Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
L uc Woolf watched his students head out of the room, some faster than others. One in particular made a quick rush to the door, glancing at him warily as she went. It surprised the hell out of him to see the woman he ran into—literally—on the street in his class. Surprised, but not shocked. If anyone needed a few lessons in how to manage their anger, he’d bet it was Charlie Jackson of the cool blue eyes and red-hot temper.
Charlie.
Strange name for a woman. Then again, his full name was Lucius so who was he to talk? His mom was a big Shakespeare fan. Played Ophelia in her high school’s production of Hamlet. To hear her talk she’d been born to be on stage. Planned to head straight for New York to make her mark on Broadway after she graduated. But life rarely works out to people’s plans.
Her senior year she met his father, and they were married two months after graduation. She always said it was love at first sight. Luc had a hard time imagining his parents in any kind of loving relationship. His earliest memories were of shouts, crying, begging, and rage.
All standard fair when living with an alcoholic.
There was something the students in his class didn’t realize. Luc took on this class, not because the previous teacher had retired, but because he was the best man for the job. He’d been in their shoes. He knew what it felt like to have a black hole of anger eating away inside you. Consuming every bit of hope and happiness. The helpless feeling that life was out of your control and there was nothing you could do except scream and fight back at the injustice of it all. Until one day he realized what he’d really been fighting was himself.
Growing up in Las Vegas with an alcoholic for a father seemed almost comically cliché. But there had been nothing funny about his childhood. His mom worked three different jobs to keep food on the table and clothes on the back of him and his two sisters. Whenever his dad managed to hold down a job, all his pay went straight back into the bottle.
For a while, Luc couldn’t understand why they didn’t have a nice car or house like the kids he saw on TV. He didn’t understand why he always had to watch his baby sisters while dad got some rest . When he figured it out—at the tender age of eight—the shame and misery started to eat away at him, giving way to a growing ball of fury that lit up his insides like a volcano of rage just waiting to explode.
It would have too. He’d been headed down a dark path. If not for Dr. Malcolm, Luc wouldn’t be where he was today. After one too many brushes with the law, it was either juvie or court appointed therapy. Dr. Malcolm sat with Luc in silence for three whole sessions. Not pushing, not judging. He gave Luc something no one else had ever given him…a choice. Eventually Luc had opened up, feeling safe enough to pour out all his anger, his pain, to a caring ear. It took a while but eventually all that anger and sadness tearing up his insides eased with the coping skills and truths Dr. Malcolm gave him.
After that moment, Luc’s life changed. With Dr. Malcolm’s help he found his calling, obtaining a master’s in psychology from UNLV. He started out in private practices, but recently got a job at the Kismet hospital as one of their resident therapists. When the anger management course supervisor left and they needed a new one on short notice, Luc had jumped at the opportunity to help.
He glanced around the now empty room, checking to make sure nothing got left behind. He waved to Mildred, the woman in the small front office as he left the center and headed down the street to the hospital. It still amused him that he could walk everywhere in this tiny town. He had a car—he had to specifically for the reason he transferred here, but he didn’t want to think about that now—but in the few weeks he’d been in Kismet, he hadn’t used it much. Very different from Vegas. You could walk up and down the strip, but most locals lived out in Henderson. A twenty-minute drive when the traffic was good and in Sin City, nothing was ever good.
He liked the small mountain town he moved to. It was quiet and peaceful. He had noticed a few stark differences from moving to a small town from the city. There were no twenty-four-hour stores here. The light pollution was minimal. Instead of loud music and people shouting, animal sounds filled the air. He’d even seen a deer the other day on the side of the road eating some grass. First time in his life he’d seen a real-life deer. He’d snapped a pic and sent it to his mom and sisters with five exclamation points.
He headed up the steps of Kismet Hospital. The tan, brick building much smaller than the hospitals in Vegas. More of a medical center than a full-on hospital, but in a town this small it worked for the communities needs. As he pushed through the doors, the sounds of chatter and beeping machines hit his ears. As far as hospitals went, Kismet’s seemed fairly quiet. A noticeable difference from the times he’d had to visit the ones back home.
“Hey Luc, how’d the class go?” Dr. Carson Ray asked with a warm smile.
He smiled at Carson. The short, older Black man had been the first person at the hospital to welcome Luc. He tried being professional the first week he was here and called the man Dr. Ray, but Carson had insisted they don’t hold to formalities in Kismet.
“It was good. They’re a tough bunch, but I think I can help them.”
He hoped. That’s one of the reasons he took this job. He loved being a therapist. Helping people get to the root of what was hurting them was his life’s work.
“I’m sure you will. Dr. Malcolm gave you a glowing recommendation. Said we’d be fools not to bring you out here.”
Guilt tugged, pricking a small corner of his gut. A part of him hated leaving his practice in Vegas, but his mentor retired this past year, and his mom had asked him to come to Denver for…personal reasons. He’d agreed. But he hadn’t wanted to go to another urban area. Honestly, he’d been getting burned out. Kismet Colorado was less than an hour outside Denver. Close enough for him to fulfill his obligations to his family, but small enough to give him the break he desperately needed. Lucky for him Kismet had been in need of another hospital therapist.
It almost seemed like fate. If one believed in that. Luc did not. He believed a person made their own way in life and if you saw a good opportunity you jumped on it with both feet. He saw. He jumped. And here he was.
“Hi Luc,” Nina said.
“Luc, how’s it going?” Dean nodded in greeting.
He smiled at Nina Hernandez and Dean Adair, two of the nurse admins working the front desk today. “Having a wonderful day, and yourselves?”
“How’d class go? I heard Apple Blithe is in the class again.” Nina winced. “That woman scares me.”
“That’s because you’ve only lived here two years,” Carson chuckled, checking off something in the chart in his hands and handing it over to her. “You need about ten years of Apple before the fear starts to wear off and you see the softie underneath.”
“I told her she needed a booster shot the other day and she threatened to shove the needle up my backside if I tried to stick her with anything. And I’m politely paraphrasing.”
He chuckled along with Carson. That did sound like something the cranky woman in his class today would have said.
“That was your first mistake,” Dean waved a finger at Nina. “I warned you Apple hates shots.”
“The woman is in her eighties, she needs her boosters to stay healthy,” Nina threw her hands up in exasperation.
“True,” Carson nodded. “But with Apple you need to give to get. A little quid pro quo . Next time offer her a sugar free candy before the shot. She’s much more agreeable with bribery.”
“She’s a grown woman, not a child,” Nina grumbled.
In Luc’s experience, adults were often worse than children when it came to doing what was good for them. Medically and mental health wise.
He chuckled at the exchange. “I just met her, but I could see Ms. Blithe making that threat. I find it odd that’s not on her list of offenses for the class.”
Nina waved him off. “Honestly, she’s not the worst patient I’ve ever had. How’s the rest of the class looking? Or has Apple scared them all off?”
Considering everyone in there was required by the courts to be there or incur heavy fines/jail time he doubted Apple’s sour attitude would cause any of them to bailout. The woman talked a big game, but she seemed harmless. Just old, tired, and cranky.
“I think it’s a good group.” No one seemed particularly dangerous to him, but he wasn’t going to let his guard down. People could always surprise you with their hidden rage. “The boys might be a handful, but they settle down pretty quickly.”
One dark look from him and those teens had been shaking in their jeans. They didn’t really have anger issues anyway. Just the folly of youth.
“The stage mom’s a bit scary.”
“Kim?” Dean asked.
He nodded.
“Yeah, she’s been kicking up a lot of fusses lately. If she’d just leaving that cheating sonofabitch, I think she’d fare much better.” Dean shared a frustrated glance with Nina.
He agreed, but you couldn’t tell a grown person what to do. No matter how much their current situation hurt them. He bet if Mrs. Holt got rid of her harmful husband, a lot of her anger would melt away.
From only one session he’d been able to get a general idea of each student’s issues, the emotional hit point. Each student, that was, except for…
“What’s the deal with Charlie Jackson?”
The hospital staff glanced at each other. Nina’s eyes widening.
“Oh shit, I forgot Charlie was in the class.”
Dean tried and failed to hold back a smirk. “Guard your family jewels, dude.”
“Guard my what?”
Carson scowled at the nurses. “She’s not that bad.”
“Tell that to her ex’s car,” Nina scoffed.
“Or Danny Stevens.” Dead leaned in close to whisper. “One time in middle school she beat the shit out of him.”
She did what to who now?
Carson held up a hand. “Danny deserved the broken nose for being a little prick who thought he could grab a girl’s breast without her permission. I don’t care how old you are, that is not okay.”
“Sounds like the kid deserved it.” Nina nodded.
“I always did hate that guy,” Dean agreed.
Hmmm, it seemed Charlie’s defensiveness went far back. Of course, punching a guy for touching you without permission was less an anger issue and more kick ass. A smile tugged at his lips. Ms. Jackson likes to kick ass and take names it would seem. Now why the hell did that intrigue him so much?