ineffable (adj.) - too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words
The smell of burning chocolate is poignant in the air, and Jay thinks of his mother. She was a woman who lived for her indulgences, and as he sits in this room reeking of melted Godiva, he is reminded of a thirty-something Francesca Righter lounging across a loveseat dressed in lace and a knotted robe. “Sugar can kill,” she would say with a giggle as she dipped another strawberry into dark fondue, biting into it with a mouth that knew only how to choke and burn.
“Jay?” He looks back to Bee, eyes snapping up from where they had been staring off. “Can I offer you some hot chocolate before we start?”
“No thanks,” he says. Then, after a beat he adds, “Sugar can kill.”
She hums in understanding and takes a sip from her own cup, looking over the documents in front of her. The papers are contained in a folder marked Jay Wright, and Jay wonders for the briefest of moments if she simply replaced the James Righter label or went so far as to create an entirely new file for the entirely new boy he became. Perhaps she goes back to her desk after their bi-yearly sessions and lays out the information within both, trying to figure out where one persona ended and the other began.
“How was your winter break?” she asks.
“Fine,” he tells her off-handedly. He keeps his answers as clipped and abrupt as possible, hoping there to be a way for Bee to take the hint and conclude this session with as little niceties as possible.
“Did you do anything fun at all?”
“Traveled. Partied. Made some routine family calls. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.” He alternates between looking towards the door and his nails, both becoming increasingly interesting as compared to maintaining eye contact with Bee.
“That’s so good to hear,” she says, her tone bright. “Did those calls happen to include your parents?”
“No,” he responds immediately. “I don’t want to hear from them, and I’m sure they don’t want to hear from me.”
He looks up then, though he wishes he hadn’t as he’s met with the sight of Bee’s face softening around the edges as her gaze turns sympathetic. He’s going to be sick.
“Jay, you may think that what both of you did in the past is unforgivable to both parties, but your parents are still your parents. So many years have passed, and I’m sure they’d be happy to talk with you if you only gave them the chance,” she says with that warm, warm smile that feels inherently misplaced.
He wants to tell her she’s wrong, wants to yell no no no in a perfect mantra. He wants to give her a biography of the first eighteen years, tell her to do nothing more than skim the pages to see how many synonyms he could use for misery. He wants to draw a circle measuring exactly three and a half square feet around him and show that Betsy that this was the only space his parents ever gave him to breathe, even when he grew to be six foot tall and the abeyance in his heart expanded with him.
He wants and he wants and he wants, but instead he shrugs and says, “I don’t think that’s really something I'd like, but I’ll definitely think about it.”
Bee smiles again (and god, he really wishes she’d stop doing that) and nods, as though she understands more than he knows. “That’s your decision to make, of course. And remember, you have a committed team here ready to have your back no matter what your decision.” She looks through his file again, taking another sip of the hot coco still sitting next to her. “Your grades and overall performance seems to be as good as ever. Anything else you’d like to talk about?”
“Nope,” he says. They sit in silence for the next seventeen minutes, and when Jay is told he’s free to go, he flees the room like it’s a crime scene.