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Delilah and Dr. Brown

Not All Therapists Are Created

By Andrew CarringtonPublished 2 years ago 19 min read
Top Story - December 2021
13

She hated it here. Maybe ‘hate’ was too strong a word. Granted, she could appreciate what they did or, in this case, what they were trying to do, but surely it didn’t have to smell like the inside of a retirement home, the mustiness barely disguised by a lavender oil diffuser. Shouldn’t be so glum, though. This was, after all, a session she wouldn’t have to pay for.

The assistant (or the secretary, or the nurse--she didn’t know), Miss Ruett, poked her head out from behind the wall. “Doctor Brown will see you now,” she said, stepping away from the door. Delilah had gotten so used to that kind, but definitely practiced smile that it had almost become annoying, like a lie she just refused to let go of. Nonetheless, she rose from the seat, sunk her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie, and shuffled into the doctor’s office.

Desmond Brown. She couldn’t count on her fingers how many times her eyes had wandered over the variety of degrees dotting his wall. From the bachelor’s to the master’s to the doctorate, psychology and social work and therapy. With each inspection, she was almost made envious despite having never desired to do anything involving psychiatry. She was more practical than that, and in Brown’s position, she’d end up offending someone.

“Good afternoon, Delilah.” He laid his thumb on the thrust of his pen, already invested and intrigued, though she hadn't given him much reason to be. “Sit down, sit down.”

“Afternoon,” she replied, abiding by his suggestion. It wasn’t two seconds after she sat down that Brown began his litany of questions, one after another, as though he were pressed for time.

“How are we? Any issues I should be aware of? Last we spoke, you mentioned you were having a bit of insomnia.” He pressed the pen’s tip against his notepad with a comforting smile on his face. Comforting to some people, she guessed. She’d really have to add ‘forced smiles’ to her list of pet peeves at some point; it was becoming a common theme.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m good.” Brown went to scribble something four words long on his notepad, something she couldn’t read both because it was upside down and because it was written in the infamous font of a medical practitioner. Delilah was certain he couldn’t read it either. If anything, it was just for show. “We both know why we’re here,” she added a moment later, slumping against the couch arm. Brown perked up, same as his bushy brows. “So if you wanna talk about that, go ahead.”

He shifted his weight awkwardly, right to left, then right again. “Maybe so,” Click, clack. “But remember, this is about you, first and foremost. Your well-being is my priority.”

“As dictated by the co-pay that comes out of my account every few sessions.”

He smirked. There’s something she could be proud of. “Okay, okay, another time then.”

“Sure.” She rolled onto her back, propping her sneakers onto the arm of the couch. White converse, dirtied by two or three years of use--sometime around there. She couldn’t help but click the outsoles together in boredom, as Brown mulled over his thoughts. She couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t any way to put it simply.

“I understand your school fell victim to a shooting recently,” he said, his eyes lowered to the floor. Delilah chuckled to herself. Who knew it was so easy to put his career choice into question? “Five dead, thirteen more injured.” He paused to clear his throat. “Did you know any of them?”

She did. None too personally, but she did. There was one named Quinn that she shared a chemistry class with, and another named Taylor that she met at an ice cream social. There was Mason and Luke, Ollie and Foster, Hugo and Patrick, the latter of whom she’d kissed behind the breaker box in elementary. But he was dead now.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t. Lucky me, I guess.” It took her more than a few seconds to realize how insensitive that could have sounded, so she tacked on, “Heart goes out to the unlucky ones, though,” for good measure. Brown looked none the wiser.

“And as you’ve told me, this isn’t your first time. It’s been several years now, correct?”

The memory caused something foul to sink in her gut, anxiety or fear, but most likely anger. “Yeah,” she sounded hoarse, which she quickly remedied. “Back in middle school.”

“I can’t imagine going through something like that twice over. Would you say it's something that weighs on you?”

A dismissive grunt. “I’m used to it.”

“Surely it’s still painful.” He had retrieved his pen and scribbled something down, but she couldn’t catch how many words. “They told me you were in the line of fire, that it’s a miracle you survived.” He paused, drew in a ragged breath, then continued, pressing the ballpoint back against the notepad, “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

She would have laughed if it wasn’t inappropriate to do so. This was less a therapy session and more an interrogation by then, but… one in the same, right? She looked to Brown, hummed in thought, then looked back to her converse.

There were plenty of candidates, such as the quiet kids, the sociopaths, the demented and deranged, people like Piper or Harrison, both gingers with more than a few bolts missing, but they didn’t seem the type to target those who died, those being generally popular kids. This wasn’t any old trigger-happy incident; there was a motivation at play, and she could be certain of that.

She had always done well in criminology and criminal investigation. Any who challenged her in Heads Up Seven Up found they were promptly discovered just by the roughness of their skin, and to have her as a seeker in a game of Hide-and-Seek was a guaranteed loss. A natural talent, as it were. Maybe that’s why she so frequently avoided death at the hands of adolescent gunmen. She frowned at that thought.

Brown looked on with a concerned tilt of his head, asking again, “Anyone?” but she didn’t immediately respond, too captivated by the doctor’s popcorn ceiling. When she looked at it right, it looked like a face, or multiple faces, or a giraffe, or Brown’s ball-shaped head.

“I can think of a few,” she remarked. He was likely anticipating elaboration but got the message when she said nothing else. Another ragged breath, another click, another clack.

“Very well,” He adjusted his spectacles, looking at the notes he had taken (but most definitely hadn’t) to remind himself of something or another. “A motivation, perhaps?”

She rolled onto her side, flattened her cheek against the couch arm, then queried, “Did you ever expect to be interrogating a teenager over a quintuple homicide, Doc?” and with that question, she predicted denial, “it’s not an interrogation” or something like that, but he didn’t. Instead, he smiled; he even laughed.

“I didn’t, no, but it’s been an interesting experience nonetheless.” He lifted the pen to point at her. “Especially with someone like you, Delilah. You’ve always had a unique take on things, and I know that, despite your unwillingness to show it, these things do affect you,” He received an uncertain look, to which he elaborated, “In your own special way.”

She seemed accepting of that answer.

“Anyone can hate someone who stands out,” she started. “And you might think it takes something a lot deeper, something personal, to want to kill them. But it doesn’t. Urges like that come and go, and we’ve always wanted to act on them, but our fists, our knuckles, our bare bones…” She paused to ball up her hands, which had recently emerged from the hallows of her sleeves. “They feel weak, right? But a gun? A pipe bomb?”

“They bring about an illusion of power,” Brown finished.

“Right.” She rolled back over with a smack of her lips, pondering the last few minutes. Brown knew her a lot better than she’d like to admit, which wasn’t too odd. There had actually been times where he spoke to her as a friend rather than a patient. He had covered for gas, for takeout, for other miscellaneous necessities, and she could recall a time when they shared glazed donuts over a chat about boredom, loneliness, and the mortality rate of men compared to women.

Good times, she thought.

“There’s a benefit to blending in,” she said. Brown cocked his head at her, opening his mouth to speak before she interjected, “No one bothers you, no one teases you, no one throws you under the bus.”

“At what cost?” He retorted.

“I’m alive. They’re not.”

A phone alarm buzzed, marking the end of their hour-long session, or so she first assumed. Brown looked as awestruck as she did, though probably for different reasons. Had it really been an hour? It didn’t feel like it.

She muttered something quietly under her breath as she sent a glance at the wall-mounted clock. Thirty minutes until noon. Her suspicions were found warranted once Brown had collected his cellular. He tapped the screen incoherently, then delivered an apology.

“My mistake. A different alarm.”

“What for?”

“A meeting I’ve already postponed, so no worries there.”

“Right.”

They fell into a bout of silence. No eye contact, no interaction, just the clicking-clacking of pens and converse, and the squeak of couch cushions and rolling chairs. Neither spoke a word, not for a long while, and Delilah had to wonder what it was she said that had brought Brown to such a low. Nothing, of course, came to mind.

“How is your mother?” He broke the reticence.

“Same as always.”

“And your father?”

“Still grabbing milk, I’d imagine.” She considered that question for a moment, as he couldn’t help but chuckle. "But you knew that." Never let it be said that Delilah didn’t have a sense of humor, a thing so often taken for granted.

“Of course.” Brown had gone back to scribbling things that Delilah might describe as meaningless. She knew he didn’t need them: the notes, the reminders. It was all up there, in that big, round head of his, or at least that’s what the degrees portrayed. “And your step-father?”

An uneasy smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, her feet stilling inside her shoes. “Ah, yeah.” She rolled back her tongue to emphasize the name, “Keith.”

“Keith,” he repeated.

“Keith.” She paused. “Keith’s fine.” He scribbled that down and she could tell this time. Brown’s K’s were incredibly distinct. So were his J’s, actually. “Any reason we stopped talking about the, uh,” She made air quotes. "Incident?”

“You made your point clear, I thought.” Click, clack. “But if you wish to revisit the subject, we still have…” He slid back, checked his phone, then returned. “Twenty-five minutes. Why? Are you feeling insensitive?” He seemed to chew on that last word.

She didn’t. Maybe a part of her wished it so, but she couldn’t be sure. There was a reason she had a therapist, a legitimate reason. “What I said, I guess, about the cost, I didn’t really mean. But I don’t know. You seemed adamant about squeezing the details from me.” She went back to obsessing over the popcorn ceiling. Now it looked like an eldritch horror, odd shapes twisting into multi-eyed silhouettes.

“You blur the lines,” he replied, which would’ve caught her attention had it not been for the allure of the ceiling. “Though the circumstances are lopsided, I’m not a stand-in for a proper investigator. I’m as much your counselor now as I’ve always been. I listen and offer advice like I always have. Today is no exception.”

Heartwarming.

Delilah said nothing. For once, she couldn’t think of a snarky reply, not immediately anyway, but it wouldn’t be long now. She eyed the ceiling a second longer, tracing out the shape of a griffin, or maybe a hideously-deformed ostrich. “You know these fell out of fashion in the seventies.”

“It’s an old building.”

“Mm.”

They came upon another lull not soon after, another minute of wordlessness, but it proved to be even shorter than the last. “I am curious to know how your mother reacted to all this,” he said, eyeing her inquisitively.

She tried recalling the memory of returning home after a traumatizing day to her mother, the dinner she no doubt prepared, and Keith, who she could really care less about. She tried recalling the flavor of her mom’s signature pelmeni and borscht, but the heat, the meaty splendor she had come to be so fond of, didn’t come to her. Not even her mother’s reassuring words (that she certainly would’ve received) held a presence in the back of her mind. Delilah could only figure her desire to avoid the subject was causing her to misplace things, events, and people.

“You know how Moms are,” she finally said. “I won’t go through the whole spiel, but we, you know, we ate. I don’t remember sleeping at all that night, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Do you think your insomnia has worsened since the incident?”

“Probably. I mean, I don’t remember sleeping in any capacity.”

“You haven’t slept this entire week?” He leaned forward in his chair, bewildered. “Good God, it’s been days since then, Delilah. Are you experiencing hallucinations, delusions?”

“Nope. I haven’t gotten more than four hours of shuteye since I was like… seven or eight," she said, exaggerating, "so I imagine my body’s adjusted by now.”

He shook his head and chuckled, shooting back, “There’s a difference between insanity and evolving into a superhuman,” which pulled a short-lived grin onto Delilah’s face.

“Something like that.”

“Now,” Click. “I don't want to retraumatize you, but would you be willing to describe your recollection of the incident? It may help you to rationalize any feelings you hold on the subject.” He then later added, “Again, only if you feel comfortable enough to do so, but as your therapist, I highly recommend it.”

Delilah appeared reluctant but willing enough to humor him. “I was in the cafeteria. It was our lunch period,” she began. “And I went to use the bathroom, the one by the stairs. That’s when the shots went off.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And we heard it coming from the other bathroom, the one in the hallway on the opposite side. I remember hiding there with, I guess it was someone, in one of the stalls.”

“For how long?”

“Five, ten minutes. Couldn’t look outside, so I didn’t know when a good time to run was.”

“But you did eventually, yes?”

“Yeah,” She made a so-so gesture. “Kind of. I don’t know if my stallmate followed me, but I made a break for it when I found it quiet enough. Turns out, the dude was still patrolling the lunchroom, probably looking for someone in particular. I snuck by, hid out under the stairs for a minute, then ran out through the fire exit.”

He jotted something down. Control, con-something. “What did they look like?”

“The shooter? Uh, orange puffer, denim pants, hiking boots, and a weird ski mask, a black one." She went to nudge her eyelid before drawing her hand back. “And they had this eyeshadow on... to blend in with it.”

When she looked again, there was an inky smudge on her fingers. She jolted, blinked, then found the stain had vanished. Brown studied her, skeptical in a way, which caused her to sink into the back pillows. Her mind was a peeled fruit before his prying eyes. Her secrets, innocent though they were, were easy to access. She sputtered, “I feel sick.”

“Understandable.” Clack.

She stammered, “What do you mean?” But Brown didn’t answer, not properly anyway. Instead, he consulted his notes, the random assortment of letters and words that meant nothing, nothing at all.

Tap. Tap. Click. “Your friend was among those killed. How come you did not mention her?”

“I didn’t know--”

He interrupted, “You spoke of her often, if I recall. She had been your number one since…”

“Second grade,” she finished, her emotions difficult to read. “We met at a camp. Next grade over, we shared a class, then a schedule, then electives.”

“But something happened.”

“No, no. It wasn’t just a thing, it was lots of things. We had boundaries, she crossed them, but I loved her and I overlooked it. I loved her.” Her eyes, pale sapphires now reddened with tears, rose to meet Brown’s dull umbers, begging for repentance without uttering a word. Perhaps she realized, even then, that he knew more than he let on, more than she had. Despite her condition, he appeared unfazed, silently perusing her, her movements, her body language, but she couldn’t quite pin what he was looking for. Clack.

“Now, Delilah, what I’m about to ask you, you must answer truthfully.” He eyed the girl, who gently bobbed her head, with a look akin to a parent who didn’t quite believe their toddler’s alibi. “Why did you kill Naomi Cole?” And though he sat but a few feet away, his voice became like an echo through a long, narrow tunnel.

The question sat uneasily with her despite the answer being so simple, but the more she allowed it to sink in, the more a visceral panic began to claim her, and the more her knees forced her to stand. She asked, “Who are you?” and though she couldn’t hear the words, it seemed Brown had.

“Someone you can trust.” He nodded in the direction of the couch. “Sit. I only want to talk.” But she hesitated. Scrambling feet led her around a room that she no longer recognized, a glance out the window revealing a sun that hadn’t moved an inch since she arrived, and another at the ceiling, now speckled with a cluster of familiar faces, faces that smiled and frowned, that laughed and cried, with glowering eyes that remained locked onto her. And if she listened close enough, the click-clacking of the pen sounded more like a series of droplets than a ballpoint mechanism, like footsteps, or a clock, or rain. Through all her fidgeting, she eventually crashed back onto the couch, confusion outweighing fear.

The answers came eventually, though she yearned not to believe them.

“I was angry,” Click. Her voice faltered, “I guess, but I didn’t, I didn’t--”

“Answer truthfully.”

“I was angry at her. I was so angry. I didn’t know who she was anymore, and she wouldn’t stop using me.”

“And what did you do, Delilah?”

She keeled over then, visibly jittering. “Keith had a safe, and he kept his guns there. I knew the lock. They were both working that morning, so I took a gun.” She lifted a quivering hand, specifying, “A handgun, and I put on his fishing clothes. The mask was mine.” Brown only continued to stare as she curled in on herself, stumbling over her words. "I didn’t go until lunch started. I didn’t go to school.”

“Because you knew she’d be alone.”

“Yes. The bathroom’s the first place she goes during break. It’s where she checks her makeup, her hair, her clothes, whatever else she feels like shaming herself over.” It was apparent some hostilities still lingered, even if she had been given a week to get over it, but it hadn’t felt like a week. It hadn’t even felt like an hour. “I got there, and no one was crowding the halls, not a soul.” She wrapped herself in a much-needed embrace. “Then I--” she choked. “I got to the bathroom and I put on the mask.” Her voice was rendered a whisper. “And I shot her.”

“But she wasn’t the only casualty.”

“No. Patrick, her boyfriend…” She swallowed. “He came looking for her, and he saw me, my face, and he would’ve told them what I did.” Her fists clenched. “So I shot him too.”

“And the rest were collateral, other would-be witnesses.”

She was quiet, a silence only broken by the occasional whimper. She described her recollections as easily as the host, though she felt like little more than a bystander, and that horrified her. She yearned for escape, for solitude, for a happy place, but a feeling, perhaps one born of another mind, made it clear she was right where she needed to be. “I didn’t want to,” she finally answered. “It wasn’t meant to be them.” A choke. “I just wanted her.”

“And yet you escaped, you lived.” He paused to mirror his earlier words. “It’s a miracle you survived,” he said, and the irony stung like venom. “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“But here feels wrong.”

Clack. He folded one leg over the other, his lips stretched into a thin, unamused line. “Let’s rationalize then. Where were you before you came here?”

“I walked here. Mom didn’t take me, so I must’ve walked here. Then I sat down, waited to be called in, like always.”

“Do you remember checking in, or the walk here?” She looked at him uncertainly, not quite confirming nor denying, as he continued. “Earlier this morning? The day before?” Click. “What is today?”

Delilah swallowed hard, nearly choking on her own spit at her sudden inability to recall anything. She looked at the clock again. Thirty minutes until noon. “I--” she stuttered. “It’s-- I don’t know. I don’t know, Doc.”

“Nothing?” But she didn’t answer. He inhaled a breath, scooching closer to call her back to reality. “How did you escape?”

Their eyes met, and for once she couldn’t find the answers. “I ran after-- When I shot, um, and there was this opening, or…” Her knuckles grew white with how tight she clenched them. “I didn’t leave,” and Brown’s eyebrow rose. “I never left, I was too--” and then she stopped. Her complexion turned a sickly pale as her eyes bulged from their sockets. She couldn’t breathe. “I didn’t make it.”

“You didn’t make it,” he repeated.

Blood trickled onto her hands from a wound below her bosom, but she paid it little heed. She asked, "I’m dead?” as innocently as a child mingling with death could. Brown shook his head.

“Not yet. Only dying.”

Silence.

“I was getting my license this month…”

“I’m sorry.”

Clack.

“Is this... the afterlife?”

“Limbo, more like.”

Click.

He moved to check his phone, heaving a sigh. “Delilah?” but there was no response.

Clack.

“Are you ready?”

She did not move, at least not then. “What is it like? Heaven, or-- or Hell, or reincarnation?”

He hummed, then tapped his chin. She could no longer see his eyes through the tint of his spectacles, which made him all the more difficult to read. “Some say it depends on perspective. I myself wouldn’t know; I am, after all, named after the thing I covet, and the dead cannot share their secrets with the living. Death can be simulated, recreated, but never truly witnessed. At least not by the dying.”

She seemed accepting of that answer.

She hoisted herself off the couch and sunk her arms into the hallows of her sleeves, nodding her head. He took her by the cuff and guided her outside his office. She looked at the popcorn ceiling and the ceiling looked back. At last, she was back at the door, the one she hoped would finally allow her to wake up. Brown opened it for her, as he always did, but instead of the seven-spaced parking lot lit by the afternoon light, there was nothing, nothing at all.

“Same time next week?”

She looked over her shoulder, caught between bawling and beaming. “Did you talk to them too?”

His lips formed a knowing smirk. “No.” That was all she needed to hear before departing.

Short Story
13

About the Creator

Andrew Carrington

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