Chapter Eleven #2
“More specific.”
He looks annoyed now. “A kid.” He exhales. “Like five or six.”
“Who said it?”
“My father.”
“What happened?”
His eyes go past me then. Not far. Just enough that I know he is looking at something in his head and deciding how much of it to give to me.
“My sister annoyed me,” he says. “I responded.”
“That is very vague.”
“Yes.”
“And deliberately so.”
“Yes.”
I let out a slow breath. “You realize that if I have to pry every piece of information out of you like this, your three-month timeline becomes even less realistic than it already is.”
That brings his eyes back to mine.
“There it is,” he says.
“What?”
“You keep saying it like I don’t already know.”
“I’m saying it because maybe repetition will help.”
His mouth tightens a little.
Good. Let it.
“This is what a first session is,” I say. “It’s not magic. It’s not me looking at you once and diagnosing you like some kind of psychic trick. I gather information. I look for patterns. I figure out whether you have any capacity for self-observation that isn’t just performance.”
“Do I?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
That affects him exactly the way I mean it to.
He goes still.
Not angry. Not yet. But attentive in a more focused way, like I finally said something worth holding in his teeth.
“Then decide,” he says.
“I am.”
He studies me for a second, and I am suddenly very aware of the fact that we are doing exactly what he dragged me here to do. Not well. Not cleanly. Not under anything resembling ethical conditions.
But still.
We are here, in a shaded cabana on a beach that should belong in a brochure, circling the origin point of whatever fracture in him brought me to this island.
Absurd.
Completely absurd.
I ignore the thought and keep going, shifting gears.
“Tell me about anger in your family.”
That one surprises him.
I can tell because his brow shifts a fraction before smoothing out again.
“What about it?”
“Is it tolerated? Encouraged? Punished? Does it depend on who’s expressing it?”
His gaze stays on me for a beat too long before he answers. “Depends on whether it’s useful.”
There.
That is a real answer.
“And when is it useful?”
“When it gets the right result.”
“According to whom?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Whoever’s in charge.”
“Which means your father.”
“Yes.”
“And soon you.”
His face does not move, but something darkens behind it.
“That’s the idea.”
I write that down too.
He notices everything I write, even though he tries not to show it. Not because he’s vain.
Because information matters to him. Records matter. Language matters. I suspect he understands better than most people the power of what gets written down.
I look up again. “What do you think anger is for?”
He answers that one faster. “Clarity.”
That makes me pause.
“Explain.”
“It cuts through bullshit.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“Or does it just make you feel justified?”
A harder silence this time.
He leans forward slightly, forearms braced on his knees now, no longer even pretending to lounge. “You ask questions like you already know the answer.”
“No,” I say. “I ask questions like someone whose job it is to tell the difference between explanation and excuse.”
His gaze locks onto mine.
For one second, I get the sharp impression that under different circumstances, in a different room, with different stakes, this would be the exact moment another patient might lash out.
Not necessarily physically. Some other form of rupture.
Deflection. Mockery. Withdrawal. Threat.
Vito does none of those things.
Instead, he says, “You think I use anger as permission.”
“I think it’s possible.”
He sits back again slowly. “Maybe.”
Another real answer.
Not enough, but real.
I make a note, then close the notebook for a second and rest both hands on it.
He notices that too. “What?”
“I’m deciding whether you’re more invested in being understood or in staying difficult.”
That draws the faintest almost-smile. “Maybe both.”
“Possibly.”
The heat is building even under the shade now. My jeans are a bad choice, and I know it.
Sweat gathers at the base of my spine. The notebook paper feels slightly damp beneath my fingers from the humidity. Somewhere out on the water, sunlight flashes so bright it almost hurts to look at.
I’m irritated by the heat.
I’m irritated by the setting.
I’m irritated by how fascinated I still am.
“Let’s try this differently,” I say. “When you say impulse control, are we talking about violence specifically?”
His pause is answer enough before he ever speaks.
“Not specifically.”
“But that’s part of it.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
When he doesn’t respond, I continue. “Sex?”
His gaze cuts to me, then away.
Interesting.
“Sometimes,” he says.
I don’t react outwardly, though I feel the answer take up space between us.
“Spending?”
“No.”
“Risk-taking?”
“Yes.”
“Substances?”
“No.”
“Sleep?”
He looks faintly annoyed. “What about it?”
“Do you sleep enough?”
“No.”
“How little?”
“Varies.”
“Nightmares?”
A pause, then, “Yes.”
I let that go for now.
Somewhere inside me, the neat clinical structure of a real intake starts assembling itself out of fragments whether I want it to or not.
Violence. Risk. Sleep disruption.
Family pressure. Identity fused to succession.
Anger treated as useful if it produces desired outcomes.
There is a map beginning to sketch itself in faint lines.
Not enough. Nowhere near enough.
But something.
I say, “Do you ever feel remorse after the fact?”
That one he dislikes immediately.
I can tell because his whole expression cools.
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When it’s warranted.”
“That sounds selective.”
“It is.”
I study him for a moment, then lay it on the table for him.
“There’s something specific,” I say. “Maybe more than one thing, but something for sure. Recent enough that it’s still close to the surface. Something you haven’t told me yet because it matters too much.”
He says nothing.
I continue anyway. “You don’t have the general feel of a man suddenly worried about his own temperament for abstract reasons. This is attached to something. Someone, maybe. An event. A consequence.”
His eyes are on me now with a kind of narrow stillness that would make most people stop talking.
I am not most people, and he’s not the first violent man I’ve sat across from.
“Am I wrong?” I ask.
“No.”
Another real answer.
My pulse ticks up despite myself.
Not from fear this time.
From proximity.
This is where the work starts getting interesting.
I force that thought down immediately.
Interesting is not the point.
Survival is the point.
Stability is the point.
Getting through this intact is the point.
But still.
“What happened?” I ask quietly.
His jaw sets. “It’s not important.”
“It is,” I respond. “In fact, it might be the most important.”
He just shakes his head, and it’s obvious I’m not getting it today, but that’s not the end of it.
“Why don’t you want to tell it?”
“Because I don’t know what you’ll do with it.”
I hold his gaze. “I’m a psychologist.”
“You’re a captive.”
The words are blunt and harsh. A defense mechanism.
And because they’re true, they do more damage than shouting would have.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
The breeze moves through again.
One of the tied-back curtains stirs and settles.
I become abruptly aware of the notebook under my hands, the heat, the salt in the air, the fact that we are perched inside a fiction of normalcy so complete it would almost be funny if it weren’t built on violence.
I say, “You can’t ask me to do this and then remind me that I’m not here by choice when I reach for something real.”
He looks away first. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The frustration inside me sharpens.
“So what exactly do you want from me today? Because thus far, you’ve given me fragments and a timeline.”
“I wanted to start fixing me.”
“We have started.”
“We’re circling.” A faint line appears between his brows.
I recognize it now as one of the few tells he actually has.
Good to know.
“First sessions are usually like that.”
“We don’t have time for that. You’re supposed to fix me. You’re a doctor.”
I almost laugh.
“You have a very warped idea of how much authority that gives me here.”
“Use whatever authority it gives you.”
That answer stays with me for a second.
Use whatever authority it gives you.
It sounds like permission, but it isn’t. Not really.
It’s bait and boundary at the same time. He wants help, but on terms he can still bear. He wants me to be active, but not dominant. Useful, but not too comfortable.
I say, “Fine. Then here’s my first real assessment.”
He waits.
“You do not strike me as a man with an impulse problem.”
His gaze sharpens.
“You strike me as a man with a pressure problem. A containment problem. Maybe a violence problem, yes, but not in the sloppy sense. You think ahead too much for that. You plan too well. Which means whatever happens when you go too far probably happens after a great deal of build-up, not because you’re incapable of thinking. ”
He says nothing.
The silence tells me enough to continue.
“I think your issue may be less that you can’t control yourself and more that you don’t intervene early enough in yourself. You let things build. You justify. You endure. You keep stacking pressure until you hit a point where action feels more right than restraint.”
He’s completely still now. Listening.
I press on.
“And because the actions work in the immediate sense—because they solve something, clarify something, end something—you’ve built a relationship to them that is more complicated than simple regret.”
Still nothing.
Then: “That’s a lot from one conversation.”
“Yes.”
“Are you right?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The line between his brows deepens slightly.
I can almost feel the answer he wants and the one he hates not getting.
“So that’s it?” he asks. “You make a few observations and write them down?”
“This is the first session.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep acting surprised.”
I open the notebook again and jot down three more lines while he watches.
After a second, he says, “You haven’t told me anything useful.”
That makes me look up.
“I just told you several useful things.”
“You told me impressions.”
“That is what first sessions are built on.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
He gets up abruptly and walks to the open side of the cabana, stopping just short of the sand.
Not storming. Not pacing. But there is unmistakable agitation in the movement, and I note that too.
The ocean throws light against his face in fractured pieces. His shoulders are tight.
He stands there with his back half-turned to me and says, “This isn’t going to work.”
I close the notebook and set it beside me. “What exactly were you expecting by lunch on day two?”
He turns back. “Something.”
“We did get something.”
“Not enough.”
“Of course not enough.”
He comes back toward the seating area but doesn’t sit this time. “We didn’t accomplish anything.”
There it is.
The frustration.
Not loud. Not explosive. But real and finally visible.
I hold his gaze. “That is not true.”
“It feels true.”
“That’s different.”
His mouth tightens. “We’re never going to get anywhere at this pace.”
I sit a little straighter and tell him, very deliberately: “I told you this process takes years.”
“I don’t have years,” he snaps. It’s the first time I’ve heard him use this tone. The air of impatience swirls around him as he turns and moves to the end of the cabana again, and it’s the first time I get a real look at it.
Then it’s gone. He lets out a breath, his shoulders relax, and even the air around him seems to calm.
Remarkable. Impatient, yes, but exquisite control over it. The way he reins it back has even more questions swirling in my mind.
Finally, he turns back to me, his expression calm again. “This needs to get done in three months.”
There it is again, the deadline.
And this time, I hear something besides determination in it.
Urgency.
I look at him and ask, “What happens in three months? That’s… mid-to-late-July? What happens then?”
The same question.
But this time I ask it knowing more.
Knowing there is something there he is guarding harder than the rest.
Something that makes the timeline real in a way he keeps refusing to explain.
He answers exactly the way he answered before.
“That’s all the time I have to dedicate to this.”
Lie.
I know it the second he says it.
Not because I know what the truth is yet. I don’t.
But because I know the look people get when they give you the prepared answer instead of the real one.
I know the slight flattening of affect, the preselected wording, the way the words are too calm and clean after a moment of genuine frustration.
There’s something else.
Something behind the deadline.
Something fueling it.
Something big enough that even he, with all his planning and strange patience and rigid certainty, can’t let me touch yet.
I look at him, standing there in the filtered sunlight at the edge of the cabana, and feel that dangerous spark of curiosity rise again, brighter than before.
Not because I’ve forgotten where I am. Not because I’ve forgotten what he did.
But because now I know for certain that the three months are not arbitrary.
And I am determined to find out what’s really waiting at the end of them.