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“Are you okay with me recording our sessions?” Betsy Dobson had asked the first time she met Andrew for an actual therapy session and not just a talk. The Foxes were complicated, but Andrew was different, it wasn’t about him, it was also about the situation he found himself in when signing a contract with the team.
“No” Andrew had said quickly crossing his arms over his chest. It was summer and he was wearing long sleeves, Betsy noticed, but she didn’t ask. She didn’t have it in her to pry into others’ lives even though that was basically her job. She was there to listen, not to get all the information she could to manipulate her patients, something Andrew was pretty sure she was going to do.
She never did it, so Andrew now was free to come and go –not quite- and their relationship wasn’t one of therapist-patient anymore, they were friends. Their sessions didn’t feel like actual sessions for Betsy, she considered herself pretty chill and always ended up sharing a treat with Andrew. They both liked desserts. It wasn’t a sin, especially when it made Andrew feel more comfortable.
She considered Andrew a different case, not only because it was something she hadn’t seen a lot, she only ever received the Foxes or, well, anxious and depressed students figuring out how to deal with economic issues, the usual student problems that got everyone down. She tried to help everyone, but with Andrew her mission wasn’t to fix things, or make it better, it was to make Andrew accept the little things he couldn’t deny himself anymore and understand when he was taking things too far. It’d been quite hard at the beginning because Andrew was hard to get for people who didn’t know him, since he didn’t speak that much, but since he decided Betsy, or ‘Bee’ was interesting enough to play her, Andrew started speaking.
During the first session, despite Wymack’s request, she offered him a piece of chocolate. They shared a bar of chocolate they made disappear quickly and Andrew didn’t talk much. It was obviously Betsy who guided their conversation once Andrew accepted he wasn’t allowed to leave therapy now and he had no escape but it was sort of freeing for both of them, because every time Betsy said something about her personal life that wouldn’t endanger her in any way or make her too vulnerable to whatever Andrew had in mind to threaten her, Andrew would get a little bit less defensive, even when he argued he didn’t care.
It isn’t easy to interact with Andrew when he crosses his arm over his chest and barely tries to do something else than nod and laugh at Betsy. She knows it isn’t honest laughter, there’s no way Andrew’s having fun, it’s what the meds induce and fuck if she isn’t against those meds. But Andrew’s violence and mistakes got him there, and though she’s sure Andrew’s always going to be angry about something she accepts the meds keep him in a safe mental space.
“What are you like without the meds?” She asks one day in the middle of their third session. Andrew isn’t talking about anything substantial yet. They’re still having stupid conversations about anything she can get out of him and it’s fine, she guesses she’s supposed to make a solid impression and have a thorough understanding of the way Andrew presents to the world before getting nosy. She’s read the records, she won’t push.
Andrew shrugs in response, trying carefully to appear nonchalant, as if Betsy didn’t already know the boy’s been hiding all about himself for years and years. She knows there’s something else in that brain of his, not just pure drug induced mania. There must be something behind the long sleeves and the toothy smile on his face.
Betsy can tell Andrew Minyard’s more than his meds.
“Are you comfortable with me talking about your diagnosis?” She asks, and Andrew shrugs again because that’s what he does, apparently. She’s getting to know and understand the little twitches and effortless gestures of Andrew that wouldn’t mean a lot from other people, but from Andrew they communicate all his lips don’t let out.
It’s not that Andrew doesn’t talk, oh he does. The thing is, he says too much about nothing which is mostly because of his meds. He can sit still for the whole session, but he can’t stop himself from looking around way too much, focusing on the littlest details of Betsy’s office or from laughing and interrupting her in the middle of something important she’s trying to communicate. If she was more of an asshole and less of a professional she would call him “hard to treat”, except Andrew isn’t hard to treat at all, she just has to prove herself before getting actual answers. She should be mad at that, after all there’s a reason why Andrew’s her patient and it’s not the other way around, but she isn’t. More than anything she’s intrigued, in a respectful way, of course. She doesn’t see Andrew as interesting because of the way his mental illness manifests itself, she’s curious because nobody even knows why Andrew’s trying.
“I will assume that’s a yes. I will also assume you know you’re diagnosed as manic depressive, or bipolar, that’s the way it’s referred to now, and that you fully know the nature of your meds” Betsy says in her professional voice. They’ve been drinking hot cocoa for the last half an hour and Andrew’s been talking, mostly about how useless the rest of the team is, which isn’t really anything to Betsy since she needs to know to hear more about Andrew before analysing his interactions with the team.
“Why would you assume I care enough about it to know the details?” He asks but Betsy doesn’t catch the slight defiance in his tone. Andrew doesn’t care, he’s just doing it for fun, she knows, and she’s getting to understand the way Andrew’s just letting the time pass by to try and find something to hold onto before he falls. It’s not about hope, though, it’s more about how interesting having enemies can be.
She doesn’t bring up Andrew’s diagnosis again. She’s not supposed to judge him based on that or his records anyway. Andrew’s a person before he’s mentally ill and that’s not hard to remember when Andrew’s sitting right in front of her, his eyes on the tiny fox made of crystal on her desk.
Things don’t change for a while, Andrew’s quiet about himself, loud about the others, caring and passionate and fierce in a way she’s never seen before. It’s a shame he’s wasting all of his talent sitting on a bench laughing at the way his teammates get hurt.
“I need an actual answer here, okay? What’s so funny?”
“How you keep trying to get useful shit from me. I don’t get what I’m supposed to be doing here, Dobson” He says, leaning on the chair in front of her and smirking at her. Betsy isn’t the kind of person who gets too involved but Andrew’s smiles always make her remember how in that façade there’s nothing that completely belongs to Andrew.
“If you tell me something I’ll tell David to let you play for a whole period, an exchange, perhaps”
“I don’t like you. First period” It’s an untold promise that he’ll play for real this time if Betsy can give him that sort of freedom, a promise she knows she can’t keep, but she’s curious in a way she shouldn’t be. She wants to know more about Andrew, about the way he moves in the court and around other people.
They win that game and five days later Andrew shows up with a t shirt and armbands covering not only his skin but also his knives. Andrew doesn’t show her, but she doesn’t need to see them to understand there’s more than his past under the fabric. Unlike the rest of the foxes, Andrew’s scars speak more about his surroundings than his past.
The armbands are some sort of exchange too, one that Andrew won’t admit out loud as part of the promise, one that becomes part of the sessions, even when they go unspoken.
They drink hot cocoa, interrupting each other’s small talk –Betsy isn’t sure she can consider anything Andrew says ‘small talk’ but whatever-. Sometimes she’ll say something wrong and write it down because Andrew’s smile will appear only for a second before disappearing completely into his feigned interest only to annoy her. He doesn’t annoy her at all.
“So, how’s your relationship with your family after the incident? How does Nicholas deal with your violence?” She prompts casually. She’s stopped pretending she isn’t asking stuff to understand Andrew anymore because she knows he can see right through her. It’s better and funnier that way, she thinks.
“You know none of your stupid foxes are innocent, they’ve all done pretty much the same except none of them got charged” He says. He looks amused through it, maybe even defensive, but Betsy knows there’s nothing underneath the words, no hidden emotion, no impact.
“You know you got yourself charged, Andrew. You could’ve done anything to get out of juvie just like you got out of wherever they sent you, but you chose to stay, why? Did you ever think you’d find your brother? Exy?”
“And what about you Betsy, did you ever think you’d be spending the rest of your days dealing with crazy kids? Did you ever think you’d find me?” Andrew’s good at dodging Betsy’s questions, whether it is by answering something that’s nothing to do with it, or by nodding and shrugging when he doesn’t feel like opening his mouth. Other people would probably think it’s useless and that Andrew’s only a real fucking asshole, but Andrew’s saying much more than he knows through his words.
Betsy then understands Andrew’s weakness is his family and the concept of a family isn’t conventional to him. She understand he hates the word ‘family’ too, because foster homes are messy and people have bad intentions when you’re a lonely child who’s maybe a little too quiet. She gets it, when Andrew laughs at her ‘please’.
“Begging won’t fucking get you anywhere. You’re in the real world”.
She doesn’t understand why Andrew stays and tries, though. He knows the choice isn’t beneficiating Nicky or Aaron, in fact, it’s only taking Nicky away from Erik and exposing Aaron to his addiction. It’s a funny thing though, because she knows he’s trying to protect his twin from something he can’t fight: his own addiction.
No matter how hard she tries though she doesn’t understand why he seems so comfortable around Renee, and is so defensive with the rest of the team. It takes her months to understand why he’s decided to test half the team, including Matt who’d come out barely alive of their night out. She doesn’t see how it can be beneficial to Andrew, but it’s because she misses the point. Nothing Andrew does is for himself, he’s doing everything for Nicholas and Aaron.
Andrew isn’t hard to read for her, what’s hard about interacting with him is that Andrew’ll never say anything explicitly. Betsy or ‘Bee’ won’t ever get to see Andrew’s scars, but she knows they’re there because of the way Andrew very consciously talks too much about knives and blood when he gets defensive. But there’s things that he does that don’t even make sense in the realm of stupid things Andrew Minyard does that don’t make absolute sense, such as deciding to protect Kevin Day.
What’s mysterious about their relationship isn’t the way Kevin trusts someone he doesn’t even know, it’s the urge Andrew gets to protect someone however he can to the point where if the boy can prove himself, Andrew’ll allow him to sit right next to his brother without saying a word.
It doesn’t add up.
Betsy knows, though, that he’s a threatening and unstoppable force and for some reason Kevin feels like he needs that.
Learning about Andrew’s past is hard. The records are there, but she knows the records don’t even tell half the truth hidden behind that mocking smile, nothing more than names, numbers and short evals.
When Andrew speaks it’s like a code and she has to play his game to try and guess if there’s anything important she’s missing. That’s one of the reasons why she asks him every session if he’s fine with being recorded even though she knows he hates it. It’s respectful anyway, so it doesn’t make Andrew shut down.
But there are things out there that make Andrew shut down and Bee has taken little less than a year to figure some of them out. She’ll never use them against him, which is what Andrew doesn’t get. So Betsy dares ask.
It’s ten minutes before their session ends when Betsy decides it’s time to really get into Andrew’s past, knowing that there’s something that triggered Andrew’s change in behaviour before he went into juvie.
“Why did you decide to go to Tilda’s when you had a family, Andrew?” He laughs, as usual, because Betsy’s brave, too brave in comparison to the people he’s used to, “Who made you leave even before Aaron did?”
“No one can make me do anything anymore, Bee, don’t be naïve” He answers matter-of-factly, and Betsy hears the anymore like a fucking revelation.
“Did Higgins make you do anything?” She continues pushing, knowing she’s in dangerous territory and shouldn’t keep pushing if she wants to respect Andrew, except it isn’t as easy as that. The meds make Andrew care even less, if that’s possible, and she’s seen multiple times in the way he communicates with the upperclassmen how he reacts to invasive questions and stuff he doesn’t agree with.
“Yeah, he made me play Exy”
It takes months and a certain striker that’s a force of nature who makes Andrew a little bit more hostile and less communicative than he usually is because of his meds. It’s thanks to the same guy Andrew gets more violent and defensive of what he considers his and Betsy doesn’t even know how to interpret whatever is that Andrew’s trying to prove about Neil Josten.
It takes months but Andrew’s losing his shit the moment he walks into the session, his knife in hand and unwilling to sit down when he spits names she’s never heard before. She doesn’t even know what it all means until she hears Kevin outside fighting with Neil, and maybe she should be okay with it because that’s what the foxes do, but if Kevin and Andrew were a mystery already, adding Neil to it leaves her even more clueless.
Betsy doesn’t say any of the names out loud, even when she knows Andrew perfectly remembers she wrote them down.
After that their sessions change. Andrew’s more willing to talk about himself through talking about other people. He never says ‘I feel’, he says ‘He thinks I’ and that’s enough for Betsy to understand how things are changing within Andrew even if he won’t tell her.
It’s after a couple of months of Neil Josten’s arrival that Andrew starts to communicate only through him and Aaron. At first Andrew would voice his problems or whatever that annoyed through the way the upperclassmen, Wymack and Kevin interacted with him, which was mostly a bunch of negativity that made Andrew laugh and Betsy scowl, but it’s gotten so different.
It’s not softer or less defensive, nothing and no one’s gonna make Andrew’s defences disappear, not even if he wants them to go away. No one’s taking his armbands which are basically the only physical barrier he places around himself because he doesn’t need one. Betsy wants to protect him, the point is Andrew doesn’t give a fuck about protecting himself because he’s quite sure he doesn’t need anything, he doesn’t want anything.
“Neil doesn’t like me” Betsy says during one of their sessions. She genuinely wants to know why the guy can’t stand her and she guesses he’ll never actually tell her how much he dislikes her.
“That’s good”
“Why would that be good?”
“Josten’s a liability for everyone” He says without a smile on his face.
Betsy thinks there’s supposed to be more dialogue and less nodding in their conversation, more substantial and important topics but none of them can get themselves into it when it’s so easy to just talk about the weather, about the way Aaron still doesn’t want to talk to him so casually, about the way Neil Josten’s turning his world into a mess and how much he hates everything about it, as if he wasn’t talking about something being relevant enough that it really bothers him.
It’s progress, in some way, not that Andrew’s talking, but that he can accept that someone’s messing enough with his things, with his life, to make him care about defending it with a different attitude. After Neil Josten’s arrival the threatens aren’t just for fun, they’re not just because of the almost blinding intensity of his anger, they’re because he knows there’s actual danger in the form of a striker that says too much but doesn’t say enough.
Betsy thinks for a moment it’s because they’ve something in common. None of them like to talk about their previous experiences, none of them are there for something that isn’t Exy –even if Andrew’ll never recognise it-, none of them expect anything, they’re just waiting to see if it’s interesting enough to stay. She learns none of them had found their place either.
“Why did you accept him into the group, then? He’s too close to Kevin and Aaron for you to comfortable with, isn’t he? I mean, I know you don’t need me to tell you it isn’t a good decision after all you’ve done to protect them, so why now? What is it about him that you’re so willing to break your promise?”
“Bee, I’m not breaking any promise” He says in a sing-song voice and Betsy knows she shouldn’t keep talking about it, but Andrew doesn’t stop, “Neil Josten’s more than the boy who won’t talk to you. He hitchhiked back to Palmetto, doesn’t that tell you so much about him?”
“Don’t know” She shrugs, “It just tells me he can’t control his emotions, it makes me see how little sense it makes you’d let someone as emotional as him close to you” She continues, swallowing the ‘someone who doesn’t feel’ because she knows Andrew does feel, he just isn’t aware of how much internalised bullshit he has. By now she knows Andrew’s more than a reason to choose to shut up about the feelings he struggles to recognise.
Andrew doesn’t ask, he doesn’t beg, he doesn’t say more than necessary. Not even when withdrawal hits him. But Neil Josten does ask, and that angers him, because he’s no reason to say yes. Neil knows how to talk to him, he knows what to say and how to make him listen and it’s not only because of their honesty or the stupid key he has.
He doesn’t have to talk for her to know what’s going on, how Neil’s invading and intoxicating him, and how much Andrew actually hates it. It’s against his will, it’s something he can’t make go away, it’s something he can’t physically fight so he chooses to defy Neil in every one of his actions.
“Don’t fucking ask me”.
She gets it. Okay, maybe she doesn’t get it completely but she gets the idea of it. Andrew talks about his fear of heights and the roof, but what Betsy hears is all about the way he looks for a way to contrast what Neil’s showing him unconsciously. She sees the difference though, and understands Andrew’s violence is motivated by something else, even his fear and his defensiveness have a slight tone to it that it didn’t have before. It’s not all about Neil, of course, she has to give him some credit even though he hates to accept he’s doing progress in ah- well, his way. Neil’s helping him come to terms with the way the world functions out of his control.
“I want to fucking kill him” Andrew says in the middle of their session interrupting his own silence, Betsy laughs, and that’s how it basically goes for the weeks prior to Thanksgiving.
After Thanksgiving Betsy’s world goes from quietly worrying about each of her patients and about avoiding the foxes’ failure solely because of their mental state to freaking apocalypse all around her.
It’s silent, too silent for her comfort but she isn’t the one who needs comfort right now. Not so strangely, Andrew doesn’t need it either. He doesn’t talk, his behaviour bordering on the way he acts when he’s off his meds –which she’s seen only for very short periods of time-, but she sees him holding onto everything he can to make sure he’ll come back to the same place and people he left. No one will touch Kevin, because Neil promised, he swore it, and so Andrew chooses to trust him with his safety.
Betsy makes sure to see Andrew off, not being 100% sure if what he needs right now is to be off his meds or not, but it’s gonna be quick, it’s a good moment, in a sort of incredibly messy way. They need Andrew Minyard back, the real one, even without his manic smile and with a diagnosis that won’t change no matter how ignorant people are when talking to him. Wymack needs him, Kevin, Nicky, Aaron and Neil do so too, even if they don’t want to recognise it. She sees it and feels it in the silence of their house in Columbia, the silence in the car they’d left at Nicky’s parents’, the seriousness in Neil’s eyes when he pockets the keys to the Maseratti to drive it. She knows what the keys mean.
It’s a strange thing to see, when Andrew’s never given anyone that much, except for Aaron. Betsy really tries not to judge him based on the fact he hasn’t been charged with Tilda’s murder, but she knows Andrew’s given more than he’s lost during his entire life for Aaron, and he’s about to start doing the same for Neil, someone she doesn’t even know anything about, someone Andrew doesn’t dare betray by telling too much.
It’s heart breaking to see the same goes for Neil, when he lies to the entire team to make sure Andrew’s safe. It destroys her, even though she doesn’t have an actual relationship or emotional connection to Neil, to see him barely able to carry himself back into Fox Tower with too many cuts and wounds all over his body, to actually witness Neil Josten giving more than he’s lost during his entire life for Andrew.
Andrew comes back a few days after Neil, essentially being the same person Betsy knows, but looking different. Betsy can finally see what she thought was underneath the mania and after spending enough time with him she still can’t quite figure out why they decided to put him on meds that induced mania. She understands how his illness works, but she can’t see how forcing him to become dependent helped him in any way. Fuck it, she’ll do what she can.
And she thinks she’s succeeding, because Andrew, though less communicative than ever, seems to enjoy their sessions still and quite like her even when he doesn’t smile at all. It’s harder to see how much he cares and how much things influence him when he’s off his meds but she can work with that.
“Aren’t you worried about your brother?” She asks looking for an answer she knows won’t be there. She’s right, Andrew listens to her intently but doesn’t say anything in return, “The way I see it, no matter how much it bothers you the trial will happen anyway and you know what that means. You know what that means to every single one of us, so why are you suddenly acting like your brother doesn’t exist?”
“Why should I care about what it means to you?” Andrew looks sort of funny addressing the question in such an aggressive way with a mug of hot cocoa in his hands.
“I’m just worried about the ways Aaron’s reactions are gonna affect you” Therefore affect your game and everyone on the team, she wants to say, “I’m trying to find a way to communicate with you that’ll be useful and harmless both for you and me, Andrew. I’m not asking for your help here, I’m just asking the most direct way I can because I don’t want to make you even more uncomfortable”
“Why do you keep assuming what happens affects me?”
“Because that’s the only way you determine if things are interesting enough for you to keep going or not” Betsy says, the full truth right in front of their eyes, the things they don’t have to hide from one another said so calmly and kindly. She’s one of the few people that don’t blame Andrew for being the way he is.
She’s made it clear before she doesn’t tolerate Andrew’s violence and she’s insisted a million times his mental illness is not an excuse, but she’s trying to understand the person sitting in front of her and the way his symptoms make his brain work. It’s easy when she ignores everything that’s happened and focuses only on their sessions.
After a long silence Andrew exhales, “He’s interesting enough”
“Interesting enough for what?” And she doesn’t need to ask whom, she never needs to ask. She sorts of wants to question his progress but she doesn’t let herself disrespect her patient, her friend, even. Andrew looks into her eyes in silence, “Interesting enough to hurt him?”
“To take him to the roof”
“Does he know you’re afraid of heights?” Does he know you’re afraid of what he’s doing to you? Is another way to ask, but Andrew understands her.
“He knows I hate him” And it’s no irony. It’s true, she knows, because of the way Andrew talks about him as if he’s betraying himself only by letting himself focus on someone else.
“Andrew, I don’t want to pry but you know it’s important to talk about it. Have you two gotten intimate?”
Because of the way Andrew’s acting she knows whatever kind of thing he’s feeling, it’s too strong for him to dismiss. It’s not that he hates Neil because of who he is, but because he’s making him feel like there’s something else, something and someone interesting enough who won’t ruin anything.
“Not yet”
The session’s over five minutes later, their conversation having gone from too much information to a caring goodbye from Betsy’s side in a matter of seconds. It’s going to be fine, she trusts Neil, but most importantly, she trusts Andrew.
He starts their next session by saying, “I think want to” in a low voice. She’d consider it almost shy if Andrew’s gaze wasn’t so strong and meaningful.
“What are we talking about?” Bee knows about Andrew’s memory, about how it helps him in class and Exy but how awful it is when he has nightmares. It’s kind of annoying because Andrew’ll never let anything die down.
“Josten”
“Think about it, bring me an answer next time you see me. We’ll talk about something else today in case you need more time” Andrew looks annoyed at Bee’s concern, but he always looks annoyed at everything so she doesn’t take it personally.
“I’ll ask” He says a week later and Bee smiles proudly, almost unable to stop herself from saying the wrong thing altogether. She knows that Andrew isn’t afraid of asking, he just hates doing it after all the answers he’s been denied.
Andrew doesn’t ask because he’s asked too many times for things that were denied, for anybody to say ‘no’ and it’s time wasted. But with Neil, it seems nothing’s wasted. If anything, every little word becomes extremely meaningful, every one of his movements and gestures has a new value Bee’s supposed to see through.
“Make sure you’re comfortable with yourself first. I’m not asking you to call me in the middle of anything, Andrew. I know you’d step on your phone right now if I were to ask you to do that, but you know your boundaries” She pauses, waiting for Andrew to do something. Andrew sips on his cup of sickly sweet coffee with cream and waits, as he always does until Betsy makes it clear she’s nothing else to add.
“I’ll ask him” He says, making sure to convey exactly what he means, knowing Bee’s supposed to get it because she gets him.
He means silence, hands off, patience and urgency at the same time, those things Betsy’ll never know. He means he’s grateful and he trusts him to say the right thing.
Through the rest of their sessions Andrew makes it seem as if Neil’s there only to annoy him and to fuck up their image even more –if that’s possible-, but Bee believes Neil’s there to fix things, whatever that’s supposed to mean. The fact that weeks later she sees Aaron sitting right next to his brother in the same office without looking like he’s about to lose his shit only confirms the good he’s doing. It seems funny to her how everyone, even her, seems to be getting a bit of Neil’s help. It’s uncalled for, really, but it’s Neil’s will in a way.
She gets a bit of privacy with Andrew half an hour before Aaron comes in. He usually waits outside, and whenever Betsy tries to talk about Katelyn or Neil they both shut down. If dealing with Andrew was hard at the beginning, dealing both with Andrew and Aaron seems impossible.
“What did he say?” Bee asks calmly, as if she isn’t trying to remember all of the things she’s thought of saying.
“He said yes”
“Good”
And it is sort of good, she thinks. It goes relatively well, ignoring all the fights that go down on the court and in fox tower that she doesn’t need to be a part of. It does, until Neil disappears and the only thing Andrew can do is fight everyone who’s trying to check on him at the hospital. He yells, punches a nurse and attempts to strangle Kevin for information. However, she’s infinitely grateful she misses the mess that Baltimore is.
Neil has to see her, she realises when she sees him go back with a real name and multiple cuts and bruises and burns. Andrew has to see her too. Everything tells her so, from the way they’re not letting go of each other to Andrew’s serious look.
The first time Neil goes see her after Baltimore he’s got black armbands, and not enough words for her to be able to help. She sincerely hopes Neil can deal with it by himself and with the foxes, if their friendship means anything after his lies.
“Do you trust him now?” She demands and she genuinely wants to know because maybe it’s harmful to let Andrew stay with someone who’s lied to him. It’s not his fault, though, but Andrew can’t deal with that kind of thing, can he?
“I’ve always trusted him, Bee”
“Have you really?” She lets out a smile before continuing, she doesn’t even know why she’s asking after all she’s seen and heard, “I see it this way. He helped you prove something, didn’t he?”
“He’s a stupid liar, but he’s real, Bee”
“And how are things going now, how is he dealing with things?”
“Ask him, not me”
“Andrew, did he ask you?”
“I said no. I’m not your kid”
“Oh, quit that, we’re gonna talk about it one way or another. Plus, I like this kinda thing, I just pretend I’m asking something else and you always give me the right answer”
“Well fuck you” Andrew says, as defensive as he can sound through his monotone voice. It’s the details that help a bit.
“Is it getting any easier?”
“Just shut the fuck up”.
“Look, I’m not comfortable asking about it either but I need to know. I’m glad you don’t see him as a threat and you don’t even have to acknowledge this, okay? I’m just saying it’s good that you’re open to whatever you two have going on”
“Yeah, it’s good for both of us”
“Great”
And perhaps it is because Andrew’s never let himself have anything that feels real that Bee chooses to believe it’ll be okay, despite Neil still being a liar, not a thing out of the haze of his meds.
Andrew struggles with the idea of it, Bee knows. She never gets to hear the details, and though maybe talking about it would help Andrew make things smoother, he’s got his own pace and there’s no need to rush when they’ve got a long time to figure things out. She doesn’t expect them to be together for a lifetime, but at least they’ve got one another until one of them graduates and then who knows? Maybe it’ll be fine for both of them for a long time.
Betsy’s got her chin propped on her hand, a lazy smile as he waits for Aaron to leave because he’s got to do something so she’s decided to use the first half hour with the both of them. Andrew seems too dismissive, which usually means he doesn’t want to say anything, but for fuck’s sake she’s his therapist.
“Okay, I’m listening”
“I don’t fucking want you to”
“Alright then, you could write it down, maybe you could, I don’t know text it to me. Creativity’s key in therapy” She says, beaming at Andrew for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because things are slightly under control, she thinks, and though Andrew’s good grades have no correlation to his mental state, she’s pretty sure he’s doing as fine as he’ll ever do –excluding the ‘professional Exy player’ title she won’t use until he decides-, “I understand it’s hard for you to vocalise your thoughts, but it’s helped before, it’ll help now. I’m here so you won’t have to struggle alone, and if you hate how that sounds because of your stubbornness, then I’m here to make sense of what you can’t make sense of”
“You’re not my conscience, Bee”
“How many marshmallows, then?” She says reaching into the cabinet where she keeps their stash. Andrew’s silent for the entire minute she waits, “Four, then” Two minutes later she offers Andrew his second mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows. David will kill her, which doesn’t make it any less nice.
“He asked me to” Andrew says into his mug, as if confiding his darkest secrets to one of the things he and Bee share.
“Do you feel like it’d be a threat to you in any way?”
Andrew shrugs.
“On the one hand, you’ve been together for quite a long time. You trust him and he trusts you. You’ve worked together and talked about consent, you’re communicating with him, which is great” Andrew fucking glares at her but god, nothing makes Betsy Dobson back off, not even Andrew Minyard and the knives under his armbands, “On the other hand, you don’t want things to go wrong so you’re putting it off”
It’s complicated because Betsy has to work with nothing but Andrew’s eyes shifting from one thing to the other, the stillness of his body and the boredom in his expression.
“But it’s not exactly that, right?” She sighs, “Give me something we can work with, Andrew”
“I don’t like heights” He answers, as if it was supposed to make any sense outside the context of therapy. Betsy’s grateful she’s learnt to remember details.
“But you still went to the roof with Neil and you still do. Do you feel like you want to?” She asks tentatively.
“I don’t want anything” Andrew answers and he knows what that means even if it makes no sense out of the messy little room he shares with Neil.
“It’s okay to want things. Intimacy’s okay, you two are doing a great job dealing with things. You’ve both had bad things to deal with and you’ve still managed to study and play Exy with all the things you carry on your shoulders. You know I can’t tell you what to do, but I want you to understand that you’re capable of making these choices yourself”
Andrew crosses his arms over his chest and Bee feels slightly offended when she sees four floating marshmallows still in the mug on her desk, “Why do I even let you talk to me?”
“Because we make a good team, within the team, that is” Bee smiles.
She’s pretty sure by now their patient-doctor relationship over is an excuse to be able to talk to one another casually. It’s not that Andrew’s over with his therapy, she thinks he’ll always have to see someone to be able to talk, but it wouldn’t help him make as much progress anymore. She takes half the credit of the results, of course.
And at the end of the day it makes sense that Andrew’s where he is. She knows he’ll never be like the rest of her patients. He’ll never come back one day and thank her for how well she’s done by fixing his life. He’ll never call her in the middle of night to ask for help if he’s having nightmares, but none of it matters because he’s got someone who knows better. She doesn’t know Neil Josten, but she trusts Andrew with that.