Pure Human - Couples Counseling

[Posted by Ted H]

Happy Mothers Day...unless you don't have kids, or one of your kids is a bitch who always has to be a cunt and ruin things for everyone...in that case, Happy Sunday...

Full disclosure - I'm not entirely done with the novel...I AM sure how to end it and know how the final confrontation will end. The only thing up in the air is if Anin and Joey will survive. One, the other, both, neither...I have no clue. Sometimes, when you let the story write itself, the unexpected happens...But if one, the other or both die in the end, then this part here will be super depressing in retrospect...

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[Pure Human - Couples Counseling]

            Anin and Joey said nothing to each other during their trip home. Anin hadn't done much of any talking after the police released her. Joey was just thankful that no additional harm had come to Suzie and that Anin was free to go. She was also barred from returning to the hospital for visits, but Joey wasn't complaining. Back at home though, he felt the silence had gone on long enough.
            "Are you okay?" he asked, annoyed at the simplicity of it, but unable to ask anything else at this juncture. Anin simply nodded. "Anin, please," Joey said "What happened in there?" Anin stared blindly down, lost in her own thoughts. "Anin!" Joey called louder, snapping her back. "Why didn't they kill her?" she asked, confusing Joey.
            "They killed everyone else that night, why not Suzie?"
            Joey shrugged. "It wasn't real though," he tried "Just a dream. All in your head."
            "It was real Joey, God damn it!" Anin yelled "It happened. Those things happened. They killed that girl's family and they fucking toyed with her!"
            Joey got annoyed and got out of the car. "I'm not in the mood for this discussion."
            "How can you not believe in this?" Anin asked as she exited the car and followed him. "You have shown nothing to actually believe!" Joey yelled back. They were doing this outside the house in public, but neither of them cared at the moment. "You and Blake have gone around speculating for the last two days, claiming some sort of fucking monster is responsible! Do you even hear yourselves. You're using dreams to confirm your ludicrous thought process! We were just in a hospital, posing as some dying man's family just so you and Blake could get close to a traumatized girl! Where's the confirmation?"
            "No," Anin said as she folded her arms "Do not make this about rational thinking when you know what I do. You know the things I've seen."
            "And I've put up with them all this time because you've never gone this far before. Anin, before all you did was give people advice and read their cards or fortunes. Now look at you; breaking into hospitals and hanging around crime scenes."
            "That little girl is going to wake up and tell everyone what I saw. A fucking monster killed her family!"
            "She's eight years old! Everything is a fucking monster to her! Maybe you were in her head for real, sure. And maybe you just saw things from her perspective, where everything unknown in the world is nothing more than a scary monster."
            Anin balled her hands into fists as tears formed in her eyes. "Don't you dare trivialize what I do. Don't you pretend to understand it better than I can."
            "Anin," Joey continued "Just let this go. You were never meant to solve murders. You've thrown yourself into a world that you've never exposed yourself to before and you can't even keep your head above the water."
            "What would you have me do? Stop? Tell Blake he's on his own and go away?"
            "Yes! Anin, since this has begun, you haven't eaten, you can't sleep, and you can barely keep yourself together anymore. This is too much! And Blake doesn't do shit to actually help you because he's all too happy to torture you if it serves whatever twisted game he's playing!"
            "I can't sleep, Joey. Every time I do-"
            "I know, I know. The reoccurring dream or whatever where the fading man hurts you. So why not have me in that dream with you? Have me do what you and Blake did last night if it'll make you feel better."
            "You can't, Joey."       
            "Why not?"
            "Because you don't believe. Do you think Blake was my first choice last night? I just wanted to feel safe knowing I was with someone else in there. I wanted you. But you don't believe, you won't believe. Blake's a fucking asshole and he ended up doing almost exactly the worst thing that I thought he would do in there, but I also knew there was no one else and I could trust him."
            "Then what can I do to-"
            "There's nothing you can do. There's nothing I want you to do but understand. You're normal and I love that about you. All the chaos and crazy I see and endure, and then I'm with you and I can be a normal girl in a normal relationship. But now I came here and brought all this crazy with me and mixed my worlds together and now everything is all fucked up."
            Joey sighed as he opened the front door. "I'm going to call in sick today," he said "Spend the rest of today with you and we can just pretend everything is normal." Anin smiled at the thought but ultimately shook her head. "No," she said "They need you at the office. And pretending to be normal isn't going to really help, not until this is all over."
            "Are you sure?" Joey asked as he put a hand on Anin's arm and brought her close.
            "Yeah," she replied "Once this is over, we can send Blake away and it'll just be you and I, being normal once again."