Chapter 20 Ben #2
“You okay, Ben? Your vitals are spiking,” Dr. Souza said.
“Get me out of this fucking coffin,” I growled.
My breaths were ragged, a familiar weight settling on my chest that I couldn’t seem to push off. A panic attack threatened.
“Get him out!” Mom yelled.
The table beneath me whirred to life and began to slide out of the tube. My arms trembled from the effort to keep still. As soon as I had enough room, I started pulling sensors off of my arms. A lab tech hurried in and undid my restraints.
“Thank you,” I told him, sitting up.
“No problem. I get it.”
Do you? I wanted to shout in his face. How could he possibly get it?
Mom shoved through the door and rushed over to me. She wore open fear on her face. What had she heard the doctors saying?
“Just give me a minute,” I told her.
I jumped off the table. I needed out of this room.
Out of this place. But I couldn’t leave, because the fucking paparazzi were probably parked outside.
Instead, I escaped to a back hallway with windows that faced the Charles River.
The city of Boston spread out before me, the roofs of the low buildings covered in snow, the skyscrapers glittering like jewels in the sunshine.
Dad followed after me, leaning a shoulder against the wall as I paced. He didn’t say anything, just stood there, offering me the steady strength of his presence and turning away anyone else that tried to join us. Including Mom.
“I’ll pay for that one later,” he said.
I paused to look at him. He was tall, still broad like me, though his middle had softened in his retirement.
Three years ago, his hair was as long as mine, but it was thinning some around his face, and he’d decided to cut it.
It was hard to look at him now. Because Zach had kept his hair short.
His skin had been almost as dark as Dad’s.
He’d had the same nose, nearly black eyes, rounded cheeks, and slight indentation in his chin.
If you compared pictures of them from the same ages, they looked like twins.
Seeing Dad now was like seeing the ghost of my brother.
Of what he might have looked like if CTE hadn’t stolen him from us.
Dad’s eyes were pinched, brow creased in worry. What was this like for him and Mom? Waiting to find out if your surviving son might share the same fate as the one you’d already buried seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.
I walked over and hugged him, hard. He squeezed me back. When I pulled away, there were tears in his eyes.
“Whatever happens, Benny, your mom and I are here for you,” he said, clasping my shoulders.
“I know Dad, thank you.”
“And we -” His eyes snapped to something over my shoulder. “Shit,” he said. He never swore. I started to follow his gaze, but he used his grip to keep me facing him. “Don’t look. Keep your head turned and walk back down the hall through the doors.”
“Is someone outside with a camera?” I asked, a slow, steady rage beginning to build within me. We were on the first floor, and with these huge windows, it would be easy for them to film us. They might have caught that whole exchange. They might have been close enough to see my dad crying.
He knew better than to lie to me. “Yes.”
“Still frame or a video recorder?”
“Big TV style camera.”
I stiffened in his grip. “I’ll fucking kill them.”
“No, you won’t. That will only make things worse. Come on.” He threw an arm over my shoulders and dragged me away, careful to shield me with his body.
We hid out in Dr. Souza’s office while the clinic’s security dealt with the cameraman.
It was a small, tidy space with a desk, a computer, several filing cabinets, and enough chairs to go around.
Mom and Dad spoke with my publicist while I sat in the corner with my head leaned back against the wall, trying to keep myself together.
An hour later, Dr. Souza joined us. She was a short, compact Latina woman who spoke with an authority and efficiency that had made me instantly trust her.
She was also detached, clinical, and very obviously a scientist more than a doctor.
I was glad it was her giving us my results.
I couldn’t take the looks of pity and empathy I’d seen from some of her peers.
“Your memory results aren’t what we’d hope for in a man of your age,” she said.
“What does that mean?” Mom asked.
Dr. Souza looked at me as she answered. “My colleague, Dr. Baptiste would like to speak to you further when we’re done here, to go into greater detail about each reading and talk about treatment options. The good news is that your comprehension and reasoning are well within the expected range.”
“Any other good news?” I asked.
She nodded. “Physiologically, you’re fit as a fiddle. We detected no loss of balance or cardiovascular anomalies, and you have good blood flow through your brain when exerting yourself.”
Was that it? Was that really the only good news she had for me?
She turned to her desk and picked up a folder.
“The way you responded to the emotional stimuli does give us some small cause for concern,” she said, turning back to us.
“The speed with which you became angry indicates that your flashpoints are much lower than we would like, but the fact that you didn’t lash out when angered does show promise. We still recommend behavioral therapy.”
“On top of the therapist I’m already seeing?” I asked.
“Yes.” She opened the folder and handed my parents and me a stapled stack of paper each.
I glanced down and caught a few of the headings on the first page: Withdraw, Distract, Reorient, and Reassure.
Mom tried to take my hand, but I put it on my knee instead, worried that I might accidentally break her fingers if I squeezed too hard.
“I won’t beat around the bush with you,” Dr. Souza said. “The MRI and CT scans show signs of past concussions and traumatic brain injury.”
It felt like she’d punched me. I dropped the stack of papers and leaned over, elbows on my knees. Dad reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.
“The PET scan highlighted tau clusters,” Dr. Souza told us. “They’re not as dramatic as a lot of the other cases we’ve seen, but they’re there, and in areas of the brain that would explain your severe bouts of depression and anxiety.”
What she was telling me was that at 28 I was already showing symptoms of CTE.
Beside me, Mom began to sob.
I just sat there, looking down at the crack in the tile beneath my feet, not really seeing it. Not really feeling anything. A numbness had settled into me. Because this was worst-case scenario.
My life as I’d known it was fucking over. The happy, goofy, trusting kid I’d been was gone forever, and God knew what kind of man CTE would turn me into.