Page 22 of Physical Therapy

“Please.”

Boe rises from the seat, rounding it to stand at his office window. Venetian blinds shield the mid-morning sun from his phone, allowing me an uninhibited view of him while he appears to mull the topic over, hands slung in his pockets.

“My father swindled people out of their money,” he states, still with his back to me. “He was the reason for more than a few family breakdowns within our town.”

I push my laptop off to one side in order to better take notes. I’ve struck gold—as if I’d interrupt him now. My job from here in is to simply observe.

“Understandably it left some of the kids at school with a sour taste in their mouth when it came to sharing a class with me.” He runs a hand over his head and then places both on his hips. “One little fuck would target me, daily. I was around eleven at the time. He’d been picking on me on and off for about four years when it boiled over.

“To cut a long story short, I went home upset to my mom. Granddad happened to drop by while I was in tears telling her about it all, and he flipped his lid. Mom intervened, and when he directed his anger at her, I lost it.”

“You started the fight?” I clarify.

Boe shakes his head, slowly returning to his seat as he continues. “I shoved him, but he was, of course, a lot larger than me. He said ‘You want to be a man? Then you need to fight like a man.’ In his mind, teaching me to box was how you dealt with bullies. Fight violence with violence.”

“That never ends well,” I empathize. “Especially with children.”

He nods, an unusually stoic look on his face. I’ve seen him cocky, stern, and smug. But this? It’s the most genuine I’ve seen Boe Johanssen to date.

“You can’t blame this on him though.” He entwines his fingers in front of the screen, blocking his face slightly. “He was doing what he thought was right.”

His respect for the man interests me. It alludes to a much deeper relationship. I’d place money on Boe spending as much time, if not more, with his grandfather than he did with his father.

“Tell me about school,” I ask. “You mentioned the bully, but how were your days otherwise?”

“I kept to myself mostly.”

“And college?”

The twitch is slight, but I catch it. “I didn’t go.”

Of course, I already knew that with the background report I drew up. I purely wanted to see how he’d react to what he probably perceives as a weakness.

“By choice?” I press.

His darkened eyes bore straight through the device, sending a shiver racing across my flesh. “No.”

Boe’s father was charged his final year of high school. The trial would have upset the entire family’s day-to-day goings-on.

“How many more questions are there?” Boe drops his head, fingers knitted in his dark hair.

I sense that I’ve forced him to delve into memories he’s kept buried for a long time. Memories he’d rather forget.

“We can wrap up early today. Split the rest of the session on to another day.”

“Yeah.” He straightens, staring off over the screen. “Okay.”

I open my mouth to say more, yet he kills the call. I take a moment to pause before gently shutting the laptop. My notes are scrawled across the page, random groups of words with lines connecting my thought patterns.

Boe is a complicated man—that much is true. But I think I may have been wrong with one of my early assumptions.

He knows exactly what it is he runs from. Exactly what it is he avoids.

And perhaps, his reasons for refusing to tell me aren’t so arrogant after all?

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