Alara Alara The Place

“Now. Why don’t you sit down and relax. You can have a drink if you want. Bottled water? Juice? Soda?”

The thin boy shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

“That’s fine. You can sit down wherever you like.” This was obviously not 100% accurate, as the therapist herself was sitting in one of the chairs, so Jason couldn’t have picked that seat if he’d wanted to.

“Look, aren’t I supposed to be lying on a couch or something? That’s the way I always read about it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a couch, but you can lay on the floor if you want to. This is a non-judging space, Jason. You can do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”

“Well, I don’t want to! And what kind of a doctor are you if you’re offering kids soda and juice? Those things are really, really bad for you! They’ll ruin your teeth, make you fat, give you diabetes…”

“As I said, this is a non-judging space. Many children feel more comfortable with sweetened drinks, but it’s perfectly fine if you don’t want any. Nobody’s forcing you to do anything, Jason. I just want you to relax.”

“You’re forcing me to relax!”

“If you don’t want to relax, that’s fine, too. It just makes it somewhat harder to help you. You do want me to help you, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said reluctantly.

“Well, then. Please sit down wherever you like. You can call me Jan, okay, Jason?”

The boy sat on the least soft of the three armchairs in the room, on the edge, with his arms tightly folded and a sullen expression. “I wanna call you Dr. Michaels.”

“All right. That’s fine too.”

“Is there anything that wouldn’t be fine?” he exploded. “I killed my little sister and you think everything I do is great! Well, it’s not! You should be punishing me, not – not telling me everything I do is fine!”