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Passions of the Wolf

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

"Can I help you?"

She looked at the kind-featured woman who looked back at her from the other side of the reception counter, the centre panel of safety glass that separated the reception from the waiting area presently pushed open. "I have an appointment at ten thirty to see Doctor Jackson."

"Do you have your appointment letter?"

She delved into her rucksack and brought out the folded letter. She opened it up and handed it to the woman behind the counter.

After a quick glance at the letter, she pushed a book through the gap. "Can you just sign in?"

Melissa dropped her bag by her feet and wrote her name in the book, noting as she jotted down the time that she was almost an hour early, before accepting her letter back.

"If you take a seat, Doctor Jackson will call you in."

"Thank you."

Luckily, the waiting area was unoccupied which meant that she had her choice of seats and she went directly to the chair in the corner. She looked briefly at the water cooler beside her as she sank into the soft cushions of the chair, but decided against having a drink – she didn't want to end up feeling like a child by having to ask her shrink if she could go to the toilet!

Smiling a little at the thought, she dropped her letter back into her navy-blue rucksack and took out the novel she had brought with her, using the bookmark as a lever to open it.

She soon lost herself in the world created by another person, looking up from the pages only when couple walked into the waiting area and sat opposite her. Exchanging a small shy smile, she dove back into the fictional landscape of scorching deserts and never-existing heroism.

"Melissa Adams?"

Melissa was catapulted out of the world that she held in her hands, her stomach turning nervously as she looked at the man who had called her name. Standing up, she put her book back into her bag and slung it across one shoulder. She then followed the man out of the waiting area through a keypad secured door that he held open for her.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he said as he led her through a white corridor. Glancing at her slightly bewildered expression, he laughed softly. "I guess you were too absorbed in your book to realise."

They were walking up a flight of stairs and Melissa felt uncomfortable in the sterile-white environment, but she managed a small laugh. "That's why I like reading: helps me forget where I am." She suddenly wished that she'd responded in a different way.

Instead of turning to analyse her as she'd expected in answer to her comment, he simply continued to smile. "Yeah, I'm the same. It's good to lose yourself in someone else's life for a while."

Her smile felt more natural as she followed him into a room on the left of the corridor. Although it was the same colour as the area she'd just walked through it didn't have the same clinical feel to it. The desk at the far side of the room, flanked by two large and full bookcases, was pushed back against the wall and there was no chair before it. The four low and comfortable looking chairs that sat in the middle of the light blue carpet were facing a low, round coffee table, a tan-coloured folder the only thing on it.

"Have a seat," he said, closing the door behind her as she walked in.

As she had in the waiting room she chose the chair the furthest from the door.

"Well," he said as he sat in the chair across from her. "As you've probably guessed, I'm Doctor Andrew Jackson."

She nodded, remaining quiet. She felt uneasy again, embarrassed at the prospect of having to talk to a total stranger about the personal aspects of her life.

"Do you know why you've been asked to come here?" He was sitting forwards on his chair, hands clasped and resting on his knees.

"I was referred to you by both my GP and the staff at the hospital." Her defences rose and she sat straighter in her chair, self-consciously pulling at the sleeves of her shirt so that the cuffs were at her knuckles; making sure that the bandages could not be seen.

He leant over and took hold of the folder before sitting back. He left it unopened on his lap. "Melissa, I need to make this clear to you."

As he looked at her through his circle-rimmed glasses she felt herself tense up. The idea of bolting out of the door started circling in her mind.

"I'm not here to try to trip you up or try to trick you."

Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it was not that. Melissa sagged a little in her chair.

"I'm not here to make you feel uncomfortable, or to make any judgements about anything you've done, or that you think." His eyes locked firmly onto hers. "I'm here to listen to you. I'm here to understand. And I'm here to help."

Careful not to let the folder slip from his lap, Andrew leant forwards, noticing a mist that had started to form in her eyes. "Anything and everything you say to me will always be confidential; legally, I'm not allowed to disclose anything that we speak about. And although I will be writing in this –" he patted the folder – "it's never left lying around anywhere."

All Melissa could do was nod – she had no idea of how to respond to his efforts to make her feel more comfortable.

"You were referred to me because you tried – and very nearly succeeded – to kill yourself. Everybody is very worried about you, and we want to make sure that you don't feel like you need to resort to that again. You're not on your own; I'm here to try to help you through whatever you're struggling with. But in order for me to be able to help you, Melissa, you need to be able to be honest with me in everything. Okay?"

Melissa smiled and tears tracked quickly down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her thumbs, her fingers holding the cuffs of her sleeves to prevent them from sliding up, and nodded. "Okay," she whispered.

"Okay." He opened the folder and took a pen from its clip on the inside of the cover. "Now, this first meeting is basically for us to get to know each other a little, for me to get some basic details. If there's something specific you want to mention, at any time, just go for it; even if it has no connection to what we've been talking about."

Her mouth felt dry and she wished that she'd had a drink while waiting. Her nerves started to grow again and she increased her grip on her shirt cuffs.

"So," he said as he sat back and relaxed in the chair, still holding the folder. "Is there anything specific that you wanted to talk about, Melissa?"

Melissa could feel her hands sweating, could feel her heart speeding up. There was an invisible spotlight before her that had been switched on, and the unseen light made it too clear for her to be seen. She focussed on the man in front of her, saw the gentle brown eyes looking back at her, and the spotlight disappeared and she could breathe easy again.

"I don't know." She hated how weak she sounded, and rearranged herself a little, laughing self-consciously. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say. What am I supposed to talk about?"

"As I said, anything you want. What's the dominant thing you're thinking, right now?"

She chuckled quietly. "Aside from how uncomfortable I'm feeling?" She continued to smile as he smiled at her. "Well, I guess the obvious thing is this." She raised her sleeve-encased arms.

"Do you want to talk about that, Melissa?"

"I don't know." She could feel her cheeks heating up and dropped her eyes, wishing that she'd worn her hair down instead of up, wishing that she had something to hide behind. A lump formed in her throat and her eyes began to sting. "I guess I think I might need to."

Melissa looked away from her arms, where she imagined she could see the bandages below the baggy sleeves, to try to find something else to focus on. Looking at the bookcase on the left she trained her sight on a large green book, concentrating so that she could see every bump on its spine.

Smiling, she looked back at the man who waited patiently, knowingly, for her to compose herself. "I don't know how to start."

Andrew looked down at the file on his lap. "You were unconscious when they found you?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Did they tell you anything about it?"

"Yeah, one of the doctors talked me through it when he was asking me all the questions."

"And what did he tell you?"

She sat herself straight and looked at him determinedly. She was not going to cry! "He told me that the police had arrived first and broken down the door. The paramedics got there about five minutes later."

"Why were the police there?"

"Apparently I'd told the operator that the door was locked."

"Apparently?"

"Yeah." Melissa smiled a hard smile. "I don't really remember that too well. I mean, I remember talking on the phone, but not what I said."

Andrew nodded for her to continue.

"Anyway, the cops had tried to put pressure on my arms to try to stop the bleeding, and then the paramedics turned up and took me to the hospital. I was stitched up, given five units of blood, and they started my heart again when it stopped."

"Your heart stopped?"

"Yes."

"So you did die?"

"Yes."

"How did you feel when you woke up in the hospital?"

"Disorientated. Surreal, like I'd wandered into a Salvador Dali painting."

"You know Salvador Dali's work?"

She nodded, smiling at how shocked he seemed by that. "I love his work. It's incredible."

"My favourite's Swans Reflecting Elephants." Andrew said, watching as she grinned widely, her eyes sparkling.

"I love that one! But my favourites are The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and Solitude."

He leant forwards a little, her obvious knowledge of the artist's paintings capturing his attention. "I remember the first one, but can't picture Solitude."

A little of the happiness faded from her eyes to be replaced by a gentle sorrow. "It's quite an empty painting. There's a figure leaning in towards a rock, I think it's a woman, and it looks as if she's merging with it; there are shells and rocks forming on one shoulder. And that's all that's really in it."

He sat back again, regarding her with interest. "Why do you like those paintings?"

"I like all of his work; just how nothing is ever what it first appears to be, that you have to search for what's actually there."

"But why those two in particular?"

Melissa knew that the answer would reveal a little too much about her, but strangely it now seemed unimportant. Forsomeone who had spent her life not trusting anyone, she trusted this man completely. "Metamorphosis because I think it's about self-perception. The rocks that mirror each other in the foreground aren't true reflections of the other – one is positive and the other negative; and neither is the truth because we all have positive and negative aspects that make us whole."

"And Solitude?"

"Because it's a painting filled with loneliness. And that's something I understand."

It was Andrew who broke the silence when it started to develop an uneasy quality. "So why did waking up in the hospital leave you feeling like that?"

"I don't know. Just that everything seemed far away from me; even if I tried to touch things that were next to me, I would feel miles away from them. That how close they appeared was only an illusion, just a trick of the mind." She laughed a little, shaking her head. "It doesn't make much sense."

"Were things like that before? Was that how things appeared?"

"No. Then it was all smoke and fire." Embarrassed and shocked at herself, she met his eyes briefly – but it was long enough to see the uncertainty there.

"Smoke and fire?"

Melissa nodded, tears threatening again. She wanted to expand on what she'd said but felt incapable of speech.

"In what way was it like smoke and fire, Melissa?"

She fought inside herself, struggling to form some kind of answer to his question. As she was beginning to believe that no answer was going to come, she had a sudden flash of memory. She could see the knife that she was holding at her wrist, could see the way that the skin dimpled gently before rising again as the point slipped through. She could see the small and soft spot of blood as it bloomed tenderly where the metal entered her arm. Then she heard a whisper of the song that she was growing to think of as hers.

Hold on, hold on.

"Melissa?"

She realised that she was smiling to herself while lost in her reverie, and laughed as she brought herself back. "Sorry. Kind of wandered then."

"That's okay."

Looking at him, she suspected that he wasn't aware of the concern that showed on his face, but wasn't going to draw attention to it. "I was just thinking how to explain.

"My whole life has felt like it was made entirely out of smoke and fire. Things have either had no substance, nothing to grasp or hold onto, like smoke. Or they have engulfed me, burned me so badly that I didn't want to hold onto them, like fire. There was never anything that was solid."

"Was it the smoke or the fire that made you want to kill yourself?"

"The fire. I could cope with not feeling – it was like living in a dream, where I noticed everything, but nothing was real. It was when things felt real that —"

A phone started to ring, cutting her off.

"Shit!" Andrew stood and walked to the desk against the wall, fumbling open a bag. "I'm really sorry about this, Melissa. I was sure I'd turned it off." He brought the small silver phone out just as it stopped ringing. He turned it off and dropped it back in.

"Sorry," he said again as he sat back down.

"That's okay." But she had lost what she was about to say, her self-consciousness had been summoned back by the phone's noise and she felt uncertainty start to creep back in.

Andrew also knew that the moment had gone and that it would be destructive to try to recapture it. "So, you like Salvador Dali. Any other artists?"

Melissa shook her head. "He's the only one who's ever really stood out to me and caught my attention."

"Do you sketch or paint?"

Laughing, she began to relax again. "No, I can't draw." She hesitated, then added, "I do write poems though."

"Yeah?"

She nodded, feeling colour flood into her face.

"What type of poetry?"

She shrugged, embarrassed that she had mentioned her hobby at all. "Just poems. They're not any good, but I enjoy writing them."

"Oh, I'm sure they are." Andrew was used to seeing self-doubt and low self-confidence in his patients and, although it was a shame to see it in the girl opposite him, it came as no great surprise. "How long have you been writing them?"

"Since I was a kid."

"Have you ever tried to have them published?"

Melissa nodded. "Yeah, when I was younger. I haven't really looked into it since – I think the last time I submitted any of them to a publisher I was about fifteen."

"Maybe it's something you should think about again."

"Maybe." She said this without any real conviction. Although she knew that her poems weren't bad, could actually be considered by some to be good, there was just no way any of them were up to publishing standard; and there was no way that she was going to put herself through the rejection.

Andrew looked at the clock that was above the desk. "Well, we're getting close to the end of our first session, Melissa."

It was difficult for her to understand why, but the prospect of the appointment being over so soon actually made her a little unhappy.

"But, I wanted to ask you one last thing."

"Okay."

"What do you want to get out of our sessions?"

Melissa could only look blankly at him. "What do you mean?"

Andrew closed the folder and leant forwards to drop it back onto the table. "How do you think it'll help, talking to me? What do you hope will happen as a result of our meetings?"

She felt stupid and naive. "I don't know."

"Well, I want you to think about it before our next appointment. Okay?"

She nodded, hating how unsure she now felt as a result of that question, watching as Andrew went again to his bag.

With his large black leather-bound diary, he sat back down. "And speaking of our next appointment ..." Using his finger, he scrolled down the pages. "Next Wednesday? About ten thirty?" He looked at her expectantly.

"Yeah, that sounds okay." She watched as he wrote her name on the line, and she accepted the small card on which he jotted the appointment time.

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Excerpted from Passions of the Wolf by Beth Murray. Copyright © 2015 Beth Murray. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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