Page 111 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

This bitch thought he needed all of them at once, or a change of dose when one didn’t work to her satisfaction. He wasn’t sure if she thought that he didn’t understand his disorder, or if she believed she had a better handle on it. Whatever it was, John didn’t like the way she handled his medication, therapy, or otherwise.

“Have you found someone else for your weekly therapy?” Amelia asked. “I would be more than happy to send your file over.”

John kept his expression blank. He only needed to get through this goddamn appointment to satisfy his probation office, after all. Nothing more.

“Not yet,” he settled on saying.

But he would look.

Soon.

“You seem distracted,” she said quietly.

John’s gaze darted between her, and the watch on his wrist. “Things to do today, that’s all.”

“Like what?”

“Work.”

“Anything else?”

“People to see.”

Siena.

His mother.

“You’re awfully jittery, too. Bouncing your knee. That’s new.” The two of them stared at one another until the therapist moved on with, “What are your plans after you leave here today?”

John gave the woman a look, curious at where she was trying to go with this line of questioning. Usually, she tried to focus on how the meds were working for him—or not, typically—and his history, or his family.

“I have to be on one side of New York this morning, and on the other side tonight,” John replied.

“Is that an everyday thing for you lately?”

John shrugged. “Can be. More often than not, it is.”

“You must be exhausted.”

“Not really.”

“You’re getting enough sleep, then?” Amelia asked.

“Enough.”

“Like a few hours?”

“A couple,” John said.

The therapist scratched something down on her pad with the pen, and said, “And you are keeping up with your medications, right?”

John lied, then. “Every single day.”

He halved her dose of Lithium, and when that hadn’t worked to stop the fog in his head, he got rid of the other three medications she put him on. She wouldn’t agree to stop prescribing the anxiety and depression meds when he wasn’t even battling those to begin with.

Sure, he made it look like he was taking the pills, but he didn’t. He filled the prescriptions every month like he was supposed to. He didn’t actually take them, though.

“All of them?” she pressed. “Did the fog you mention lift?”