Page 21 of Michael's Awakening
“Are you having nightmares again? About your mother?” Dr. Chase tried to reach me again with a different approach.
“To use the word ‘again’ would mean that they had stopped. Which they haven’t. So, yes, I’m still having them. That’s not what’s bothering me, though.”
I lifted my gaze from my lap and looked out the window.
The leaves on the trees had changed to vibrant shades of oranges and reds. I watched as the morning breeze ruffled them and caused a few to fall off the branches and glide to the ground below.
“So, you admit that there is, indeed, something troubling you.”
I looked back at the psychologist and inwardly groaned.Fuck, should have kept my mouth shut.I’m paying for this shit, I might as well talk. “Yes, and no. I don’t really know. I… I met someone over the weekend.”
Dr. Chase stared at me with a curious expression, which I had grown to refer to as his ‘I’m about to break out some psycho-babble bullshit’ look.
“Do you want to tell me about him?” He lifted his pen and prepared to take notes.
I informed him around the time I’d begun talking to him about my past that I was gay. It was a part of me I didn’t intentionally hide, but I had never told anyone else that fact. I didn’t want the close-minded intolerance of the men I worked with to jeopardize my job.
I sighed. “There’s not much to tell. I met him, fucked him, and then left him. That’s it.”
“That’s notit, if you are still thinking of him. Do you want to see him again?”
My stomach turned at his question. Of course I wanted to see Gabriel again. When I returned home Saturday night, I did nothing except think about him. And on Sunday, I did nothing except jerk myself off while thinking of him.
Taking my silence as confirmation, Dr. Chase continued, “You have already grown so much over the past few years I have known you, Michael. You have taken the horrible abuse you have lived through and turned it around into something positive.”
I cut my eyes at him, even though I knew he was right.
I had become a criminal prosecuting attorney because I wanted to help put the sadistic assholes of this world behind bars and prevent them from hurting anyone else. Sure, not every case I handled was to that extent, and some of the criminals weren’t that bad, but it always felt great when the really bad ones went away.
“Seeing him again is out of the question, Doc.” I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at the time. I only had a few minutes left in this session and then I had to leave for work.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he is too good for me.” The response was automatic and I snapped my mouth shut after the revelation.
“Michael, what happened in your past was not your fault. Your mother was a very twisted woman. Don’t punish yourself because you are fearful of whatmighthappen. This man that you met, who isn’t to say that he wouldn’t accept you for who you are?”
His words touched that part of my chest that tugged and pulled whenever I thought of Gabriel. What if he really could see past my scars? What if he really could want me even though I was nowhere near perfect?
The time on the clock flashed to 9:00 and signaled that the session was over. Standing up, I shook Dr. Chase’s hand. “Have a good day, Doc.”
I started walking out the door but stopped when he called back to me. “Michael, please think about what I have told you. I not only said it as your psychologist, but as your friend as well.”
I halted in the doorway, but didn’t say anything. After he spoke, I nodded and walked the rest of the way out.
