I shake my head. “It’s not that simple.”
She smiles, soft and a little sad. “It never is. But the fear is always loud. The truth is quieter. You have to listen close, Darius. Otherwise, someone else gets to decide who you are.”
I sit with that, letting the air fill my lungs, feeling the weight of every fucked up decision I’ve made in the last two months. “I just… I don’t know what to do.”
She squeezes my hand, thumb tracing the scar on my wrist from the time I fell through the neighbor’s window, age ten, trying to impress a girl. “You know what you saw with your own eyes. You know him. Not the stories, not the pictures, not the fear. Him.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
She lets me sit there, not rushing, just holding my hand and watching the sky go from blue to navy to black.
After a while, she stands, picks up the tray, and says, “It’s late. You should get some sleep.” She leans down, kisses my forehead, and whispers, “Baby, you’ve spent your whole life being the person everyone expects. What do you want? Not what’s safe. What do you want?”
I don’t answer. Not yet.
But as I watch her close the door, I feel something loosen in my chest, a knot that’s been there so long I forgot what it was like to breathe without it.
I stay on the porch until the cold starts to bite, the sky overhead endless and empty and full of every possibility.
For the first time in months, I want something.
And it’s not what anyone else expects.
It’s mine.
———
Back in Seattle, the sky is concrete, the water gunmetal, and the city looks like it’s been left to rust.
My first stop isn’t the apartment, or the rink, or even the new gym. It’s Dr. Sharma’s office, on the sixteenth floor of a building that probably costs more to heat than my entire contract.
The waiting room is empty, so I sit on the pleather couch, staring out at Elliott Bay, letting the chill from the window cut through the sleep deprivation and airplane breath.
She waves me in after five minutes. I drop into the chair, hands jammed between my knees, heartbeat so fast I feel it in my molars.
She doesn’t waste time. “It’s good to see you, Darius.”
“Yeah. You too.”
She adjusts her glasses, clicks her pen, and says, “How can I help?”
I almost lie. Almost say, “I’m fine.” But I don’t. Instead, I start talking. And I don’t stop.
I tell her about Ash, about how I never believed someone could matter this much and still make me want to break things.
About Vincent, about the photo, the way it chewed up every rational thought I had and spat it out as fear.
About the way I shut Ash out, let him take the hit for something that was never his fault.
I talk about Nia, about how I tried to force myself into a life that looked perfect on paper, and about how, in the end, I was the only one surprised when it fell apart.
I talk about my mom, and the porch, and the question she left me with, still echoing in my head, “What do you want?”
Dr. Sharma just listens. No judgment, no interruptions. She lets the silence settle when I run out of words, then says, “I appreciate your honesty.”
I nod, staring at my hands.
She’s quiet for a beat. Then: “If Asher were a woman, and someone told you she was part of a hate group, would you believe it this easily? Or would you go talk to her?”
