“What do you want to know?” I hear him turning the pages of his notes.
“Everything. I want to know everything. Why she feels so real? Why I hallucinate? Why I can’t get her out of my mind? Is she my imagination? Am I still dreaming?” In a single breath, I shot every question I wanted to ask, hoping that he has answers to some if not all.
“Calm down, Mr. Bryce,” Professor Able says. “Jeremy, give him some water.”
“No, I am okay.” I take a deep breath. “You don’t have to go anywhere, Jeremy. Stay by my side.”
“Of course, I will. Always.”
Chapter 14
“ALL RIGHT, MR. BRYCE. Let’s start deciphering your dream. It has answers to all of your questions.”
“Wait!? The wet dream has all the answers?” Todd is confused, and so am I.
“It’s much more than a wet dream. It’s the reflection of Mr. Bryce’s past, his life choices, innermost desires, and regrets. It has all the elements. That dream was his life in a nutshell.”
“I don’t understand,” I rub my forehead with my thumb and index finger, trying to make sense of Professor Able’s rambling.
“I’ll explain. The home you saw in your dream was your family home in Chicago. That’s where you grew up and saw your parents hopelessly in love with each other. A child’s brain is like a sponge, Mr. Bryce. It absorbs the feeling around the person, and in your case, it soaks the feeling of love that your parents have. That’s what made you romantic at heart.”
“Romantic?!” Todd laughs at the thought of me as romantic and almost fall out of the recliner. “Did he just say romantic?”
“Oh, go on. Take your time,” Professor Able says. “I have nowhere to be—or, have I?”
“Shut up Todd!” Jeremy yells. “Professor Able is a busy man. Stop wasting his time!”
“Did you call me by my name?” Todd grinds his teeth and stands up, demanding some respect by intimidation.
I think it’s the first time Jeremy has called Todd by his first name, and it’s not sitting well with him.
“It’s your name, isn’t it?” I lean back on the couch and folds my arms before my chest to answer on Jeremy’s behalf. “You can say to me if you have any problem with it.”
“Nope, I am fine.” He sits back down as quickly as he rose.
That’s what I thought. He is a pussy!
“Please go on, Professor Able,” Jeremy says, interrupting my staredown.
“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by Todd . . .”
Professor Able is also calling Todd by his name now. The courtesy is out of the window now.
“. . . you were romantic at heart. But when Patty Lawrence molested you, it took a toll on your young mind. You couldn’t understand how to feel. Your emotions were hurt. You became depressed. And when Ruby asked you out on a date, it became very clear to you that you had something that girls were attracted to—a magnetic personality. You started doing to girls what Patty did to you.”
“Molestation?!” I say, shuddering. “Thankfully, that’s where you are wrong, Professor Able. I am not on the sex offender list. I checked.”
“You got lucky somehow. You could have easily landed on it.”
“What are trying to say, Professor?” Jeremy seeks some clarification before I can do the same.
“He started hurting girls, not physically or sexually, but emotionally. I believe he was never in a long-term relationship or just any relationship. Wasn’t he, Todd?”.
“You are right on that one,” Todd says, instantly. “Mostly one-night stands, and if the girl is really sexy, it could stretch into a week-long relationship, and then, it’s not you, it’s me.”
“And if I am on the right track, most of them, or probably all of them were blondes?”
“He always had a thing for blondes. I once heard him rumbling in his intoxicated state. ‘If she is not blonde, she is not the one.’ But let me think for a minute, just to be sure . . .”
Todd finger-count on one hand, then, on the other hand, and finally, open the calculator app on his phone.
What in the blue hell! How many women I have slept with? And how does he remember all of them?
“Holy smokes! The professor is freakishly good. I never thought about it before, but you never fucked anyone other than blonde. When it comes to hair color, you were practically color blind.”
“That’s because Patty Lawrence was blonde, and sub-consciously, you were trying to hurt her.” Professor Able reveals the darkness of my infatuation with blondes. I thought I have a fetish or find them adoring and sexy as every other man, but it turns out to be something else.
“That explains so many things.” I come to remember the video message from my young self in which I treated four young, blonde girls very cheaply. And they were so charmed by me that they did what I told them to do.
“You continued with that behavior in college—maybe more furiously than before,” Professor Able continues. “The feeling of lust and vengeance subsided the feeling of love, and the romance got lost in the depth of your heart. But that is not all. There was one more feeling that you carried with you from childhood to adulthood.”
“Which is?” The three of us said in unison. All of us are hooked by the way Professor Able is explaining my life.
“Obsession,” he says, with a little hiss for the dramatics. “You felt helpless when your mother had to take up a job while your father recovers from the heart attack. You didn’t want to feel the same way ever again. So, your young, impressionable mind was convinced that the only way it could happen is if you have loads and loads of money.”
What Professor Able just said, it breaks down to one thing. “I actually love my parents?” I say in wonder, still not sure of it.
“Oh, yeah. Very much.” While he is sure, I am not convinced.
I clear up my throat, muster some courage, and ask what’s bothering me since I first got to know about it. “Then why I behaved like a dick to them last year?”
“Because you developed a massive ego, and what you said, you simply became a . . . dick,” Professor Able says. “Mr. Bryce, I can count at least ten celebrities right now on my fingertips who came out of nowhere, was humble once, climbed to the top, and then took a fall and landed in rehab. The same thing happened to you. You were already cocky, knowing that girls come easily to you, and when your business took off, you gained a massive ego. You lost your way and developed a god complex.”
“A god complex?” I scoff, looking around. “What god complex?”
“He is right, Brandon,” Jeremy says. “You had a god complex. Even the license plate of Aston Martin you crashed in the bus spelled ‘I AM GOD.’ I always believed that God crashed your car into the bus to show you that he is the real God.”
“And the alcohol, drug abuse, late night parties, the company of bad friends did nothing but to fuel that oversized ego,” Professor Able adds.
“Bad friend, huh?” I say, glancing Todd.
“Hey! Why are you looking me like that? I did nothing.”
He defends himself before I could accuse him of something, which makes me believe that he is in the wrong.
“I am not talking about your opportunistic friend, Mr. Bryce—not him. He is actually a good—decent friend of yours. It was you who actually caused harm to him.”
“How so?” I ask.
“Well, you have a certain pull on him all along. He mimicked everything you did in your life—girls, drugs, alcohol, bad behavior—and over time, he became you. You can say he is your subpar carbon copy.”
“Now that’s racist.” Todd strongly objects to which I also agree.
“I know. . . ,” Jeremy whispers, covering the phone with his palm. “. . . but he cannot see you on the phone. It’s unintentional. So, maybe give him a pass on this one?”
“I am sorry, Todd.” I apologize to Todd for not treating him right. Who knows he could be a football star today if it weren’t for me?
“Y
ou don’t have to apologize on Professor’s behalf.”
“I am saying sorry on my behalf,” I say. “I am sorry that I took you on a downward spiral ride with me. I ruined you.”
“I don’t know what he or you are talking about. Come on, man”—He takes a spin to show me his perfect suit—“Look at this $7,000 suit. If I haven’t followed you, could I afford this? Let me tell you where I would be—working a 9 to 5 job, and a fat wife and three kids waiting for me at home. I like where I am today and wouldn’t change a thing.”
“As long as you are happy,” I say, extending my hand to him.
“I am.” In return, he extends his fist, and we end up doing a fist bump. I guess that’s our thing.
“Are you people still there?” Professor Able asks. In our breakthrough, we almost forget about him.
“Yes, we are.” Jeremy removes his hand from the phone. “Just some network trouble.”
“Professor Able, about that woman in my dream. Is she . . .?”
I wanted to ask Professor Able if she is real. But the thought of him answering in no is making me nervous. I stutter, sounding like a broken record, making it impossible for anyone to make out what I want to say.
“Is she by any chance real?” Jeremy says what I couldn’t. “You know, a woman with flesh, bones, and blood?”
“I don’t know if they come in any other way,” Professor Able replies.
“Yes, they do. Metal, silicone and plastic.” Todd laughs hard as he stands up and raises his hand for a high-five. “Uh-huh!”
He hangs in there for a while, waiting for one of us to appreciate his joke. Agreed, that it’s funny, but at this dire moment, he gets no response from either one of us except our angry, fiery stares.
“Tough crowd.” He sits back in embarrassing silence, but not before giving us a disappointed look.
I lean close to the phone and say, “Professor Able, everyone says she is not real. Just me hallucinating. My imagination. But every time I see her, she becomes more real to me. I just need an honest answer. So, even if she is not real, I can at least move on with my life.”
“Honest answer?” I hear a long motorboat sound; he is thinking hard. “Yep, she is real.”
“God!” I close my eyes, and with a smile on my face, lean back on the couch, feeling like a victor. Someone actually believes me—an expert psychologist on the top of that.
“Professor Able, are you sure?” Jeremy is still confirming, but I don’t need further confirmation. Every fiber of my being is confirming to what Professor Able just said.
“I can bet my house on, sure,” he says, confidently.
Now, there is no room left for doubt.
I feel like crying. But not in front of everybody.
“There must be a time in his life when he actually looked past the blonde hair color and fell in love with that woman.”
“When did that happen?” Todd says. “He didn’t tell me anything. And he used to tell me everything about the women he fucked—down to minora and majora.”
“Brandon, that’s disgusting!” Jeremy says.
“What? No memories. Clean slate. Remember?” Sometimes this excuse comes handy. “Besides, its guys talk. I know that much.”
“That’s the Brandon I know.” Todd raises his hand for the high-five again, and this time I couldn’t hold back. I am in too good of a mood to leave him hanging. I high-fived him hard enough to leave our hand tingling.
“He would have told you all about her minora and majora if he ever had sex with her. He was never intimate with her. That’s why, he imagined himself having a hot, steamy, oral sex in his dream. He was doing what he couldn’t do in real life.”
“Excuse me!” Todd Interjected, raising his hand. “How can he fell in love with someone whom he never bedded? That just went over the top of my head.”
“Alexandra . . .” Jeremy takes a deep breath, remembering her. “Oh, it can happen, Todd. Sometimes, a look is just enough to make someone fall in love. It happened with me—”
“And to me,” Professor Able added. Great! Now, everybody wants to share their love story. “I saw Chelsey with her friends in a bar, and I knew she was the one. I was 18 at that time. Ah . . . the young love. The best time of my life.”
“So, I was in love with her even before the car crash?” I turn the attention back to me before the two Brits could get in a competition about whose story is better.
“Oh, yes, you were. But I am sure you wouldn’t have had realized that. Your massive ego, and fear of losing your playboy life and committing to only one woman were probably the reasons that must have subsided your feelings and prevented you from pursuing her.”
“Fucking Idiot!” I say, slapping myself on the back of the head. I am so mad at myself right now. “I could be with her, but I let her go. I broke her heart.”
“Eh!” Professor Able makes a buzzer sound. “Wrong. If it’s any consolation, you never broke her heart. She was a woman of character on whom your charm didn’t work. Otherwise, you would have had sex with her in the first place. Maybe she didn’t see you as a worthy companion.”
“So, it was other way around. She broke Brandon's heart?” Jeremy asks.
“Eh!” There is that annoying buzzer sound again. I believe Jeremy is wrong on that one. “As I told a minute ago, he never accepted his true feelings for her. So, it’s only plausible that he never told her how he feels about her. It wasn’t until the car crash, which not only caused him to lose his memories but also resurfaced the man that he always was under the façade of god-complex. He became nice, romantic, considerate, and kind as he once was before the incident with Patty Lawrence put him into a state of emotional turmoil.”
I hate you, Patty Lawrence!
“This woman is the blonde who got away. She must have made quite an impression on your mind in a good way; that’s why, your feeling for her resurfaced in the form of a dream and pulled you out of the coma.”
“My love for her is that strong that it pulled me out of the coma?!”
“Yes, I believe so. You were convinced that she was your wife. But when you found out, it was all a dream, your mind started playing tricks, imagining her around you.”
“Oh, damn! He is the reincarnation of Sigmund Freud,” Todd says, biting on his knuckle, and I couldn’t agree more. Professor Able blew my dream wide open. Everything is so clear to me now.
“About that UCLA shirt . . . ,” Jeremy says. “It’s what made me call you. It can’t be a coincidence that she was wearing that sweatshirt. It means something, right?”
I really don’t know what’s his obsession with that sweatshirt. What could a sweatshirt possibly mean?
“Looks like someone has been reading the psychological journals,” Professor Able says with a small laugh. It’s mostly a wheezing cough, really. But it looks like Jeremy may be on to something.
“After seeing you in action four years ago, I was so inspired that I started reading some books on psychology in my free time.”
“Good for you, Jeremy. It’s never too late to do something you want to do. I believe you can be a great psychologist. I see great potential in you.”
“Thank you, Professor Able. It means so much coming from you. But it’s only a hobby.”
“Can someone tell me what that sweatshirt means?” I say looking at Jeremy. The way Professor Able is complementing Jeremy, it must be something important.
“Come on, Jeremy. You tell him. You can do it,” Professor Able says, trying to boost Jeremy’s confidence. I think he is looking for an apprentice.
“Me? With a great psychologist like you with us? I don’t think I should.”
Oh, my God! When will they stop playing the game of humility and humbleness? They are not Canadians.
“Oh, come on, Jeremy. Just tell me,” I say, agitatedly.
“All right. Fine. I’ll give it a go,” he says. “I believe it’s the manifestation of your regret . . .” Then he stops and waits for Professor Able’s remarks.<
br />
“Almost there . . . Give it a push.”
Yep—you heard it right. It feels like he is delivering a baby out of Jeremy.
“. . . and guilt,” Jeremy adds.
“Bingo!” Professor Able says. “Very good, Jeremy.”
“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” I ask.
“Brandon, when you were waiting tables, and things were not looking bright, you regretted your decision of not completing college and wasting your parent’s money. You never got over that regret even when you were successful. You considered it your greatest shortcoming. That UCLA sweatshirt was the manifestation of your guilt, regret, and shortcoming that you put it on your wife in your dream—your greatest accomplishment to offset that feeling.”
Holy shit!
Who could have thought that a sweatshirt could mean that much? I certainly didn’t. Did you?
“What are you still doing on the phone? It’s dinner time.” We hear the voice of a woman on the phone from Professor Able’s side.
I look out of the window. It’s dark. We have been at it since afternoon and have no idea where time flew by so fast.
“Give me a minute, sweetheart. I am wrapping up,” Professor Able says politely, and we hear the sound of the door closing very loudly. “That was my wife, Chelsey. All right, boys, let’s wrap up this marathon of a session. I believe I have done my job very well. Mr. Bryce, I will send you the bill. Please feel free to give a five-star rating on Yelp with a glorified review. Good night—”
“Please wait. Hold on for a second.”
“Mr. Bryce, I have been married for 52 years now . . .”
“Lucky man,” Jeremy whispers in awe.
“. . . and during this half a century, she has never eaten a single meal without me. I can see the next world war happening before my eyes, but not her being hungry. Hungry Chelsey is a violent Chelsey. You can verify this information from any restaurant in Chichester, Sussex. She is quite famous down there and banned from most of them. We can continue this next week. No extra fees.”
“Professor Able, please . . . I only have one question.”
Dreamy Distraction (Quest for Love Book 1) Page 10
