The Long Siege - Chapter 3

I hope you can elaborate more when you’ve indulged in your nicotine.

“The scar on your wrist…” Elise continues, her voice calm and measured in the quiet room. “…suicide attempt or a result of your rough childhood?”

I watch her, reading the intensity in her gaze. She isn’t just asking; she’s dissecting me. She must have caught it at the convention center, in that single, unguarded moment when I reached to open the door for her. Her eyes don’t miss a thing. Or she’s just too focused on me, a forensic sweep searching for the crack in the foundation. I offer a thin smile and stand, the chair scraping softly in the stillness. I need to break her direct line of sight.

I walk to the window, turning my back on her question to watch the rain-shrouded campus. The dull, gray glow from the bank of windows, where a persistent drizzle paints slow, meandering paths down the glass. “It’s a little early to talk about death, Elise.” My reflection in the glass is a ghost superimposed over the gray world outside. I pivot, leaning against the sill and facing her with my newfound comfort. “Let’s talk about life. Let’s talk about my current project.”

The air is cool, carrying the faint, institutional smell of old books and disinfectant. It’s strange how she can have an office meant only for a real therapist on this campus. The light that filtered through is indirect and kind, falling upon the high-backed armchairs upholstered in a nubby, oatmeal-colored fabric I just left. The chair is positioned at a slight, conversational angle with Elise, separated by a low, solid table of reclaimed wood. Behind her, a single large print of abstract, swirling chocolate and beige hang on the wall. Bookshelves, built into the alcoves, held a collection of thick spines with titles on neuropsychology and attachment theory, their order precise. And on her table, a simple jade plant thrived in a terracotta pot.

She fidgets with her pen and shifts her posture to perfect alignment with the hard-backed chair. “Life and death are inseparable. One cannot have meaning without the other.” She looks up, her gaze steady, piercing through my defensive bushes. “I’ve researched your public figure. The scholarship student, the brilliant biologist. But for my thesis, I need to explore the real you. A more private, intimate... you.” Her smile is an effective tool, and the way her pupils never shake when looking at me builds such trust that I don’t find welcome. She’s a solid one, staying true to her object while sugarcoating me.

“Fair enough.” I nod, as if conceding a small point. I look down at my wrist and adjust the samsara bracelet to hide it again. The first scar is me trying to free myself from Aunty Three’s handcuff, the rest are just punishment. “This scar... is layered. One wound on top of another.” I let the silence hang for a while. My eyes dart to the beige ceiling. “Why did my mother leave? Why did my father sell me to the Jade Dragon? Why did Brooke kill herself?” I finally meet her eyes again, wondering if she can pass through the ditches. “And why am I the only one who’s still here?” I let her see the bush. Just one misstep and she will fall into the thorn. Come on, take it. Press on Brooke’s death.

Her reaction is unreadable. A slight brow-rise leaves only one crinkle on her left brow. Is it a calculated display of analysis, or a keen observation of a keen hunter seeing through hidden traps? “I see people get tattoos to commemorate unfortunate events. To own them, a coping mechanism.” Her head tilts up while addressing me and I can see the confidence in her speaking, the manner, the rhythm, the way that lips move. “You dress like a tattooed person. All that hidden toughness in the long sleeves, but your skin is inkless.” Her eyes perform a slow, deliberate scan from my head to my toes, like observing a clinical inventory. “So I guess you dress like that to hide your scars.”

I nod and give her a thumb up. “It’s not that serious. Mostly from street fights. A few for being a ‘badboy,’” I say while letting out a soft, self-deprecating breath. “But none for the people who betrayed me.” My gaze falls to my shoulder. “Perhaps I may get a tattoo for the one I love.” Part of me wants to answer all of her questions honestly, but those things are not easy to digest for a person not wading through the mud. Let her believe she has seen my vulnerable side while I cover up my traps.

She nods as if she understands me and I suppose she does, to a degree. But there’s always a seed to be discovered, but not this early. I need to pique her interest. “Can I have a smoke here?” I ask the question to test boundaries. She wants to see the private me, she shall compromise something. Quid pro quo, Elise. “I promise I won’t burn the campus down.” I smile. It’s mostly to entertain myself, a private joke. I’ve found that the smiles you wear for your own amusement are the most convincing ones to others.

“Bad boy, isn’t it?” Elise remarks, more playful than judgment. “I used to catch students smoking on campus.” She sighs, “but I suppose you can be an exemption.” Then she gives me a reluctant greenlight and returns to her tablet. The sharp cluck, cluck, cluck of her nails on the screen tears through me as I inhale the first hit.

It’s the same damn rhythm. The same countdown that spirals my mind to revisit the place I once called home. The scoundrels from the Jade Dragon were sitting on my dinner table as if it was theirs. cluck, cluck, cluck. The big boy, the one with a silvery chain on his neck, and mouth puffing cheap cigarette without filter, leaned over me and my father. We were kneeling, of course, in our own house. My father was even prostrating, his body was shaking. What the fuck are you afraid of? You have done it on yourself. That’s what I was thinking at the time and it hasn’t changed ever since. Because my father turned to me and shoved me to the ground. I was eight. Then he told them to take me because I could write calligraphy, so I could fake documents for the gang. What If I don’t have that talent?

Her voice pulls me back. “I hope you can elaborate more when you’ve indulged in your nicotine.”

I blink, the room snapping back. The rain is still tracing its paths, and she’s still waiting. Somewhere, lines of trucks start honking. Their time in the city has just passed, and soon, road police and urban securities will pour on the streets to deal with the damn traffic. “What’s your addiction then?” I ask, my voice a calm, casual counterpoint to the memory’s violence. “Tea? Very sweet coffee like L in Death Note? Or you prefer wine, like an experienced therapist with years of hearing fucked-up stories about fucked-up people’s lives?” I deliver the lines softly, letting the harsh words hang in the air between us. I conceal myself with thorns now, perhaps her callous hand can pluck it.

She doesn’t flinch a bit. “That’s a harsh way to put it, but I guess I’ll have to face a few of them in my future career.” She looks up, her expression is so neutral that it feels unreal. “I prefer wine in my private time, and possibly with my boyfriend, if I’ve any. But for work, I prefer tea and biscuits. I find them a quick charge for my energy.” She stands up and walks over a cabinet, then she offers me a biscuit bag. “Want some?”

I hold my hand aloft, signaling her to throw it to me. Biskuit Oat Honey Nuts, fancy brand. The crunchy texture and sweet taste disperses in my bitter tongue. “Tea’s an excellent choice. I’m indulged enough to give you an actual answer. Ask away.” There, I set my third trap while drinking her tea. The sweetness burns. Too much sugar, too fast. I can feel the old familiar haze coming.

“You mentioned the people who abandoned you. Those are traumas I want to explore.” She leans back slightly, her posture still perfectly controlled. “Let’s begin with your childhood, shall we?” She shifts her legs and offers an encouraging smile as if I’m a kid.

And it works. So, I begin to list the stories. I offer them like curated artifacts from a museum of ruin. How we moved from the countryside to the city with big dreams. Then, my mother vanished, my father’s descent into gambling and violence. Was it my father’s fault first? I don’t really remember now. Then, it becomes more detailed. I got two-year probation for robbery at thirteen. My father gave the final, brutal beating that sent me to the streets for good. I became homeless for a year before I met her. Aunty Three. Her henchmen caught me stealing her ‘tax money’, yes, I was desperate. I impersonated a member of her gang. She took me in though, claiming that I was bold enough. In truth, I knew she was the one who tempted my father into gambling. Maybe it was her redemption act on my family’s downfall. Anyway, I was trapped with the Jade Dragon ever since.

“I think there’s a lot more to that tremendous experience when you meet her again and convince her that you are worth something to her,” Elise says, starting to swirl her pen between her fingers.

“I told her the world is changing,” I reply, my voice dropping into a colder, more strategic register. “That what she currently operates with is not a long shot. She needs someone with a degree, perhaps many. She needs to shelter kids who could become lawyers and businessmen who could help her camouflage her business. I know this because I’ve already adapted, imposing on her gang members and actually getting away with it many times before she caught me.”

Elise’s forehead crinkled into three distinct lines. “You told her that when you were fifteen?”

“At six, I left the peaceful countryside for this concrete jungle with my father and mother.” I hold her gaze, my own flat and unwavering. “I have already learned to adapt ever since.”

Elise mumbles something while writing on her tablet. I circle the table, surprised that she’s so deep in her thoughts. I peek over and see the clinical notation.

Sudden change of environment in early childhood pushes adaptability of the subject to a very high extreme - trigger for the correct flight or fight instinct?

She is actually doing it for her thesis? The thought is a jolt. And she hasn’t asked or pushed about Brooke’s death? I decide to make the core statement. “This is what it took to leave the Jade Dragon.” I sit back down, pull off a boot and a sock, and place my bare foot on the cold, wooden chair beside me. Two toes are missing. A thick, ropelike scar, pale and vicious, runs from my heel halfway up my foot.

Elise stares at the mangled foot for a single, suspended second. Then she nods, a slow, accepting dip of her chin. She tilts her head up and meets my gaze, her eyes clear and unnervingly calm. “I’m glad that you are over with them in one major piece. Most people aren’t.”

“You have seen these before?” I ask, probing.

“No,” she says, her voice even. “But I’m prepared. I heard if they taught you how to steal wallets or watches, they would break your hand when you walked away.”

“My calligraphy skill precedes the joining, or else…” I shake my head, looking at my hands. “They taught me how to ride a bike though, then they made me race for them.”

“So they broke your calf and cut your toes, as a price for leaving?” She inhales sharply.

Despite the play, she’s still feeling uneasy around such topics. Good. “I’m young, I’ve recovered. But I won’t race again, or lift real weights.”

She nods as if she understands me, then she shudders, her posture straightens. She must have realized that despite them not teaching me to fake documents, they still smashed my hands so I can’t be of value. Her mouth slightly drops and I can see that her tongue is trying to articulate a speech. Her hand drifts over mine in awe and curiosity and maybe, driven by empathy.

“Well, that’s enough for the first session, right?” I pull my sock back on. And just by that swift moment, my face and her are so close I can smell the perfume on the back of her ears once again. “I need to keep something up my sleeve for the other two.”

She blushes but hides it quickly by straightening her posture. “Agree.” She closes her tablet with a soft, definitive click, but avoids eye contact with me now. “I’ve much to note and to cross-reference with the terminology. Do you need me to take you out?”

“I suppose you would rather finish before the thrill ebbs away,” I say while pulling my boots. As I stand, the familiar phantom ache reminds me of a memory both painful and deserved. I am almost off-balance and blame myself for taking too much sugar lately.

As my hand grabs the door’s knuckle, the memory reemerges. It was Aunty Three who introduced me to the cold edge of iron.

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