Darius

( chapter 2, part 5… )

I haphazardly placed the magazine I was holding in my hands back onto the coffee table, getting up from my seat hurriedly.
I did not question my mother’s request, just nodded demurely without glancing at Darius despite the fact I could sense that he had also gotten up from beside me.
My parents stood to the side to allow me access past them back into the office study of Dr. Krocker.
I entered the room once more with trepidation in my footfalls. Despite this being the second time to enter his office, the atmosphere had changed dramatically without words being spoken. I shut the door behind me as I entered and sat back down in the chair facing Dr. Krocker’s desk. His demeanour seemed to have changed, no longer one of cheerful understanding but one of professional curiosity with a solemn conviction etched upon his serious face.
“Drew,” he stated with a slight nod of the head after I had sat down. “Do you recall your fifth birthday?”
Whatever I expected, I did not expect that question.
“I don’t,” I replied simply, knowing to myself that I had no recollection of that year in my life.
“I suspected as much,” he said without implying what he was thinking.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked with a hint of wariness at the answer he might give.
“No reason. Have your parents ever told you anything about it?”
I just looked at him blankly before shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head in reply.
Dr. Krocker seemed slightly perplexed as he sighed deeply before exhaling and he looked to have made up his mind.
Darius was beside me, glaring at Dr. Krocker cautiously, his arms folded in defiance as if daring the doctor to say something.
“Against my better judgement, they felt it was time for you to know that portion of your life. I have thought it over what they have divulged to me and I must say I have no alternative but to respect their decision,” Dr. Krocker said in an almost roundabout way that made me even more anxious as to what he was about to say.
Dr. Krocker seemed to perceive my uneasiness, granted I was not really hiding my emotions well at all upon my face.
With another outward sigh, he stood up from his desk and looked determined.
“Drew, I know how you must feel and I wish I could spare you this news. But I just have to admit this truth to you whilst your parents wish it to be out in the open. Drew, you were not always a girl. You were born a boy and your name was Darius,” Dr. Krocker announced, his voice distinct and precise as afterwards an awkward silence lapsed between the two of us.


End of Chapter 2.


( to be continued… )
 
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( chapter 3, part 1… )


Chapter 3: The Truth

I just sat there silently, my head reeling at trying to process what Dr. Krocker had just said to me. I could not help but feel an overwhelming sensation within my head and felt a silent scream inside of me.
It was barely twenty seconds until I realised that the screaming from within was being uttered by Darius beside me, a scream that had no intelligable words until I registered him fully beside me.
“What does he mean, Drew? Am I you or are you me? Who am I? Who am I? WHAT ARE WE?!?” Darius uttered within a frenzied rage, tears streaming down his cheeks in confused desperation as he curled up in a ball and rocked himself back and forth upon the wooden floor of Dr. Krocker’s office.
I glanced away from Darius as my mind had yet to fully comprehend any of the Doctor’s words fully. I balefully just slumped my head to glance at my hands in an effort to shut my mind blankly in this inner turmoil I had to face fully.
“Drew, did you hear what I said?” Dr. Krocker asked me sharply that made me stumble out of my mind stupor and looked at him with a vague sense of reality.
“I heard,” I muttered meekly, my own voice sounding strange to me.
I was born a boy? But, how can that be? I do not remember anything past my fifth birthday, only that I had one. There was just no memories before that. Before I knew it, I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks, feeling the need to release these conflicting emotions I suddenly felt. I could hear the frustrated sobbing of Darius still on the floor beside me as he was crying along with me in this turbulent moment of our lives.
Dr. Krocker just stayed silent as he sat back down in his office chair, apparently sympathetic to my need to let the emotions out.
I did not stop, letting the whirlwind of emotions in my head overwhelm me to suddenly stop as soon as they had come. After my crying had stopped and the rage and confusion subsided, a sudden peace of clarity swept within my body. If all was true, then that meant I was Darius and Darius is me. We are one and the same, though why he appeared before me was still a mystery to me.
“Why can I see and hear him?” I suddenly heard myself speaking directly to Dr. Krocker with a soft yet level tone in my voice that slightly frightened myself.

( to be continued… )
 
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( chapter 3, part 2… )

Dr. Krocker did not answer me right away. He gazed at me before replying in a careful and meticulous manner.
“There is no right answer to that question, Drew. But I suspect it had something to do with your fall in the woods. But do take it as merely a theory, as I said so earlier, I am not a medical expert,” Dr. Krocker stated with a laid back sitting position within his chair.
I just nodded in response, half listening but got the gist of what he said in my mind as a simple “No clue” in my brain.
“Will I be…normal?” I hesitated to ask, but felt the need to ask the question as soon as it entered my mind, feeling immediately ashamed at how I phrased the question.
“Normal is hard to define, Drew. You are still whom you are meant to be,” he responded almost immediately, surveying me as if trying to grasp what I was thinking.
‘He is a psychologist after all,’ I thought instantly whilst mentally rolling my eyes at my dumb thought to myself about a psychologist analysing me.
“Ask him why I ain’t whom I am meant to be, Drew,” Darius suddenly piped up next to me, having stopped crying and gotten up off the floor minutes before as Dr. Krocker and I were talking together.
I haphazardly thought about it for a split second as my attention was drawn away from Dr. Krocker towards Darius. Darius looked serious at his suggestion and crossed his arms whilst just staring at the doctor.
I lightly sighed before asking the question towards Dr. Krocker.
“Darius is here and he wants to know why he doesn’t feel like who he is, Dr Krocker?”
Dr. Krocker leaned forwards slightly in his chair with mild interest etched upon his face.
“Well, now that, is very telling, Drew. Tell him that the notion of identity in him is astounding and should be commended,” Dr. Krocker said in response seriously, no mocking undertones or superficial smile hiding behind his professional phrasing.
“He sounds like a condescending nitwit, Drew. What does he take you for, a parrot?” Darius muttered that made me slightly smirk at Darius’s statement to Dr. Krocker.
I noticed Dr. Krocker staring at me with a slightly stone-faced expression of confusion, possibly noticing my spontaneous smile out of nowhere.
“Sorry, Darius just thinks that you think I’m a parrot, you know, relaying messages to me when he can hear you perfectly fine,” I explained, my mirth still evident upon my face at the absurdity of it all.
But my smile soon faded as I witnessed no change in Dr. Krocker’s serious expression as I told him this.

( to be continued… )
 
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"Darius just thinks that you think I’m a parrot, you know, relaying messages to me when he can hear you perfectly fine.”

Your protagonist certainly doesn't like being condescended to.

(I think you meant to write, "--relaying messages to HIM.")
 
( chapter 3, part 3… )

There was a moment of silence between Dr. Krocker and myself, a baleful expression of suspicion upon Darius’s face.
“Frankly, Drew, I find the way you talk about Darius rather….perplexing,” suddenly muttered Dr. Krocker as his shoulders slackened slightly within his chair.
“Why?” I simply asked before I noticed Darius about to open his mouth in protest to what Dr. Krocker just announced.
“Well, to be honest with you, a manifestation of trauma such as you experienced should not make you just suddenly manifest a totally independent identity that speaks for itself,” mused Dr. Krocker, slightly talking to himself before seeing my confused expression upon my face after his rambling.
“I mean, how can you know Darius at all from your time as a girl?” Dr. Krocker asked in simple terms, obviously dumbing the question down for me in a non-condescending tone.
That made me take a moment to pause, having never considered it before. I mulled over this question for a moment, feeling confused as I glanced down at my hands in thought. It made me reconsider everything up until now, all the interactions between Darius and myself and how he reacted differently or the same way I would have. My head felt light and slightly fuzzy as I tried to think.
“There’s no point in this, Drew. He’s just confusing us,” I heard Darius say in a condescending tone.
‘Us?’ I heard myself mentally wonder, glancing up to see Darius giving a look of contempt towards Dr. Krocker, his arms folded in defiance.

( to be continued… )
 
( chapter 3, part 4… )

Dr. Krocker let out an audible sigh, loud enough for me to hear.
His meticulous hands came uncrossed from each other as he pressed his intercom buzzer to call into Carol in the outer office.
“Please escort the Sanders back into my office, Carol,” he interjected with a monosyllabic tone in his voice almost akin to that of weariness.
“Yes, Dr. Krocker,” the chipper response came after Dr. Krocker had stopped speaking and let his hand leave the button.
The waiting game began once again as the two of us stayed silent for a minute before my parents were led back into Dr. Krocker’s office. The action of this dance was not lost upon me, feeling a slight case of repetition in my mind. But I was grateful to see my mother and father again. I held no ill will to speaking with Dr. Krocker alone but could tell that despite being a psychologist, treating kids was not his strongest point.
My parents sat down beside me, my mother on my right whilst my father on my left. They did not seem perplexed or vexed in any manner but I could tell that was a mask for them to wear for my sake. We sat together as a family, the ease of tension lifting like a white veil of a bride on her wedding day. But I could not shake that ominous feeling as I noticed Darius from the corner of my eyes still glaring at Dr. Krocker. It did not look evil or ill intentioned, just wary and cautious like a trapped animal.

( to be continued… )
 
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( chapter 3, part 5… )

My parents and I looked at Dr. Krocker expectantly, the middle aged man sitting opposite us with a serious looking consternation upon his brow.
“This is a rather unorthodox approach, but I can attest that Drew has undergone some serious changes. And I am not just stating the obvious fact of her past,” Dr. Krocker announced slowly, being mindful of his words towards the family.
The Sanders family nodded in understanding, but Dr. Krocker could detect the hurried nodding as a coping mechanism that screamed without words for him to get to his point.
Coughing lightly, Dr. Krocker steeled himself under the baleful gaze and decided to speed things along.
“I would not cause undue stress to Drew or her family at this time. I would recommend a trip to a local doctor, just for peace of mind the girl did not injure her head. But, aside from this, if Drew is happy with this, she should stay at home indefinitely on bed rest until she feels she should go back to school,” Dr. Krocker stated, a small frown of worry upon his face for a moment as he second-guessed his own words coming from his mouth.
“But, what about…?” I asked but was cut short by Dr. Krocker’s voice interrupting my own.
“If Darius comes back, just deal with him as you see fit. This boy is a manifestation of your past self, he should not wish you any harm,” Dr. Krocker stated plainly to me, making me nod my head in understanding and made me relax in my chair.
I could feel the tension of my parents also somewhat ease, possibly relieved that I was able to not be afraid of my past self and come to grips with it.
“Thank you, Dr. Krocker,” my mother said sincerely, as her and my dad stood up from their chairs.
I followed my parents and stood up beside them, Dr. Krocker vaguely giving a short nod in our direction.
“Yes, all good, all good. If ever you need my services again, I’ll be here,” Dr. Krocker said gallantly as we left his office, shutting the door behind us as we left.


End of Chapter 3.

( to be continued… )
 
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