by Doyle, K. T.
The brown leather of the armchair stuck to the back of my bare legs.
My mother warned me that would happen because the air conditioner was on the fritz. She said Dr. Cramer’s air conditioner was always on the fritz and his office was always hot.
I squirmed in my seat.
Dr. Cramer turned to me. “Are you okay, Alex?”
I looked up at him. He was fanning himself with a folded up piece of paper. “Yes, I’m fine,” I said.
“So I hear you got your license,” he said.
I flashed a look at my mother. “Yes, finally.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I drove here today.”
My mother smiled. “She’s still a little nervous, but getting better and more confident every day.”
“That’s great,” the doctor said. He cleared his throat. “Now then…Claudia, you wanted to say something to Alex?”
My mother looked at me. “I want to apologize for reading your diary. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“Do you accept my apology?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you forgive your poor, old mother?”
I smiled at her devilishly. “I don’t know…”
Dr. Cramer folded his hands in his lap. “Alex, be serious.”
“You two need to lighten up,” I said. “Yes, mom, I forgive you.”
She patted my hand. “Good. I’m glad.”
I shook my head. “Jeez—old people. No sense of humor.”
Dr. Cramer looked at me. “Okay, your turn,” he said.
A week after graduating high school, I called Dr. Cramer to schedule an appointment for counseling. During our brief phone conversation, he ran through some of the topics he wanted to discuss when my mother and I came in to see him. They would prove difficult to talk about, but at least I was prepared.
“Thank you for the bracelet, Mom. It’s beautiful and I love it,” I said.
“And?” Dr. Cramer said.
“I’m sorry dad fucked up—”
“Alexandra,” my mother interrupted. “Language…”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry dad messed up your life with his infidelity and lies. It hurt me too and I’m willing to work through it with you.”
“And?” Dr. Cramer said.
I sighed. “Thank you for being a wonderful mother and always trying to be involved in my life.”
“And?”
“What? That’s everything!” I said.
“Alex?”
“Oh, yeah. Dr Cramer, you need to get your damned air conditioner fixed.”
My mother and Dr. Cramer laughed.
“If you finish saying what it is you wanted to say, I will,” Dr. Cramer said.
“Fine,” I said. “Mom, I promise to communicate better. Share my feelings and all that mushy shit…I mean, stuff.”
“Anything else?” Dr. Cramer asked.
“Uh, I love you, mom?”
“Very good,” Dr. Cramer said. “Claudia, what do you have to say to that?”
There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you, dear. I needed that.”
I eyed Dr. Cramer. “So that’s it, right? We can go?”
My mother smiled and shook her head at me.
“Not so fast,” Dr. Cramer said. “We have some time left. Shouldn’t we talk about Kilmore University?”
“What about it?” I asked.
“Your mother indicated to me that you have some fears about attending college. Let’s discuss them,” he said.
I groaned.
“What are some of your fears?” he asked.
“That college will suck.”
“Care to be more specific?” he asked.
“Okay,” I said. “I fear I’ll get lost on campus.”
“Anything else?”
I smirked at my mother. “Yeah, I fear there won’t be any decent parties to get wasted at.”
“Alex!” my mother said.
“Kidding!”
“Let’s try this another way,” Dr. Cramer said, attempting to keep focus. “What’s your biggest fear about going to college?”
“Hmmm…my biggest fear…” I thought for a moment. “That my roommate will be a total bitch,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Is that your most honest, serious answer?” Dr. Cramer asked.
I sensed he didn’t think what I said was valid. So I explained my rationale. “Think about it. If I don’t get along with my roommate for whatever reason, like if she has a boyfriend that won’t go away or she has wild parties in our room or whatever, I’m stuck with this chick for a whole year. All that stress could affect my grades.”
Dr. Cramer thought about my answer. “Very good point.”
My mother agreed too. She nodded her head.
“So let me tell you how to deal with it,” Dr. Cramer said. He sat back in his chair and resumed fanning himself. “Think of yourself as a soldier on a battlefield and the approaching enemy is your fear. Your main priority is to prepare yourself as best you can for battle so that you emerge victorious.”
“Okay,” I said.
Dr. Cramer continued. “If life, always know what your fears are and why they scare you. Anticipate that other fears you never knew you had might come marching in when you least expect them.” He paused.
“Interesting analogy,” I said.
“It’s your job to be brave when those fears—the enemy—are staring you in the face,” he said. “One by one, establish your authority over them, show the fears no mercy as you battle them head on, and then leave them for dead on the battlefield.”
“Bloody and violent analogy, too,” I said.
“But it’ll work,” he said.
I saw Dr. Cramer only that once during the summer after graduating high school. I hadn’t mentioned my disdain for the religion I thought had duped my father and stolen my first true love. By the time I met with Dr. Cramer, I had resolved the resentment I had for my father and Bobby. Although I didn’t agree with their religious practices, I was square with them as people. I thought I would always have issues with Catholicism, but I would never again have issues with either of those two practitioners.
Time slipped away from me that summer and by the end of it, Dr. Cramer was merely a ghost. But his military analogy of facing fear stuck with me. And he was right. It did work. It just took awhile for me to gain the courage to put it into use.
It came in handy for me as a freshman at Kilmore University. And as it turned
out, what happened to me as a freshman was only a primer to what happened to me as a sophomore.
Matthew Levine had only been target practice.
An excerpt from the forthcoming
THE BOOK OF MARK
Book Two in The Alex Chronicles
PROLOGUE
Mark Alexander was way too good for me. I knew it the moment I kissed him for the first time.
The urge crept up on me quickly, but I released it slowly as I stared at his lips and leaned in for the kill. My brain may’ve been compromised by alcohol, but I knew exactly what I was doing. Mark hadn’t consumed even a drop of alcohol, so if he’d objected to what I was about to do, his usually quick reflexes didn’t show it. He received me willingly, sensed it was coming, in fact, and closed his eyes.
His lips were soft, like cotton balls, and tasted of sweet cherry soda. It was what he’d been drinking at Peter’s frat party when we left. When Mark left, actually. Fled would be a better word. I had chugged the rest of my beer and chased after him. Now here we were in his dorm room, sitting on his bed, kissing for the first time.
I knew I had to make things right, to apologize, but all I wanted to do, all I could think to do, was kiss him.
It seemed at that moment his physical body left him—there was no resistance pushing back against me, nothing to keep my kiss from slipping away. But then he gently grabbed my arms as he moved his body closer to mine, his touch
so light, more a tickle than a touch. It startled me and I flinched.
I felt warmth all around me. It was as if I was stepping inside his spirit and feeling the inside of his soul.
The moment lasted mere seconds. I leaned back and opened my eyes. His lips were still slightly parted, forming a smile, and his eyes were large and unblinking behind his glasses. He let go of my arms and said nothing, just looking at me.
I felt that all-too familiar tingle in my lower abdomen, that spark of attraction that made my belly burn. And I knew what it meant: I was falling. Hard. First Bobby Fraser. Then Matthew Levine. Now it was Mark Alexander.
It was soon supplanted by my own guilt. I liked Mark. I liked who he was. And I liked who I was when I was with him. He made me want to be like him. Not like me, the person who tries to trap love through sex. This time, I wanted to have sex for a different reason. So whatever it was inside him that made him so pure, so good, I had to have some of it. I thought the only way to get it was to take it with a kiss. And I felt guilt for wanting to steal away some of his purity with a kiss. It was something I surely didn’t come to deserve.
That first kiss with Mark was a moment I relived a hundred times in my mind as I ran at break-neck speed through Kessler Hall, the all-girl dormitory, out the front door, across the street, past the Kentmore building, down the hill and across the lawn.
“Alex?” a male voice yelled into the phone just as I was putting it to my ear, waking me from sleep only moments before. “It’s me. Mark’s been in an accident.”
Peter.
A thousand questions came to my mind, but I asked only one. “Where is he?” I was hoping he wasn’t at the area hospital. I didn’t have a car on campus and didn’t want to wake my roommate Lisa to bug her for a ride. Plus, the hospital was some 20 miles away, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to get there.
“Student Health Center,” he said.
I hung up the phone and switched on my bedside lamp. Lisa sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, blinked back the bright light.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Tell you later,” I said, grabbing the baseball cap off my desk on my way to the door. “Go back to sleep.”
Then I closed the door and started running.
