I blink. I know the answer she wants. “Process it. Move forward. Heal.”
Dr. Sharma sets the notepad aside, leans in just a little. “And how’s that going?”
I look her straight in the eye. “It’s a day at a time. I’m managing.”
She nods, like she believes me, but I can see it in her eyes—she knows. She always knows.
There’s a long pause, the kind that makes me itch under my skin.
“Sometimes,” she says, “when something traumatic happens, people compartmentalize. They seal it up so tight they don’t even know it’s there. Until something, or someone, cracks the seal.”
I say nothing. I’ve heard this speech before, from guidance counselors, from coaches, from Nia. Never sticks.
“Do you feel like you’re compartmentalizing?”
I smile for the first time. “If I am, it’s working.”
She gives me that practiced smile again. “If you ever want to talk about it, really talk, I’m here.”
“Thanks,” I say, because it’s what you’re supposed to say.
Dr. Sharma glances at her watch, even though there’s no clock on the wall. “Our time’s almost up. Is there anything you want to ask me?”
I consider it. “Do these sessions ever actually help?”
She thinks about it, doesn’t rush her answer. “Sometimes. But not always right away.”
I stand, smooth my shirt, and thank her again. I make it to the door before she calls after me, “Darius?”
I turn.
“The way you’re managing, it’s impressive. But you don’t have to do it alone.”
I nod, once. Walk out without another word.
———
In the hall, I flex my hands until they ache. I watch the skin, watch the way it stretches and contracts, and for a second I see Cap’s blood again, see the red pooling out, unstoppable.
I shove the memory down. Compartmentalize. It’s what I’m best at.
I take the stairs instead of the elevator. By the time I hit the street, my heart rate is normal, my stride even. No one looking at me would know a thing.
On the walk home, I tell myself the session was a waste of time. That no one can help when you’re already this far gone. That some things can’t be fixed, only endured.
But the echo of Dr. Sharma’s voice follows me all the way back to my building.
You don’t have to do it alone.
I wish she was right.
———
The night of the vigil, the world outside the Steelhawk Center is transformed into something almost unrecognizable, a field of candles, shivering dots of orange fighting against the sprawl of darkness and press of bodies.
Hundreds show up, maybe more, faces pinched by cold and something worse, the hush not a silence but a tension, a held breath waiting for its cue to shatter.
It’s surreal to stand outside a place that’s both a crime scene and an altar, to see the arena’s brutal lines softened by the haze of votive smoke and the endless river of people.
