.
“Even if I decide to forgive her, I still think it might be good for me to leave her be. We’ve been doing this same back and forth dance for so long. Maybe it’s better to end it for good so we can move forward.”
Tick tock
Tick tock
Tick tock
August 26th, 2024
Xavier stepped out of his father’s town car into the bright mid-morning sunlight. He took a deep breath of the clean Vermont air. It was a delectable treat after smelling the stifling air of New York City. Students and parents moved around dragging suitcases and yelling greetings to fellow students as they entered a new year at Nevermore Academy.
“Hey man!”
Xavier looked in the direction of the voice and smiled warmly when his eyes made contact with Ajax. The boys did their secret handshake and clapped each other on the back. “How was your summer?” Xavier asked.
“It was good. I visited Enid in San Fran. Her brothers are wild, bro!” Xavier listened half-heartedly as Ajax went into a comical story about his camping trip with a pack of werewolves. Xavier had to keep an eye out for a certain pigtailed goth girl that he wasn’t ready to see again. He had grown an extra two inches over the summer and used his height to his advantage to search over the top of the crowd. His heart leapt in his chest when he thought he spotted her, but it was only his mind playing tricks on him.
“But anyway, I’m glad nobody ate me,” Ajax said, wrapping up his story. He glanced over at Xavier who was not being very subtle about his search. “Have you talked to Wednesday?”
This got Xavier’s attention. His head snapped back around, and his green eyes were wide with embarrassment at having been caught. “No actually. I haven’t talked to her since we left for summer break,” he said. He thought he saw a black hearse rounding the bend in the road and quickly ducked his head down. He grabbed his luggage and directed Ajax to the dorms. “To be honest, I’m kind of avoiding her.”
“Why? You guys ended on good terms I thought,” Ajax said.
“We did, but I think I’m finally over her. I feel like I’m ready to let go and move on.”
Ajax clapped Xavier’s back and grinned. “That’s great, man. As long as you’re happy, right?”
Before Xavier could respond, Wednesday stepped in front of them and blocked their path. Ajax screamed and jumped back, dropping his suitcase. Xavier’s stomach was in knots as Wednesday stared up at him with her arms crossed and a dark gleam in her eyes. His palms were sweaty, his knees felt weak, and his skin broke out into goosebumps. His heart rate increased rapidly in his chest not from fear; it was something else entirely. The familiar electric vibration passed between them, and that’s when Xavier knew he was done for.
He wasn’t over Wednesday at all. It was quite the opposite. He was still absolutely irrevocably in love with her.
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