But this doctor... he was different. He listened.
Not like some of the other ones, like that nervous little white man who kept looking toward the emergency button like I might jump over the table and chew through his face. Or like the woman after him, either, the one who tried to tell me accountability had to start with naming the harm I had caused. I hated her voice, all soft and smug at the same time, like she thought speaking gently made her better than me.
My new doctor never did that.
He sat across from me every session in his expensive shoes and plain dress shirts. The room was always dimly lit and smelled like mint and leather. He spoke low, forever calm and patient. He sounded and looked like a man who had seen worse than me and was not impressed. I respected that.
Maybe that was why I talked to him more than I meant to.
At first, I told him nothing important, just enough to make him think I was participating. At this point, I knew what they wanted to hear. Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, I wanted to get better. No, I did not currently feel like hurting anyone. Yes, I understood that my reactions had consequences. Bullshit answers for bullshit questions. But then he asked different questions.
Not “What did you do?”, but “Why did you need to do it?”
Not “How did she feel?”, but “What did you think she was trying to take from you?”
Not “Do you regret it?”, but “What would regret cost you?”
That last one had kept me quiet a long time. I still thought about it sometimes. What would regret cost me? Everything, probably. If I regretted it, really regretted it, then I would have to admit that I was the monster everybody said I was. And I was not.
I was not.
The office door opened. My doctor came in empty-handed, no clipboard, no folder, no tablet. It was just him, a big guy in a charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. The overhead light caught on the gleaming watch on his wrist. I straightened in the chair before I could stop myself. He noticed. He always noticed everything.
“Good morning, Chauncey.”
“Doc.”
He smiled a little as he sat. “You seem rested.”
“I slept.”
“For once.”
“Don’t start.”
“I was acknowledging progress.”
That made me lean back.Progress. There was that word again. I tried not to like it so much, but I did. After a year of being moved around, watched, controlled, played with by people who thought they were gods, progress sounded nice.
“I told you I’ve been working on it,” I said.
“You have.”
He said it plainly, no surprise. I nodded once, staring at the framed print behind his desk. It was some abstract mess in blues and golds. Rich people loved art that looked like somebody spilled something.
“So, what we doing today?” I asked.
“Problem-solving.”
I groaned immediately. “Man.”
The doctor’s smile didn’t move much, but I could tell he was amused. “You don't like problem-solving work.”
“I don't like being treated like a child.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
