Mind Games

Chapter Four: Lasting Impressions

The office that Ezra had given Kanas to house his sessions was certainly smaller than his office back in Seattle's suburbs. Smaller, still, to the office back in New York. But thankfully, the room was still large enough to house a cheap industrial desk, a cheap leather desk chair, a bookshelf collecting dust and housing faded dog-eared books with a file cabinet and two club armchairs where he instantly knew he would be housing his sessions.

Allie came by with paperwork for him to sign and the name of his first patient. Someone who would be showing up after the assembly.

Each of his patients for the day were students that the school had flagged as being the most affected by Whitley's death. Something that Kanas had been yet to determine, as each of those students regarded him with the same curiosity they would a person they suspected to be an undercover cop.

It was a long day, the hours passing by slowly with regret.

The intellect of the students was worse than what he had been expecting for such an elitist school. And it was reflected in their speech patterns and mannerisms, each student reaching for their phones every couple of seconds, and then speaking to Kanas in abbreviated words and 'text talk' that were failings of the English language and the American education system.

As if Kanas didn't have enough difficulty already, trying to understand the English language.

With each student he persevered, one question being the most prominent: Have you cried yet?

And each student answered the same way. Telling Kanas what they thought he wanted to hear, before they answered him with the truth, breaking under his scrutinising gaze.

His first patient had been Amelia Wallace. According to the little summary he'd been provided on her, she was the first student to discover Whitley's body. When asked if she'd cried yet, she'd informed him 'no', and he could see that her answer was true. Though barely. Her eyes were puffy and dark from lack of sleep. Tinged red by the onslaught of tears she was refusing to let fall.

It took only a moment for Kanas to realise that she had been drugged. Sedated, and heavily so. The pill bottle rattled in her pocket when she moved.

He was surprised to see that she had returned to the school so soon. And when asked why, she'd told him that it was her mother's influence. Something about not being able to let her grades drop.

And it would be too simple, too easy to break her. To build her up again. She was too easily pliable, no fun. No challenge.

The same could be said for his second client of the day. Jake Ross. For someone so young, he was surprisingly arrogant. He'd told Kanas that he didn't have tear ducts, and that he'd never actually seen Whitley's body, but had been in the corridor after it was discovered. That he had been the one to console a distraught Amelia.

Penelope Spencer had been his third patient. Out of the three he'd seen so far, she got on his nerves the most. Her focus often going from Kanas to her phone, every couple of seconds. Like her lack of a response to a message would be her end. Why she had been placed on his priority one list, he didn't know.

Giada DeMarco was number four. She wasn't on the list, but had requested an appointment. Kanas had figured that she was trying to escape a class she didn't like. Then, when asked if she'd cried, she had informed him that she had. Her eyes had consequently darted around the room enough to let him know that she had lied.

A failed attempt to show that she was well adjusted. She was another one who had her phone in her hands every couple of seconds.

The only student he'd seen so far, who looked and sounded as though they needed counselling had been Amelia. She was the only one who piqued Kanas's interests, too. The others had simply contributed to the headache he found himself suffering from now.