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Of the two men in her waiting room as she shows her 3 o’clock appointment out, Hattie can’t immediately pick out which is her new prospective client. Plenty of people bring a loved one to sit in the waiting room in case they need them, especially for initial appointments, but usually she’s better at determining which is which.
Of this pair, both are haunted behind the eyes- to a greater extent than everyone is, these days. The taller one, despite his cozy-looking jumper and the way he clings to his companions hand, seems to make the whole waiting room a few degrees colder, shreds of mist swirling up at his feet, particularly when he looks away from his companion. The shorter man is scarred all over, in a variety of ways. Hattie’s gotten better at suppressing her reactions to things like that- not everyone came out unscathed when things Changed Back, including Hattie herself- but the sheer variety stuns her a bit. Burns and knife wounds on top of a pockmarked spread that rivals Hattie’s own marks. Not like others she’s seen in their positioning or severity- the throat should’ve killed him, if it was open enough to scar when things Changed Back. Most people with wounds like that had died, in the flurry of desperate triage After. In spite of the scars, his gaze is piercing bright, with the uncanny air of a predator. She takes deep breaths until the gooseflesh has mostly subsided. “Jonathan Sims?”
The shorter man stands, leaning in briefly for a kiss from his partner, before making a noise that might be a greeting and following her gesture into the office like he’s bracing to enter a warzone. She leaves the door open the barest crack behind them. Jonathan Sims perches on the edge of her couch like he might have to take flight at any moment.
“Hello, Jon,” she says, taking her own seat, “Or would you prefer Mr. Sims? Jonathan?”
“Jon is fine.” He stares at his lap, at it feels a bit like being left blinking in the aftermath of a spotlight moving off of her.
“You can call me Dr. Pritchard, or Hattie. Whichever makes you most comfortable.”
Jon nods. Normally she’d start in on her usual opening questions, why he was there and what he hoped to gain, but Jon speaks before she can. “I should say, if you decide to- to say you don’t think we’ll be a good fit, or give me a referral, or-” he laughs bitterly, “chase me from your office, I won’t be angry, or offended, or anything. In fact I’d rather you state as much outright, if at all possible.”
Hattie raises her eyebrows. “Is there a reason you think I would do that?”
Jon presses his lips inward in a grim, sardonic smile. “I told Martin- my boyfriend- that I would go to interviews with no more than five therapists, after… things settled down. And then I lost a bet with my ex-girlfriend. So you’re number six.” Another harsh bark of a laugh and the flash of a smile that might be charming in another context.
Hattie’s general opinion of her colleagues drops another notch (is it silly one of the things she misses most from Before is the feeling that the rest of her profession was as committed to the ideals behind their ethics and practice as she was?) and she thinks she sees where this is going. “I don’t turn down clients because of things they’ve done in the past. Especially things they did- or were made to do- during the Change.” She’s sure some of those who found themselves in control of their own little slices of hell were happy with the arrangement, but in her experience most were just as traumatized as those they hurt. They just found it significantly harder to find help after.
Jon nods. “Georgie heard as much, that’s why she bothered with the bet in the first place. It’s good of you.” He grimaced, as though remembering something, then shook himself. “Regardless, I wasn’t just an ava- it wasn’t only that. It started well before the Change, for one.”
“I’ve had several clients with… encounters that predate the Change,” she reassurs him. It was strange, after the entire world had been turned upside down and then put right again, how disturbing she’d found it to have the imagined innocence of Before shattered retroactively by that revelation.
Jon hunches in on himself, curling his body like a wadded up paper. “Yes, well. I was-” his voice breaks, and he straightens, forcing determined eye contact, “I was the one who started it.”
Started… “Pardon?”
His gaze drops back to his lap. “I helped to end it, as well. To put things right, along with others. But I alone read the Ritual that caused the Change.” He doesn’t say it as though he’s proud of it, or even as though it’s something he’d come to regret. Every word is so drenched in misery Hattie can’t imagine he ever looked favorably on the events in question. She suspects there’s more there than he’s saying, more than he’s giving himself credit for.
She’s silent too long. Jon, braced for rejection before he’d even spoken, is practically trembling, ready to stand the moment she speaks. She swallows past the phantom feeling of insects burrowing into flesh as something watched without ever helping her. “Then I can see why you felt the need to find help, now.”
“Yes, I under- what?” Jon stutters, halfway to standing before he drops back into his seat.
“I don’t turn down clients because of things they’ve done in the past,” she repeats. Even if she weren’t committed to it as an ethical principle, she has a hard time imagining Jon, who seems so willing to take the blame for whatever role he played and whatever comes with it (had one of her predecessors really chased him out?) acting with outright malice. “I don’t think that will be an obstacle to a therapeutic relationship. If you’d like we can start by talking about what your goals are?”
Jon leans back a bit, looking poleaxed. The weight of his gaze intensifies for just a moment, and he visibly refocuses, leaving Hattie feeling like she’s just passed some kind of test. “Yes, I- alright. Goals.”