"I'm sorry my heart's too big for my own good! I just want to be a good person!"
~
Theodore Chambers moves from his home in London to Hawkins and realizes this town isn't what it seems
Or
In which the new kid in town is thrown into all sorts of insa...
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chapter two; tick tock, therapy talk
The grandfather clock. It stood out like a sore thumb in Mr. Treft's office. Such a colorful room full of drawings from other patients, stuffed animals situated in the corner, bright books resting on the shelf, and posters for recent movies like "Ferris Bueller" and "The Karate Kid" stuck on the wall. Everything was so full of life, such a comforting room... except for the old clock in the corner. It wasn't ugly by any means; it remained in perfect condition with shiny dark wood, not a crack in the glass, and a working pendulum. There was just something about it. Teddy couldn't explain the feeling that clock created, but whenever he stared long enough at it, a pit dropped in his stomach. It didn't belong—Teddy always wondered why Mr. Treft kept that eyesore of a clock and didn't buy a new one to match the aura he attempted to have within his office.
That stupid clock. For some reason today Teddy couldn't take his eyes off of it no matter how he tried. Usually, when he didn't want to talk, he distracted himself with the teddy bears in the corner, but today... that clock stole his attention. He focused on it like the clock would spill all its secrets to him if he stayed entranced. His eyes followed the pendulum swinging back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Tick... tock... tick... tock. It didn't make him feel any better. The pit in his stomach deepened, his mind becoming lost in his deep thoughts, thoughts he tried to push away but pieces his brain sometimes liked to pop into his conscious thought to scare him.
Therapy.
The realization of where he was washed over him with a sudden tick. This wasn't any old clock. It was Mr. Treft's clock. Oh god, Teddy was in therapy... again. For the second time in his 14 years of life, he returned to a real shrink. This helped him, he knew that. He needed this, he knew that too. He was doing better even with these occasional slips of the mind. He wasn't crying himself to sleep every night, hiding from the world in his father's bedroom to be able to get a wink of sleep. He didn't have "seemingly random" panic attacks from a crack or pop from the stove. He got better over the months of talk therapy.
Therapy.
Teddy remained the only person in his friend group to go to actual therapy, an actual shrink... somehow. (Thomas seemed to be the only reasonable parent in Hawkins... then again, he was one of the only parents in Hawkins who knew what was going on). A majority could afford to go, perhaps even benefit from a few counseling sessions, but mental health was not an issue of concern for many of them. Besides, it's not like they could tell anyone about what they saw. Teddy never confided in Richard Trefts about the truth of the Hawkins incidents either but carefully danced around it, blaming most of his issues on trauma related to his mother, moving, and her returning in his life, which did explain most of what he suffered.
The clock. It seemed to bring out his anxious voice. The one that liked to bring up how much he acted like his mother, the one that liked to mention any wrongdoing of Teddy's, the one always there as a symptom of his anxiety disorder. The voice was loud, much louder than it had been in months...
