Marvin At The "Psychiatrist"

Cordelia

It's a rainy Sunday morning in November, and all I feel like doing is sleeping. The party last weekend took out all my energy for probably the whole month. Also, I may or may not still have a hangover.

"Cordelia! Are you awake?" It's Whizzer. I drape my arm over my forehead and sigh. He's always up so early. To be fair, it is already 11AM. But doesn't he get that it's the weekend and it's my last chance to sleep in before I have work at the coffee shop and class tomorrow morning?

I don't answer him the first time, so he calls again.

"Cordelia! Can you get in here, please?"

I assume he's in the living room, which is right outside my bedroom and across the hall. I ignore him once again, flipping over and pulling my pillow over my head.

"This is the last time I'm going to ask you, Cordelia."

Good.

"Charlotte's here."

Oh. Shit. I sit up in bed and look toward my bedroom door. It's shut, thankfully, so neither of them can see my desperation as I jump up and wrap myself in a bathrobe. Not very formal, but I was only informed of our guest about five seconds ago, so what do you expect?

"Hey, Charlotte," I say, coming out of my room. To Whizzer I mutter, "Why didn't you tell me she was coming over?"

"I did. I left a note on the fridge." He points in the direction of the kitchen. I walk to the refrigerator and pull off the sticky note. Charlotte's here. Yeah. Great help, Whizzer.

"It's okay," she tells me as I'm coming back in, unamused. "I just wanted to talk with you real quick." She turns to Whizzer, who's purposely looking away from her and is picking up his hairbrush from the couch. "Alone."

He glances over his shoulder, eyes widened. "Who, me? Don't mind me. I'm just pulling the hair out of my brush." He sits on the armrest and does just that.

I roll my eyes. "Excuse my roommate. We can talk in my bedroom."

"Ooh," Whizzer teases, looking up from his hairbrush.

"I'm going to end you after we're done," Charlotte informs him sweetly, before following me into the room and shutting the door. "Okay. So, I guess first I wanted to talk about the party last Saturday—"

"Oh, no," I groan. "Let me guess. I made a fool out of myself and totally embarrassed you when I smashed that bottle and then threw up in the parking lot. Look, Charlotte, I'm really sorry..."

She stops me. "No, no, it isn't that. I don't think anyone noticed, anyway. The only people there were college freshmen like ourselves who probably did the exact same things as you only a matter of minutes later. I actually wanted to talk about our relationship."

"Is this good or bad?"

"It's good, don't worry," she answers, and I sigh with relief. "The thing I wanted to talk about is— we've gone out. You know, tons of times. For almost a month. Right?"

I nod, only half sure where she's going with this.

"What I'm saying is, I'm saying Cordelia, would you like to be my actual girlfriend? I mean, unless you're not comfortable with labels. But I'm kind of running out of things to say, like 'sort-of girlfriend' and 'maybe-girlfriend' and—"

Before she can finish what she's saying, I pull her in for a kiss. With a grin, I respond, "Of course I'll be your actual girlfriend."

"Great," she exhales. "I can finally relax now. That's been on my mind all week. Ever since the party, actually, I've realized I wanted to be more than just... maybe-girlfriends with you."

"Oh my God, I'm going to cry," Whizzer's voice comes from outside my room. I storm over to the door and open it, so he stumbles a little. He looks up at both of us, a little startled. "Uh, I wasn't eavesdropping."

"I can't believe—" Charlotte starts to chide him, but I interrupt her.

"It's fine. I probably would have done the same thing if it were you and Marvin, and I'd be lying if I say I haven't tried."

My girlfriend (actual girlfriend) stares at me. "Seriously, Cordelia?"

"Can you blame me?"

"No," admits Whizzer, brushing himself off. "All right, well, I'm happy that you guys are happy. Congratulations on an actual relationship. I mean, I've had one for over six months and nobody bought me flowers, but... congrats."

"You didn't buy us flowers either," I point out.

He looks at his phone. "Oh, it's time for work already? I should go. Have a nice day!"

Mendel

When I'm leaving class on Monday afternoon, I run into Marvin— which was exactly my plan. I've wanted to talk to him about this whole situation, and if I can temporarily stop Trina from breaking down, I can help him. But he doesn't seem interested at all. I'm fact, as soon as he notices me he picks up the pace. I'm quick to catch up.

"Marvin. Walk with me. Talk with me."

"I don't want to do either of those," he remarks.

I sigh. "Come on. It's not good for you to keep these emotions bottled up inside you. Do you remember that party we went to the other week?" I ask.

He raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I don't think I'm ever going to forget it."

"That was when it all happened. Trina met Whizzer, and that one girl got drunk, and everyone got stressed out, and I get it. Obviously, you had a lot of feelings that night. Maybe you were embarrassed. Maybe you were ashamed—"

"Mendel, can you please shut the fuck up?"

I'm taken aback, but I keep going. "It's not going to help if you don't talk about them. Talking about your problems is the first step toward solving them."

"Don't you think actually solving them is?" he demands.

"Maybe, maybe not. It could all work itself out."

Marvin groans. "Then please let it. Because honestly, I'm just so fed up with all of this. Screw Trina. Screw you— no offense. Screw all of it," he says harshly.

"Let me help you!" I press. "Come on. Just one session in the library. Then you can decide whether or not you want to keep talking about your problems."

"You say 'session' like you're already a psychiatrist."

"I am a psychology major."

"First-year," he reminds me, for the millionth time.

"How about it? Just once. Come to the library after class and we can sit and talk for a bit. You never have to see me again if you don't want to. Professionally, that is. Of course we're still going to be friends."

Marvin hesitates for a while. He looks around the hallway, probably wondering how much it would hurt to just smash through the glass window right now. Finally, he turns back to me. "All right," he answers defeatedly. "I'll have one session with you. But that's it, I swear."

I grin. "Thanks, Marvin. You know, this is really giving me practice for the future."

"Very far in the future," he calls as he walks away.

But still.

-

We meet in the library the next day. Marvin looks exhausted, like he barely slept all night, which I guess is something we can talk about. I wave to him from the couch in the corner I'm already sitting on.

"Just so you know," he tells me as he sits down, "I don't want to do this at all."

I clear my throat and take a pad of paper out of my bag, ignoring him. "Okay. If we're going to do this, then we're going to need to do it professionally. Do you mind if I write down everything you say?"

"Uh, kind of."

"Don't worry, I won't share this with anybody." I pause. "I mean... it would be pretty cool to brag to my class that I already have people coming to me for psychiatric help..."

Marvin starts to get up. "I'm leaving."

"No, wait!" I grab the bottom of his shirt and he sits back down on the couch. "All right, this'll remain confidential. Now. Let's start with some small talk. How's it going with Whizzer?"

"Fine, I guess. We fight a lot, but..."

"Do you love him?"

Marvin raises an eyebrow and glances at me. "I mean... maybe? But this is one of my first real relationships. How would I even know what love is?"

"So...?" I look at him expectantly.

"Sort of," he sighs. "I don't know. It hurts my brain when I think about it. But, honestly, he's great, and I'm really glad we're together. Even considering the whole thing with Trina."

I nod. "Mm-hmm. What point would you say you're at in the relationship?"

"Elaborate?"

"Like, how close are you? How... intimate have you been?"

"That sounds personal," he points out. "But I guess if you have to be my psychiatrist for a day... we've almost gotten there. Not quite yet, but..."

"Taking it slow?" I ask. He nods. "Okay. That's totally fine."

"I want to be intimate, but I don't know how to talk to him about it. We've never had a serious conversation about our relationship, we just fight over stupid things like glass cups."

I write a little bit of this down. "Got... it. All right. So." I tap the paper with my pen. "Next topic: your ex-girlfriend."

Marvin groans. "Why do we have to talk about her?"

"I just want to know what your lives together were like," I answer innocently. "Specifically, your sex life."

He gives me a look.

"You know, to compare it with how you and Whizzer are doing now," I ramble. "Just... answer the question."

He rolls his eyes in disgust. "Yeah, okay. We had sex. But it wasn't like I liked it. And we were teenagers. We barely knew the first thing about it."

"Understandable. And now with Whizzer, there's a lot more to learn, huh?"

"I'm done talking about Whizzer," he says bitterly. "You know what, I'm done talking about Trina too."

"Okay, okay. Well, what's going on with you?"

He shakes his head. "I think I'm just going to leave. Goodbye, Mendel." I watch him pick up his backpack and head out of the library, done with me.

At least we're getting somewhere.