Talking Helps?

Posted on Sat Sep 12th, 2026 @ 19:42 by Jessica Leigh
Edited on on Sat Sep 12th, 2026 @ 19:42

Chapter: Gobsmacked
Location: Counsellor's Offices
Timeline: Tuesday 2nd February 1993
2068 words - 4.1 OF Standard Post Measure

There was no time like the present, but Jackie had already arrived at and left the Counsellor’s offices multiple times over the course of the afternoon. Whilst she felt a little more human after her haircut and clothes, she still fell victim to the imagined comments and judgements of those she passed. No more than curious questions and ‘Who is she?’ but enough for her to walk a little faster and recant her logic for why it was important to have the conversations.

Andrew had said about the best level of care he had following his injury and now all she had was sweaty hands and a swell in her throat that might catch her breath. There was the sound of lesson change and it forced her hand as she stood in the corridor. A quiet rapping knock was followed by a shaky opening of the door. “Hello?” She called out the prickles of concern creeping out, itching her arm through her cardigan.

"Hello! Yes! Come in!" Jessica's bright and optimistic cheer came out in her inviting response. "Were you looking for Liana? Or did you have an appointment?" she asked, not immediately recognising the newcomer; which wasn't much of a surprise given her own status as almost-newcomer herself.

Pushing her head inside at first and then followed by the rest of her body, Jackie and her new haircut and clothing slid her way into the office. “I’m not sure who I’m looking for, to be honest.” The sheepish look toward the woman and then to the floor, “Ms Cavendish recommended that I come and speak to someone. I’m looking to speak to a counsellor.” It felt like defeat, to have to talk to someone specifically about things and she hoped it wouldn’t need to be repeated many more times.

"You found one!" Jess smiled, reaching for her trusty notebook. Her eyes peered over her glasses at the young woman. "Would you like to pull up a chair? Perhaps a cup of tea?"

The woman’s seemingly boundless energy forced Jackie to take a deep breath. “No tea, thanks.” She moved further inside to look at seat choices, opting for one opposite but closer to the door. It concerned her how much she had kept everything inside and how that might overflow in a way that could be problematic. She checked for plants regardless.

"So," Jess continued, opening her own flask and sitting cross-legged opposite the woman. "Would you like to talk about why you feel you need to speak to a counsellor?"

The question sounded so simple and innocent but felt so loaded. Jackie’s hands clasped in her lap, fingers finding the lumpy ridges around her knuckles. A slow exhale encouraged her to say it as it was. “I was taken from my home by some sort of mutant testing facility. I was tested and tortured for around two years before I managed to escape.” She had detached herself from the words, they were dry and hollow for now. “My fiancé was with me and I’ve not seen him since.” Her chest faltered, and another slow staggered exhale pushed past her lips.

Jessica's pen stopped moving on the page. She touched her glasses awkwardly, trying to gather herself and recall how to approach a situation quite so traumatic. "That...must have been hard. Well, probably an understatement..." she murmured. "Do...do you want to talk about what happened?"

There it was, the realisation of something much more complicated. Jackie’s lips pressed together and she swallowed slowly. “I was told I should speak to someone, so that’s why I’m here. I can talk but I don’t remember everything.” She looked down at her hands, crooked joints and scars across her knuckles. “I’ll do whatever I need to do to make sure I don’t hurt anyone … Sorry, what was your name?”

"Jessica. Well, you can call me Jess, anyway." She cleared her throat, shifting her focus away from note-taking and analytics to just being there in the room. One of her tutors had told her a few times that simply being present was the best way to get someone to lift the lid on their problems. "What makes you think you're going to hurt someone?"

Jackie shifted in her seat, gaze flickering toward the door before settling on the uneven ridges of her knuckles. “It’s not like I want to,” she admitted, voice quieter now. “It’s just… I don’t always get a say in it.” Her fingers curled together, tension rolling through her shoulders. “When things get too loud, or I feel boxed in, it just happens. Like a reflex. My thorns come out before I even know what’s happening.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose, shaking her head. “It’s been so long since I was around anyone, and now everything is too much. Too many voices, too many footsteps, too many doors slamming shut. I flinch at things that never used to bother me. I can’t control it, not the way I should.” Her throat felt tight again, and she swallowed against it. “I just… I can’t be that person. I can’t be dangerous, not around kids.”

Jess gave the words space to breathe; a technique she hadn't had to practice for some time. Inwardly she wished Lianna was there, as the one with more practical experience. But she was the one who was in the room, and that meant putting into practice what she knew. "Listen; you're safe here. I'm very comfortable being here with you, in this place. This is a safe environment, for you to speak, but also to be yourself." She took a moment to deliberately breathe herself, hoping Jackie would mirror it. "Take your time. Breathe slowly. One thing at a time." She paused again, intentionally slowing things down. "It's okay. Keep going."

Jackie’s fingers tightened around the fabric of her trousers, grounding herself in the sensation. Safe. The word didn’t sit right, not because she didn’t want to believe it, but because it had never really been true the last few years. Even now, her skin prickled at the idea, muscles coiled in anticipation of something she couldn’t name. She exhaled slowly, trying to match Jess’s measured breaths. It helped, if only a little.

“I don’t know how to be myself anymore,” she admitted, voice rough at the edges. “It’s like… I learned how to survive, and now that’s all I know how to do.” Her gaze stayed on her hands, the jagged memories of every fight, every desperate moment carved into her knuckles. “I feel like I’m waiting for something bad to happen, even when there’s no reason to. And when it does, when something catches me off guard, my body reacts before I can stop it.”

Her jaw tensed, shoulders rising and falling with another steadying breath. “I used to be a person,” she murmured, more to herself than to Jess. “I used to have a life, plans, a future. Now I just… I don’t know what I am.”

"You're still a person, Jackie." Jess stopped short of making physical contact to affirm the statement but her voice was earnest enough. "If you weren't, I don't think you would feel this way. After all: there's nothing wrong with the way you feel right now. It's very normal for someone who has been through a trauma to process it in their own ways; some by withdrawing, others by reacting." She smiled comfortingly. "You said you're surviving. That's a good start, right? You're still here, you're still present."

Jackie’s fingers twitched in her lap, restless energy with nowhere to go. “Surviving isn’t the same as living,” she murmured, pressing her thumb into the ridges of her knuckles. Living meant routines, choices, a sense of direction, things she had lost piece by piece until there was nothing left but the instinct to keep going.

She exhaled, slow and measured, her focus drawn to the details that anchored her: the fabric of her trousers, the faint hum of the room. “I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted. “I have no ID, no bank account, no records that say I even exist anymore. My clothes weren’t even mine until someone gave them to me.” Her voice wavered before she forced it steady again. “I don’t know where James is. I don’t even know if he’s alive.” The thought lodged itself deep in her ribs, an ache she couldn’t shake. “And if I try to find out, who’s watching? Who’s listening? What happens if I lead them to my family?”

Her throat tightened, fingers curling together as she shook her head. “So yeah. I’m still here. But what does that even mean? What am I supposed to do with that?”

Jess found herself fidgeting. Connect with them as a person, one of her tutors had once reminded her. "You're surrounded by people who felt that way at one point or another. Just about every person in this building has had to come to terms with their own traumas." She paused. "When my powers first manifested, I woke up about ten stories above my bedroom, looking down on the town I lived in. All I remember is...feeling like I had died. Like I was a ghost, or something." She touched her glasses, a fidget to disguise a moment of emotion. "But I wasn't a ghost. And neither are you, Jackie."

Jackie was starting to think she should have accepted the cup of tea she’d been offered, but she felt too far down the line. Her jaw tensed as she listened to what was being said and then her lips pressed together as she tried to process a response. Slowly her eyes drifted down at her fingers tightly curled in her lap. She didn’t feel like she had been heard. So many things had been glossed over. Jess had heard her but hadn’t listened. Perhaps she’d said too much in one go.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth and her head automatically shook, she couldn’t stop it. “I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who’s had a really shit time.” It was the most amicable she could manage, even if her tone said otherwise. She couldn’t bring herself to look up.

Jessica paused. That was an evasive comment. And Jackie had closed up rather than left things open. A pang of anxiety filled her at the thought that she had failed in her approach. "Please," she urged quietly. Earnestly. "Please talk about it." Her voice came out softly, perhaps a little weakly.

Jackie didn’t answer right away.

Her throat worked as she swallowed, eyes fixed on a speck of something on the carpet, anything to avoid Jess’s gaze. The room felt too quiet suddenly, the air thick with expectation. She could feel it pressing in, urging her to fill the silence, to make it easier for everyone. But she didn’t know how.

“I…” She drew in a breath to try again. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I know you’re trying. It’s just,” her fingers curled tighter around the fabric of her trousers, knuckles whitening, “I’ve said it out loud now. What happened. And I thought it would feel like… a release, or some kind of step forward. But it just feels like I’ve made it more real. Like now it’s out there, and I can’t take it back.”

She paused, grounding herself in the rhythm of her breathing, one inhale at a time. “I think I’m scared that if I keep talking, I won’t be able to stop. That it’ll all come out in a mess, and you won’t know what to do with it. That I won’t.”

Finally, she risked a glance up, her voice gentler, almost apologetic. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just… holding a lot. And I haven’t figured out how to let it out without it overwhelming me. Or you.”


TRUNCATED BY ADMIN