Chapter 36
Six weeks in, I finally understood something about myself.
I was not crazy. That might have sounded simple to somebody on the outside, somebody who had never had their name whispered about by family or never had everybody they loved look at them like they were a dog that might bite. But to me, it mattered.
I was not crazy.
I just had some anger issues.
That was what my doctor called them, anyway. Anger responses. Emotional dysregulation. Violence as a “maladaptive coping strategy.” All those long, expensive words meant the same thing to me: people pushed me too far, and sometimes I pushed back too hard.
Was that perfect? No.
Was that my fault entirely? Also no.
That was the part nobody ever wanted to talk about. Nobody ever asked what happened before I exploded. Nobody cared how much disrespect I swallowed, how many times I was ignored, dismissed, embarrassed, lied to. They only wanted to talk about the moment I finally lost it.
But this doctor... he was different. He listened.
Not like some of the other ones, like that nervous little white man who kept looking toward the emergency button like I might jump over the table and chew through his face.
Or like the woman after him, either, the one who tried to tell me accountability had to start with naming the harm I had caused.
I hated her voice, all soft and smug at the same time, like she thought speaking gently made her better than me.
My new doctor never did that.
He sat across from me every session in his expensive shoes and plain dress shirts. The room was always dimly lit and smelled like mint and leather. He spoke low, forever calm and patient. He sounded and looked like a man who had seen worse than me and was not impressed. I respected that.
Maybe that was why I talked to him more than I meant to.
At first, I told him nothing important, just enough to make him think I was participating.
At this point, I knew what they wanted to hear.
Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, I wanted to get better.
No, I did not currently feel like hurting anyone.
Yes, I understood that my reactions had consequences.
Bullshit answers for bullshit questions. But then he asked different questions.
Not “What did you do?”, but “Why did you need to do it?”
Not “How did she feel?”, but “What did you think she was trying to take from you?”
Not “Do you regret it?”, but “What would regret cost you?”
That last one had kept me quiet a long time. I still thought about it sometimes. What would regret cost me? Everything, probably. If I regretted it, really regretted it, then I would have to admit that I was the monster everybody said I was. And I was not.
I was not.
The office door opened. My doctor came in empty-handed, no clipboard, no folder, no tablet.
It was just him, a big guy in a charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. The overhead light caught on the gleaming watch on his wrist. I straightened in the chair before I could stop myself.
He noticed. He always noticed everything.
“Good morning, Chauncey.”
“Doc.”
He smiled a little as he sat. “You seem rested.”
“I slept.”
“For once.”
“Don’t start.”
“I was acknowledging progress.”
That made me lean back. Progress. There was that word again. I tried not to like it so much, but I did. After a year of being moved around, watched, controlled, played with by people who thought they were gods, progress sounded nice.
“I told you I’ve been working on it,” I said.
“You have.”
He said it plainly, no surprise. I nodded once, staring at the framed print behind his desk. It was some abstract mess in blues and golds. Rich people loved art that looked like somebody spilled something.
“So, what we doing today?” I asked.
“Problem-solving.”
I groaned immediately. “Man.”
The doctor’s smile didn’t move much, but I could tell he was amused. “You don't like problem-solving work.”
“I don't like being treated like a child.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“That you equate problem-solving with childhood.”
I rolled my eyes. “See, that’s what I mean. I say one normal thing, and you over analyze it.”
“Is it normal?”
“Is what normal?”
“For frustration to make you dismiss the entire exercise before you understand it?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, because I heard the trap. He did that sometimes, made me catch myself just in time.
He stood. “Come with me.”
I frowned. “Where?”
“To the exercise.”
Two big ass attendants waited outside the door quietly, Ebony and Ivory, I called them.
Usually, seeing guards that close made me tense.
Today, neither of them reached for me. They just stepped aside.
I wasn’t restrained. The doctor walked beside me, not behind me.
Not in front like I was being marched somewhere.
Beside me. That mattered to me, too. I kept my face neutral, but pride moved through me anyway.
They trusted me, or they were starting to.
The hallway went farther than I expected. We passed the regular therapy rooms, the medication station, two security doors, and an elevator that required the doctor’s handprint. The building was bigger than it looked from the patient wing.
“What kind of exercise needs all this?” I asked.
“One designed for clients like you.”
I laughed. “Should I be flattered or worried?”
“That depends on how you perform.”
Something about the answer made me glance at him, but his face was turned toward the hallway ahead.
The final door was a double one—black and wide enough for a small truck to drive through.
One of the attendants entered a code. The doctor stepped forward and placed his palm on the pad.
A lock released with a heavy sound that I swear I almost felt. The door opened.
I stopped.
“What the hell is this?”
The room on the other side was enormous.
Not just large. Enormous. The ceiling rose two stories high, maybe more, and square tiles covered it from wall to wall.
Some showed blue sky, bright and cheerful looking.
Some showed clouds, soft white drifting across gray.
A few were darker, full of imaginary rain.
The floor was smooth gray concrete marked with thin black lines.
Metal panels stood throughout the space at different heights and angles, forming corridors that twisted out of sight.
Some were low enough to see over. Others reached high above my head.
I heard the soft hum of machinery behind the walls.
A maze.
These people had built a whole damn maze.
I looked at the doctor. “You serious?”
“Very.”
“This is what my insurance paying for?”
He chuckled. “You not paying for any of this.”
That answer felt kinda strange, but I was too busy staring at the room.
The doctor walked to the edge of the entrance. “The goal is simple. Find your way out.”
“Out where?”
He pointed toward the far side of the room.
At first, I saw nothing. Then the panels shifted slightly, and a thin slice of light appeared far ahead. It was a doorway, maybe the exit
I smirked at him. My sense of direction was perfect. “That’s it?”
“That's it.”
“There a catch?”
“There are several.”
“At least you honest.”
“Always.”
That made me frown for a second.
The doctor continued. “The maze responds to your choices. It rewards you for thoughtful observation and showing emotional control. It punishes you for being too impulsive.”
“Punishes how?”
“Poor choices make the paths narrower. Better choices widen the way. The ceiling provides feedback, too, if you willing to notice it.”
I looked up at the beautiful blue sky, careful also to take in the clouds and storm.
“You telling me the roof gon’ lead the way?”
The doctor chuckled softly. “You could say that.”
For some reason, that made me laugh, too. The doctor stepped backward.
“I’ll be communicating with you through the intercom. If you become overwhelmed, stop. Breathe, observe, then choose.”
I shrugged. “Sounds easy enough.”
“It should be.”
I looked at him. He smiled again before he left. The door behind me sealed shut. For a second, the sound had me nervous, stomach twisting. I turned, staring at the black door, then forced myself to face the maze again.
No big deal. It was just an exercise. A buzzer sounded. The first row of panels moved, opening a path. The doctor’s voice came through the speakers, smooth and calm. “Begin.”
I walked forward. At first, it was so easy, it was kind of insulting. Left. Right. Straight. The panels slowly shifted every few steps. The ceiling above me was mostly blue as the tiles shifted, a few white clouds scattered through the digital sky.
I smirked. “They made this for children?”
“Confidence is useful. Arrogance is not,” the doctor said.
“Was that a warning?”
“Just an observation.”
I shook my head and took the next turn.
The panel to my left shot up from the floor with a mechanical sound. I jumped back and cursed. The path ahead narrowed by about a foot. The ceiling tile above me dimmed from blue to cloudy gray.
The doctor said nothing. I stared at the ceiling, irritated.
“Okay, fine,” I muttered.
I backed up, took the other turn, and watched the panels ease apart.
The corridor widened. Blue returned overhead. A little satisfaction moved through me.
“Good,” the doctor said.
That made me feel good. I hated that. Still, I kept going, but slowly this time.
At each intersection, I stopped and looked up before moving.
Blue meant right. Cloudy meant wrong. If the path narrowed, I backed out before it trapped me.
If it widened, I followed. The exercise became harder after that, but it was almost fun.
The panels moved around me like the maze was alive, testing me, trying to trick me, but I was figuring it out. The doctor offered less guidance as I improved. When he did speak, it was never too much.
“What changed?”
“Ceiling.”
“What else?”
“Path got wider.”
“What did you do before choosing?”