I went to stand when Fati’s hand fell on my thigh, forcing me back down into the seat. She used the leverage to push herself up to her feet and intercepted one of Dr. Ryan’s outstretched hands, clasping it in a firm shake. "We haven't had the pleasure. I am Fatima Winfield, Darien's wife. He asked me to sit in on this visit; I hope you don't mind."
“Oh, the Fatima? Yes, I’d heard quite a bit about you over the years. You are welcome to stay so long as you do not interfere in the process. Please, have a seat.” Dr. Ryan took a seat herself. “And you can simply call me Rachel.”
"Thank you for allowing me to stay, Dr. Ryan. I'll, of course, stay out of your way so you can have the most productive session possible.”
It was odd seeing Fati’s reaction. I knew my wife. She was territorial, the way every woman I knew was, but never jealous. This reaction, including the cutting glance she gave me just before she put back on her confident smile and turned back to Dr. Ryan, looked a whole lot like jealousy.
I grinned as I turned back to Dr. Ryan. I saw why Fati would feel guarded. The doctor had to be almost fifty but appeared to be in just as good of shape as Fati, who herself worked out a few times a week. And her caramel brown skin didn't have a wrinkle anywhere I could see. She looked exactly like I remembered.
“Darien, it is good to see you again.” She sat in the high-backed chair and crossed her legs. “You appear to be doing quite well for yourself. Tell me,” she lifted a pen and paper from the small table beside the chair and started taking notes before I even said anything, “why have you scheduled this appointment today?”
“Well...I…” Somehow, having my wife sitting right next to me made it difficult to open up to Dr. Ryan. Maybe. Or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t opened up to the sista in over a decade, and now I had no idea where to begin.
“How about this, Darien…” She paused her writing for a moment. “How about I ask you some questions. Would that work for you?”
“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “That might be good.”
“Okay. Have you had any more suicidal thoughts?”
I felt Fati tense next to me and heard the barely audible gasp that betrayed her surprise. I tensed in turn, and then looked from Fati to Dr. Ryan. I began to speak, but Dr. Ryan raised her hand and cut my words short before they left my lips.
“Let’s pause for a second.” She said with a smile, then turned to Fati. “Fatima, I allowed you to stay because I’ve found that, typically, having a spouse present during an initial session—and I would consider this similar to an initial session, given how much time has passed since Darien’s last session—under certain circumstances, makes it easier for my patients to relax and open up. However, while I understand you might hear things in this session that may give you pause, particularly if you’re hearing them for the first time, not interfering goes beyond simply remaining silent. You must not become a distraction in any way. Is this something you think you can manage, regardless of what is discussed here today?”
Fati nodded, took a deep breath, folded her hands on her lap, and then nodded again, this time with more confidence. “Sorry, Dr. Ryan. Please, continue.”
Dr. Ryan smiled again, then turned back to me. “Good. Now, Darien, a—”
“No.” I didn’t want to even give her a chance to repeat the question. “No, I’m not.”
Her hand was a blur of motion as she scribbled on her pad while maintaining eye contact with me. “Have you been feeling depressed again at all, about finances, about the deaths of your mother, your brother?”
I glanced at Fati, and this time she was controlling her reactions much better. It was only the subtle cues that told me she still wasn't entirely comfortable, the way she sat with her back erect, and fidgeted with her hands the way she did when worried. But that's okay; the one thing she didn't know, for the most part, came up right at the start.
I looked back at Dr. Ryan and shook my head. "No. I've been good in that department for years now. And yes, I do remember the indicators you taught me to help notice the onset: no nightmares, my diet is normal, I’m not doing any erratic behavior.”
“Very good. Very good indeed. So are you ready to tell me why you’re here yet, or would you like me to take a few more cracks at it?”
“I see Red.”
"Oh." She paused her writing for the first time. "I see. I hadn't expected that. He had been gone for years even before we concluded our sessions. So, tell, how long has he been back?”
I heard Red’s deep chuckle rumble throughout the room from the far corner. When I glanced up, he was there, arms crossed, leaning against the tall bookcase by the open window.
"You should have listened to me, D." He chuckled again. "But I can still help you out of this shit like the good ol' days."
I stiffened as I appeared to look at Dr. Ryan outwardly casually, but my attention was fixed on Red, watching him from the edge of my periphery. I took a breath and thought of a quick lie to downplay the reality of the situation, then stopped, and turned my head directly towards him.
I sighed. “He never left, Dr. Ryan. I’ve always seen him, since the day he first came to me. Even those times, as a kid, when I’d said he had gone away.”
Red shrugged, then chuckled again. “Have it your way, D.” He kicked off of the bookcase and walked through the wall it rested against, leaving without another word.
“I see, Darien.” Dr. Ryan said with a frown. She placed the pad down on the small table and looked at me with an intensity that caught me off guard. “So Red has always been there? Every day?”
“Every day. He’s with me always. Every major decision I’ve ever made since I first started seeing him has had some influence from him.”
“Every decision, Darien?”
I sighed. “Pretty much, yeah. I wouldn’t be where I am now professionally,” I glanced towards Fati, who was sitting there clutching her fists as stiff as a board, “personally, or educationally. He’s been there before like the angel sitting on my shoulder guiding me along, helping me avoid pitfalls, making the best possible decisions.” I hesitated, then frowned, “But…sometimes he might be the demon on the other shoulder too, considering the trouble he’d gotten me into over the years.”
"We are all a mix of our better angels and demons, Darien." Dr. Ryan said, uncrossing her legs, then crossing them again on the other side. “Have you seen any other people? Objects?”
“No. Just Red.”
“And has Red become any more influential? Is his influence growing, or has grown, over the years?”
“No. He’s been pretty consistent. Red is Red.”
Dr. Ryan shook her head. "I don't understand it, then. Yes, you see Red, but, if what you say is true, and he's always been in your life, I still don't get why you're here."
"Because I slipped up. Fati saw us arguing, and" I shrugged, "the cat was out of the bag. It wasn't the first time we had gotten into it, but after the night I'd had..." I glanced at Fati and considered telling her about my infidelities then and there and beg her forgiveness, assure her it would never happen again. It was the best possible setting to do so. But I didn’t, and with that decision, I knew that I would never. I looked back at Dr. Ryan. “I got sloppy.”
“So…” Dr. Ryan steepled her fingers, “you are here because someone finally discovered your psychosis, not because you genuinely feel it is an urgent issue, or even because your psychosis has caused a serious detriment to your life.”
I frowned. “Yeah...I... I guess so.”
“Darien, I’m just going to level with you here.” She stood and walked towards the polished chestnut colored desk at the far side of the room and sat down at her high-backed chair that was identical to the one at the center of the room. “I don’t think I can do anything to help you.”
“What?”
“What?” I said at nearly the same time Fati had. “What do you mean?”
"Back when you were a teen, and you first mentioned Red, we aggressively tried to tr
eat you. Some with well-established methods that have stood the test of time, and even other methods that were very new at the time. But, ultimately, those methods panned out to be ineffective at best. Through it all, because of the unique nature of your psychosis, we feared it being a degenerative condition at best, one that would severely impact your quality of life as an adult. Yet here you are, and the latter part of that seems to be true, but look at the impact it’s had.”
Fati cleared her throat. "What exactly are you saying, doctor? That you want him to remain the way he is?"
“That is exactly what I am saying.”
Fati gasped. “You are a doctor—”
“And my mandate, as a doctor, above all, is not to harm. Whatever the nature of his condition, I would certainly like to study it more and would urge you to continue these sessions, but this Red gift seems to have had a tremendously positive impact on your life."
Fati stood. “This is unbelievable. ‘Red gift?’ You didn’t walk in on him having a meltdown in the middle of our living room with a figment of his imagination.”
“Mrs. Winfield, I understand your concerns, and I share them myself. This is why I will urge you both to begin seeing me regularly. However, my approach will not be the same as before. He has had over two decades of living with this other persona that, while maybe a figment of his imagination, is very real to him."
“This was a complete waste of time. Now I see why he didn’t want to come back.” Fati said, and then hurried across the room and walked out.
I sighed and stood, giving Dr. Ryan an apologetic look. But she waved me off with a smile.
“I think that was more than enough for the day anyway, Darien.”
"Yeah," was all I could say, and then hurried out after Fati. Somehow, despite the short length of the session, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. It was the first time I truly opened up and shared that part of me, even to Dr. Ryan. And the fact that Fati was there made it just a little better.
~ * * * ~
I crouched low, landed a counter hook to the body, and then came back up with a right-hand flush to the jaw that made the large man crumple to the floor, groaning in pain. I took a step towards him and—
"That's enough, D," Red said from somewhere behind me.
His voice was jarring, snapping me from the trance-like zone any real fighter would recognize. When you’re locked in, your opponent almost seems to be moving in slow motion—impossible to miss. And he couldn’t lay a glove on me if his life depended on it.
I smiled, but it quickly faded when I heard the deep moans coming from the man at my feet. "Fuck," I said under my breath as I unstrapped my gloves and let them fall to the canvas. I crouched down to try and help him up when I heard Jasper's grizzled voice off to the side of the ring.
“Goddamit, Darien. Just leave ‘em alone. I got him.” Jasper hurried up the steps to the ring as fast as his old bones would carry him.
It never took much to set old Jasper Coodin off. His fiery personality was part of the charm of training at his spot, but it was never good when he put his crosshairs on you.
As my blood cooled and I watched the old man hobble over, I didn’t understand why he was so upset. Someone gets knocked out in sparring almost every week, after all. But then I looked around and noticed everyone else in the gym had stopped training and was staring up at me as well, and I realized this must have been unusual, even for the old gym.
"Back up, will ya," Jasper said as he shoved me aside and started to sit for a split second before realizing he didn’t have anything to sit on. He looked up and around. “Will someone bring me a fucking stool, Bunch o’ useless bastards.”
Two young teens standing close to the ring jumped into motion, and everyone else’s attention turned to old Jasper, who had managed to get down to a knee and was working the mouthpiece out of the gasping man’s mouth. I took the opening, and backed away from the scene, slipping between the ropes and down to the hardwood floor.
I started heading towards the locker room when Red came up and fell in step beside me. He pointed to the corner, towards the shadowed far side of the room with the one cracked mirror out of the seemingly hundreds of panels that covered every inch of the wall for longer than the half-dozen years I'd been training there. That too was part of the charm of Jasper's; the gritty, old-school feel the gym had.
I sighed, but my energy levels seemed to replenish every time I pictured the pale man’s face during the sparring session. Just then, I felt like I could go another few rounds, so I nodded and followed Red’s lead. As we walked, the bell signifying the beginning of a new round echoed throughout the gym, and activity around us picked back up again. The familiar sounds of the gym, from the rhythmic tapping of jump ropes on the hardwood floor, to the dense, thudded impacts of gloves on bags, were all comforting. And after earlier today, wasn't any place I'd rather be.
Red circled me, his back to the cracked mirror, and settled into his boxing stance. I pressed my wraps into my hands as I slightly shifted my weight to my lead leg and raised my fists, settling into my boxing stance. To anyone observing me from inside of the gym, they would see nothing more than my usual intense shadow boxing session. In reality, Red gave me a better challenge than any of the regulars in the gym.
Squinting as I took a moment to study Red’s subtle movements, I picked up on his rhythm, then closed the distance, testing him with a quick three punch combination. Planting his feet, Red dropped his hands and bobbed, weaved, and side-stepped each blow before coming back up to his ready stance, shaking his head. He skipped back, observing me, but didn’t make a move. I came at him again, but this time I surprised him with a double-feint, something I had never done before, and then committed to a four-punch combination. Red dodged each blow, more off-balanced than the way he handled my first combo, but I caught him on the last hit, an uppercut that I pulled up short to allow to pass in front of his face instead of connecting flush with the underside of his chin.
There was a brief exchange of glances, and Red knew I’d got him. It was one point for me.
Red chuckled, the way he did when he was genuinely pleased whenever I managed to catch him. But in doing so, I had overextended myself and realized the error just as Red took advantage with a blistering two-punch combination that pulled only a hair’s length form me.
“You usually ain’t so easy to counter, D.”
I skipped back a couple of steps. “I can’t get my mind off of that crazy motherfucker earlier, Red. There was something about him.” I muttered, just loud enough for Red to hear.
“Since when do we give a fuck about some random dude?”
“I’m telling you, Red. Something wasn’t right about that man.”
“There’s a lot of things not right about a lot of people. Fuck, something ain’t right about us.”
I laughed as I closed in again. Our sparring sessions were often kept loose, filled with casual conversation and jokes to keep the competition friendly.
"You know what I mean, Red," I said, and then slipped another of his sharp combinations. "I would have thought I imagined him if he hadn't stopped traffic."
Red laughed. “You ain't crazy, D." He pivoted away from a jab and circled away, and I followed a step behind. "Besides, we can manage whatever comes our way. It doesn't matter how big he is. You can handle yourself on the feet or the ground, can afford to hire an army of personal guards if you wanted to, and, most importantly, you have me.”
“Alright, Red. I’ll leave it alone.”
“Thank you. Fuck, you were starting to depress me. But on to a more important topic.”
“And—” I ducked a hook that came a little too close to connecting, and made me refocus. “and what is more important?”
“This damn appointment you got tomorrow. Goin’ back to see that shrink again is a bad idea. Trust me.”
"Oh come on with this shit, Red," I said a little too loud. I glanced around to make sure no one had heard, then continued in a lower voic
e. "Now you're the one sounding scared. Trust me, I don't want to go back to speak to anyone trying to poke around with my head, but Fati isn't giving me an option."
“Do you remember what happened the last time, D? They pumped you up with all of that medication. It almost undid all of the progress we had made up to that point. You finally listened, and we were able to get you back on track. We were lucky, D. We might not be so lucky next time."
“I know, Red. Trust me I do.”
“But you still haven’t said you ain’t going. I'll help you find a way out of it. But for fuck's sake, don't risk everything we've built?"
I dropped my hands and backed away. “It’s for my family, Red. There’s nothing I won’t risk for them. I’m done gambling with the people I love most in the world. I’m going.”
Red sighed just as the bell indicating thirty seconds left in the round sounded. This was usually where I poured it on, really wear myself out to build up my conditioning, but I didn’t bother. I turned around and walked towards the locker room, leaving Red standing in front of the cracked mirror.
CHAPTER FIVE
“THANK YOU BOTH for making the time. Please, let me know if either of you have any more concerns. You have my number—day or night, remember.”
“Thank you so much, Darien. You’ve completely put our concerns at ease.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Abbas.”
“Please, call me Ravinder.” He said, patting me on the shoulder. He turned and escorted his wife out of the conference room with a hand around her ample waist. He chuckled again, shaking his head, and then turned back to me again as they walked towards the elevators. He shook his head and mumbled, almost to himself, "Youth."
I watched until they made it the full length of the hall and turned into the elevator bank before crossing the hall and walking back into my office. Before I could slide the glass door closed, a voice called out from behind me, and I sighed.
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