Max - Bey Deckard Page 0,1
way Max blinked was odd… like it was too slow or not done often enough.
“What I’m getting at is that—” Crane glanced quickly down at his notes “—Eddie provides you with all the companionship you could ever need.”
“Mm.” Paired with the tiny nod, it was a grunt of acknowledgement. Again, nothing else was said.
Crane started to get annoyed, but noticed then that Max was looking at him with obvious levity. He exhaled in frustration.
“I’m sorry,” Max offered with a chuckle. “You’re not asking for more than yes or no answers. Try to reformulate your questions so I’m forced to say more.”
Crane’s eyebrows rose. There it was again, that mixture of unsettled and relieved that had him sitting tense in his seat, but he smiled and nodded anyway, trying to keep his expression bland and friendly.
“Ah! That’s you giving me a hint, right?” Crane said. It was like every time Max got tired of seeing Crane flounder, he would throw him a bone about how to approach his therapy.
Max’s smile was sly. Then he rubbed the back of his neck as he sat back before pushing the peak of his cap up a bit.
Crane’s pen made a fourth pen tic, top-right corner. “Do you think Eddie gets in the way of making real connections with other people?”
A slight curl in Max’s lip appeared, like he disapproved, and Crane realized that he’d asked yet another yes or no question. He frowned and rephrased it quickly. “I mean, why do you think Eddie affects your relationships with real people?”
The laugh that rang out was so lively and full of mirth that Crane found himself laughing along even though he was struck again with an infuriating juxtaposition of emotions.
You asked the right question! Good boy! Have a liver treat!
“Okay, Doc. You’re assuming that Eddie isn’t a real person. I assure you he is. Realer to me than you are,” said Max, still grinning. However, his expression flashed to serious an eye blink later. “Why do you think he’s affecting my relationships? You said for yourself just a few seconds ago that he provides me with all the companionship I could ever need. Wouldn’t real people, as you called them, affect my relationship with Eddie, and not the other way around?”
Crane opened his mouth, but Max swiped the air with a hand and cut him off before he could voice his concerns.
“No, I know what you’re going to say. Human beings need other human beings. I get it. I do. But really, Doc, I’m happy with the level of socialization I get. If I want more, I just go find more, it’s not a big deal.”
Crane kept himself from frowning. He knew that people, in Max’s world, were sort of like commodities or tools—easily obtainable, useful, but impersonal. Then he did let himself frown. “What if you were to ask Eddie to go away for a while and see how you do without him?”
Max’s handsome face was devoid of expression. He shifted in his chair, placed his ankle on the opposite knee, and drummed out a little beat against the denim; Crane made a mark, top-left.
“I wouldn’t.” Fingertips drummed again, and Crane made a sixth tic, again in the left-hand column.
“Just as an experiment.”
“I wouldn’t,” Max repeated and rubbed his jaw; another mark went into Crane’s notebook.
“What if I were to ask you to do it for the good of our sessions? Just to see what happens?” He knew that if Max had had his imaginary friend for as long as he claimed, it would take more than that, but Max was incredibly self-controlled—anything was possible. Mostly, Crane was curious about how Max would answer.
The last tic in Max’s cycle showed itself as he scratched at the back of his neck and then lifted the peak of his battered old army cap high enough to show his squashed brown curls beneath it. Crane made another small dash in his notebook, feeling like he’d accomplished something by discovering the repetitive pattern of Max’s nervous tics.
“Dr. Crane,” said Max, shaking his head slowly when he finally replied. “If you knew what you were asking me to do…” Suddenly, all the nervous movements stopped, and Max went still, staring at Crane with dark eyes. “No. I’m going to tell you what you’re asking me to do. Consider this one a freebie. You’re asking me to—” Max paused, his expression becoming a little pained, even vague for a moment “—send the one thing that’s keeping me out of jail