Chapter 10 #2
“What do you mean by dreaming or hallucinating?” The question was soft, but not hesitant. All of Dr. Aubrey’s attention was on Dmitrii. The doctor was clearly focused on getting to the heart of his fear.
Oh, Dmitrii didn’t want to answer her question.
He’d avoided a lot of questions by being vague up to this point.
Maybe his only path to get back on the ice was to go through his dysfunctional life.
“I thought my mother was there.” He hoped that would be enough of an answer to get the subject to drop, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case.
“You haven’t said much about your mother.” The chair shifted as Dr. Aubrey repositioned herself again. “You said she was your only family?”
“Yes. I don’t enjoy talking about her.” He tried to deflect the questions about his mother. Maybe, just maybe if he showed enough unwillingness, the line of questioning would end, but part of him knew it wouldn’t.
“You said you dreamt she was there in the hospital?”
“Not the hospital. The … I don’t know, maybe it was the hospital. I kept thinking I was on the ice unconscious and bleeding and that she was there crying because I was hurt.” There was not even a hint of warmth in his words as he scoffed at the very thought of his mother caring.
“If she had been there, would that have been out of character for her?”
The bitter laugh slipped out before Dmitrii even had a chance to think about what that would mean to the doctor. Trying to avoid the subject wasn’t working. The alternative was just to rip the Band-Aid off. “She wouldn’t have shed a tear over me. I kept thinking I was dead.”
The doctor nodded, carefully watching Dmitrii as she gave him a little time either to add onto his statement or to indicate he was done.
His body language was near painful to watch with how tense he looked and how he kept drawing into himself.
Finally, she asked, “Do you feel the people who should have been there for you have let you down?”
“I can’t do this.” Dmitrii turned and walked to the couch where he had left his bag.
She was on her feet in an instant. “I understand this is painful. This is important. These are the things you need to address. These things are crucial to your working through–”
“I don’t care.” Tears were threatening to slip from his eyes.
“Yes, you do.” She never lost the patience in her voice. Her tone only softened more when he sat down on the couch and pulled his knees up to his chest. He was still so young, and sometimes it was easy to forget. Right now, though, he looked like the hurt teenager that he was.
“I don’t want … pity.” The words were muffled as they were near spoken into his knees.
“Pity is not the same as compassion and understanding.”
He nodded, finally doing what he had resisted doing so many times. He reached up to touch the scar along the side of his head. “They had to shave my head. There was a buildup of blood under my skull that had to be drained, and then the stitches. So when I woke up, half my hair was gone.”
“You could grow it back?” She had seen videos and images of him before. He had looked like a model, with dark blond hair falling into his eyes.
It took a moment for Dmitrii to find his voice, but he had to confess.
“If I grow my hair back, if I go back to looking like I did before the accident, they’ll expect me to skate like I did before the accident.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that.
” His fingers continued to trace along the scar.
“Is it easier for you to look different?”
“Maybe. It makes it harder to recognize me. On the first day at the rink when there were other skaters around, no one even knew it was me.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed in a few things to hold it up.
“See, nothing tagged as me in weeks. Had they known it was me, someone would have taken a picture or said something.”
Dr. Aubrey nodded. “Thank you for being honest with me. You deserve this help. The accident was not your fault. There are supposed to be people who keep an athlete from pushing past where they should. I know those measures don’t always work, but you didn’t have people who looked out for you that day.
Had someone stopped you from skating, it would have been putting you first instead of a potential placing at a single competition. ”
Dmitrii felt his shoulders slump as he shook his head. “I need to get better.”
She nodded, standing up to grab a bottle of water from the little fridge and walking it over to him. “Here, you …”
Dmitrii looked up as he took the water, only now realizing that he was crying.
He didn’t open it right away; instead, he just held onto the bottle while looking up.
She had shown so much patience with him.
He knew progress was supposed to be painful, but this felt like maybe some progress.
He’d never been this honest with any of the others.
“You really aren’t going to give up on me, are you? ”
She smiled at that. “No, I’m not. As long as you’re trying, and you are trying so hard right now.”
“Thank you.” It was a phrase he said so often, but right now he meant it. It had been so long since someone hadn’t given up on him.
The session ended, and he managed to pull himself together.
He’d need to be at the rink soon, but first he’d be able to get a little bit of time to relax before he had to be on the ice again.
Maybe part of him felt guilty, but after his session with the doctor, he was exhausted and needed to lie down.