Page 133 of My Debacle with De Lorenzo

February 05, 2027

Anger management therapy: Session #8

The level of tension slowly creeps up as the silence stretches on. Dr. Burkman looks at me, then at her, and neither of us volunteer a single word. It’s different now that she knows. I can feel it. Her eyes drift to me every few seconds, but I keep looking down, delaying the moment that I have to face her because I don’t know what I’m going to find.

After three minutes of wordlessness, Dr. Burkman forces the conversation forward. “Dylan, how are you feeling right now?”

I don’t make eye contact with our therapist when I answer. “I feel...raw and exposed...and I feel like I lost something I can never get back.”

She waits to see if I have anything to add and when I say nothing more, her focus moves to Isabella. “And what about you? How are you feeling?”

Bella sits there motionless, trying to absorb the shock. Without a word of warning, she pushes her chair back and stands. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

She heads toward the door and I’m already up, hopping over her chair to get to her. I slam the door shut as she opens it, trapping her inside the room with me because if I can’t escape this anymore, neither can she.

“No, no, you’re not leaving,” I bite out. “You wanted this. You kept asking for this. It took fucking everything in me to tell you that. You’re not leaving until you at least have it out with me.”

She remains quiet, refusing to look at me.

“Dr. Burkman, can we have a few minutes alone, please?”

I make the request without shifting my eyes from the woman in front of me. Dr. Burkman stands up and I open the door only enough for her to exit before closing it again.

“You wanted this,” I say again, my voice thick and hoarse. “You wanted access to the other rooms. Take a look around. You like what you see?” I wait for her to say something, but she just stares blankly at the desk. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“Because I don’t know who the fuck you are,” she snaps, those amber eyes finally lifting to meet mine. “How do you hide something like that for so long? You laugh and joke around...How do you shut that off and carry on with life like you’re okay?”

“I am okay. That shit didn’t happen to me. It happened to my sister. I have to deal with the after-effects, but I, me, Dylan?I’m okay. I’m a whole person with thoughts and feelings of my own. I’ve had to learn to compartmentalize because I’m more than Dana’s big brother. I have to be bigger than that one aspect of my life, otherwise it’ll consume me, it’ll drive me insane. And what good am I to her if I’m a mess myself? Does it tear me up inside? Yes. It still does.Allthe time. But I can’t spend my whole life fighting demons. I need to live, too.Mylife.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you tell me the real reason you hated me drinking so much? If I’d known why you made such a big deal about substance abuse, I would’ve?”

“That wasyourjourney. You needed to do what was best for you.”

She’s still struggling to keep eye contact. “If you had told me, I could’ve been there for you. I would’ve compromised more and been more understanding. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time arguing about silly things when you had more important things to worry about. I wouldn’t have put all my emotional burdens on you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Seriously?” The irony of her statement has my eyebrows drawing together, and I wait to see if she can piece it together. She’s usually good at that, but today she can’t seem to figure it out. “Are you honestly standing here telling me you would’ve given me a watered-down version of yourself...and then asking me why I didn’t tell you in the same breath? That’s why. I wanted you with all your spunk and your attitude. I wanted the fights and arguments. Don’t you get it? I didn’t want you to be compromising and understanding. I wanted you to be real with me and you were. I just wanted something normal, and you gave me that. That’s all I needed.”

“And what about what I needed, Dylan?!” She stops and tries to calm down, not knowing whether to show anger or compassion. When she speaks again, her tone is clipped but controlled. “These secrets tore us apart. That’s the reason we ended.”

“No, you’re the reason we ended.You. Let’s not mince words here. That was all you. I didn’t get a choice. You let your insecurities get the better of you and you made that decision by yourself with no regard for what I wanted.”

She shoves me hard enough for me to take a step back. “It was always about what you wanted,” she hisses, and for a second, that fire reignites in her eyes. “When did you have any regard for what I wanted? You didn’t give a damn about me. Did I get a choice when you disappeared and switched your phone off? No.” She shuts her eyes and shakes off her annoyance. “We’re arguing about things that happened nine years ago. I don’t care about any of this stuff anymore. I wiped my hands clean of you and all your secrets. You and I are done. There’s no point in rehashing a past we can’t change.”

What the hell was that? Talk about watered-down. When she lashes out like that, the aim is to hurt me, or at the very least, piss me the hell off. I don’t entertain crazy, so she never achieves her goal, but that’s beside the point. She uses her words as a defense mechanism and she goes off at me, ranting non-stop, calling out all my shit and then some.

I can see the pain and the anger that lies beneath those words, but she’s going easy on me today because this new information has made her put her kid gloves on. She wants to hurt me but not too much because my feelings need to be protected all of a sudden.

Fuck that. The dynamic we have is what makes usus,and I refuse to lose it. I’ve lost too much already. I don’t care what it takes to get it back, I’m going to get it back.

“Done?” I ask sarcastically. “Completely done?”

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