He reaches forward, grabbing the leg of my chair and dragging me sideways, until my chair faces his. He leans forward, his forearms on his thighs, fingers tented as he stares at me. I sit stick-straight, my cuffs not giving me much choice in the matter.

“What’s with the black eyes and the nose?” He moves his hands in a circular motion that brings in his entire face.

I shrug. Try to remember the last time I took a shower. It’s been a while. I hate that this is our first meeting. Had I known, I’d have shaved. Perfumed. Worn makeup.

“Did it happen here? Or before?”

“Before.”

His eyes narrow. I’ve imagined a hundred expressions on this man’s face, yet I was so wrong. He looks nothing like I’ve imagined, yet is beautiful in fifty new ways. “Give me more.”

I shrug. He chuckles. I stare.

“I was just thinking…” He rubs at his lips. “… of all of the times you are silent, on the phone. You’ve probably been shrugging.” He smiles and it is beautiful. Derek smiles. I would have told you it was impossible.

“I do like to shrug.” I smile back at him and we smile at each other and this is the weirdest conversation we’ve ever had. I think, sitting here, three tiny feet between us, that we need the anonymity of a phone line between us. This is too vivid, too personal, too much. I want to dig my fingers in his shirt and press my face into his chest, inhale his scent. Run my fingers along his forearms, along his collarbone, up his neck, through his hair, and mess up the pattern. Bite his earlobe and memorize the sound of his inhale.

“What happened to your face?”

I look at the room’s window. “Is this conversation confidential?”

“Yes.”

I keep my head turned. “I think it was Jeremy.”

“Look at me.”

I don’t, strictly out of principle. When his hand reaches out for my chin, I flinch. Glare at him in offense. It’s bullshit but it works. His face shutters, hand retracts, eyes drop. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t have to look at you if I don’t want to.”

“I know that. I’m sorry.”

I’ve known this man for four years. Have had hundreds of sessions with him. I don’t think, in that course of time, that he has ever apologized to me. I look at him and repeat the answer. “I think it was Jeremy. I have a memory… of Jeremy hitting me.”

“Why did he hit you?”

I frown. “I can’t… I think I was out of control. I think he was trying to calm me. Or snap me out of it.”

“Did it work?”

I smile sadly. “I don’t know. The police showed up the next morning. They say he fell out of my window and was then stabbed six times.”

He leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. Lifts his hands to his head and sets them carefully on top of his hair. I don’t like that. I want to be worth messing up hair for.

“I thought…” His voice breaks. “I thought we had you under control. I thought you were manageable.”

I close my eyes at the disappointment in his voice. Am just as quickly pissed. Pissed that I care that he is disappointed. Pissed that he is making me feel guilty for something I’m not entirely sure I have even done. Pissed that he is convinced of my guilt. Pissed that I am something to be managed. I can’t stop the words, they echo through my mind, a repeating record of what Not To Say, yet I open my mouth and say them anyway.

“You have never managed me. And you have no idea the things I have done.”

His hands drop, then his chin, his eyes slowing opening and finding mine.

I sit before him, hog-tied to that damn chair, and beg him with my eyes for everything.

He looks back, his eyes dead, and gives me nothing.

I close my eyes and turn my head. “Please leave.”

“I’m not leaving, we need to talk about this. What things have you done?”

Things I Have Done… what I had wanted to say was People I Have Killed. “I’m a little vague on visitation rules, but I’m pretty sure you can’t force me to talk to you.”

He sighs. “Deanna, I flew here to meet with you. Just talk to me. Please.” The beg in his voice I like.

“Why did you come, Doc?” I turn my head back to him. He meets my gaze without flinching.

“You told me you lived in Utah.”

I shrug. He’s right, I do like to shrug. Goody for him. “I lied.”

“Why?”

“It’s a protection thing. It’s not safe to share everything.”

“Protect yourself? Or insulate yourself?”

“What’s the difference?”

“I think you insulate yourself. Put lies between you and others. They can’t get too close if there are things about you that aren’t known.”

I stare back at him and wish I had full use of my arms. I’d reach out and dig my nails into his scalp. Mess up that mane of hair in a way that could never be put back orderly. Pompous prick. Good looks can’t make up for being an ass. “I don’t lie to everyone.”

“Really?” He raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t believe me. “Tell me one person who you are a hundred percent truthful with.”

Mike. I think the name but I don’t say it. It is my personal victory, made stronger by the fact that I don’t have to share it, don’t have to boast it. Plus, an utterance of his name will only lead to more questions, and I’m pretty sick of Derek’s face right now. As a secondary concern, I’m not a hundred percent sold on Derek’s proclamation of our conversation being private. The laws surrounding doctor/patient confidentiality have more holes in them than Marilyn Manson’s body. The last thing I need to do is create a big red flag with Mike’s name on it.

I look at his knees, clothed in dress pants. They look expensive. A random outfit to choose to visit a woman in jail. If I were Derek, I’d say he put on stiff business clothes to put a guard up between him and me, to hold me professionally at bay in avoidance of every moment we may have shared that wasn’t strictly professional. Not that there have been many. There’ve been few, actually.

I stood at the window and looked out, my nail scratching absentmindedly on the paint of the frame. A sea of roofs before me, the moonlight reflecting off various metal tops. If I opened the sill, there’d be the faint scent of car exhaust, of city, of the musk of today’s rain, the mist still heavy in the air, dots of the rain on the glass. A pebbled view of the outside world. I live in ugliness, but from my prison, it looks like freedom, and there is nothing more beautiful. I listened to the ring, a soft buzz that went eight times, then ended, his voice clipping through, the message swift and professional. I ended the call and redialed. Listened to the buzz repeat. A light in a building went out. One more soul put to bed. I pressed my hand against the glass and heard the faint sound of a siren. His machine answered again and I hung up. Redialed. Waited.

The third ring was answered, his voice gruff and scratchy, the confused hello and cough of a man roused from sleep. I bet he sleeps like a baby. No crimes to bemoan, no mistakes to lament, no demons to fight. He probably tosses a few times over a misplaced IKEA order, then sleeps the snooze of the perfect dead. I bet his life is boring.

“What’s wrong?” He’s reached out and flicked on a light. Was sitting up in bed and rubbing at his eyes, his vision adjusting on the clock. I reached up and undid a button on my sleep shirt. Paul bought me these pajamas. Said all the ones I wear on camera look incredibly uncomfortable. So I was in flannel. Flannel with baby kittens on it, because he said they reminded him of me. Stupid, yet I was wearing them.

“Nothing,” I said softly.

“Deanna, it’s three in the morning.”

“I know.” I undid another button.

He sighed and I heard a soft thud. Imagined him collapsing back against pillows.

“Are you alone?” I rested my forehead on the glass and looked down. The street was empty, the Quik Mart sign the only illumination on a road whose streetlight bulbs no one bothered changing.