Chapter 1

The first time Adonis Fielding got a tension headache,he worried. The second time? Not so much. After a few hypertension incidents,he began to read even less into it, embraced it as normalcy and took it all in stride.

The anxiousness concerning the next attack subsided and so did the knot of fear in his chest, and that in his books, was a very good thing.

A recent panic attack waking him in a hospital bed was the wake up call he needed, to start paying attention to the signs that were so clearly lit up in front of him and take action.

And now...here he was, looking out the window of Dr. Morrison's high rise office; where modern paintings hung on the wall and everything was furnished in excellent relaxing taste, down to the smallest decoration.

"You're wrong," he told the therapist- a lady in her early fifties, who was wearing soft leather boots, jeans and a sapphire toned silk shirt.

A long diaphanous scarf was wrapped around her neck, adding to her sophisticated demeanor.

They had spent their previous seating trying to identify the root cause of his attacks and the reason he had decided to try therapy.

"What about?" She asked in a voice that sounded blandly European.

"About my attacks being a result of childhood trauma. I don't believe that everything that's happening in the present is because of the past," he answered as he walked back to the patients' couch opposite Morrison's seat.

Despite the cold weather,the room felt...warm somehow. Not in the hot-air sense,but cozy. Somewhat comfortable and welcoming.

"What do you believe in?" She glanced down at the mysterious notepad she always seemed to hold, and flipped through a couple of pages.

"Well,in this case- I believe it could be other things. Like the pressure of my work sometimes."

"Just not your upbringing?" She raised an eyebrow.

"No," he responded tightly.

"What about the other thing we talked about?" She asked. "What brings you to therapy?"

"My doctor insisted," he admitted. "And honestly, I didn't want the people in my life to have any more reason to think I'm losing my mind. So I thought I'd give it a try."

"Do you have a habit of putting other people first?"

"Why?" Adonis asked. "Does this have something to do with the panic attacks?" He clearly wasn't following.

"Sounds like you decided to try therapy; not for yourself,not so you can get better,but to make those around you happy." She brought him up to speed.

"Are you saying I shouldn't have considered it?" Adonis raised an eyebrow,hoping that she'd fall into his trap.

"Do you think you shouldn't have?" Morrison asked.

Damn it! He thought he had her. He thought for sure she wouldn't have a question for that one. He was tempted to say 'yes' because it was his second therapy session,and so far, he wasn't impressed.

But ended up deciding against it because the certificates on her desk swore that she had all sorts of degrees in psychotherapy,so he hesitated.

"If I do put other people first,then it's a reflex." He stated.

"I take it being the saviour in situations that you sometimes come across, comes naturally too?"

He lost track of how this was related to him feeling like there is a huge knot in his chest from time to time,but responded anyway. "I guess that's one way of putting it."

"Would you say you have trouble letting people into your life?" She fired her next question.

"Not really," he shook his head. "I actually consider myself a very open person." He shrugged.

"Yet you stormed out of here the second I mentioned the word 'childhood' in our previous session," she probed. "How do you feel about that?" About your upbringing?" Continued the counselor.

"It's not really something I think about," he said evasively.

He saw him writing something in her notebook.

"If you were to think about it,how willing would you be to share those pieces of the early stages of your life,with say, a partner maybe?"

"I'm not really involved with anyone," he mentioned with a straight face and further pretended not to realize that he hadn't answered her question.

"Why's that?" Morrison asked.

Naturally,he frowned at the question. And then considered it because according to some paperwork that he signed before the sessions began, everything they said in this room was confidential. She couldn't tell anyone unless he was a danger to himself or doing something illegal. He wasn't sure where matters of the heart fell between the two.

And that made him sigh deeply.

"Well...I meet people and develop strong connections with them. But the problem always is, these transcendent moments are always like lightening bolts; they come without warning, and when they are gone I never really know where to search for them." He explained,sounding like the emotionally distraught man that he was.

There was only one way,he decided. And that was to tell the absolute truth, concealing nothing. To lay it all before her, what he had never offered to any other soul.

Morrison watched him with serious grey eyes and a steely resolve, before encouragingly asking him, "do you want to elaborate on that?"

"I guess over time, I programmed myself not to feel and just regard every emotion as a temporary fleeting thing instead."

"And how does that make you feel? Going through life knowing that you emotionally unavailable yourself?"

"Safe, actually." Adonis smiled bitterly. "Matters of the heart can get messy. So I believe that by keeping everyone at arm's length, I'm protecting myself somehow." He sighed,then asked, "could this be the reason behind my condition?"

"Do you think it is?" She inquired earnestly.

"He simply glared at her,as if to signal disapproval at her habit of answering his questions with questions.

Until that moment, he hadn't realized how worried he had been about his condition.

"Aren't you supposed to be answering my questions?" He asked.

"No," she said. "I'm not here to give you answers to your questions. I'm here to help you get better."

"Seems like you might not be able to do one without the other." He noted.

Morrison's lips quirked into a smile,and then her eyes flicked to the clock.

"We're out of time today. We'll have to pick up from here next time." She said.

Adonis retrieved the jacket he had taken off during the conversation.

"I honestly thought you'd be giving me some kind of awesome advice or telling me what to do. But you just keep making me talk."

She laughed softly in response.

"Therapy isn't so much about what I think as you do."

"Then why do it at all?" He frowned.

"Because we don't always know what it is we're thinking or feeling. When you have a guide,it becomes easier to figure things out. You'll often discover that you already know what to do. I can help you ask questions and go places you might not have on your own."

"Well, you're good at the question part." He noted dryly.

"While I don't have any 'awesome advice' to give you, I do have some things that I want you to think about for when we talk again." She glanced down at the notepad and tapped it with her pencil while she thought.

"First, I want you to think more about your upbringing."

"I already told you that there's nothing to think about," he said under his breath.

"I know." Morrison nodded. "Just revisit it again, take a harmless trip down memory lane. If you still feel the same, that'll be okay. Then I want you to consider something else. I want you to try and figure out if there's a connection between your shutting people out and your childhood."

"That doesn't make any sense," he said bluntly.

"Doesn't it?" Morrison asked,as if amused by his reaction. "You just told me that you shy away from relationships. Do you think it's possible that pushing others away could be your subconscious mind's way of coping? Think about it. If you don't let people in,then you'll never have to confront your fears. That way you won't have to revisit the past."

"This is confusing," he grumbled.

"It's supposed to be." Morrison said soothingly. "That's why I'm here."

"But what's this got to do with my condition?" His confusion grew.

"It has something to do with you,Mr Fielding. That's what's important."

He walked out of therapy feeling like his brain had melted, or like he'd been on trial. As he headed to his car, he found her questions spinning around in his mind.

He found himself wondering if her theory about his childhood had really played a role in who he turned out to be.

No, he decided firmly. That was just ridiculous. Morrison might be good at asking questions,but she was clearly asking the wrong ones.

As he got inside the car, he gave into the impulse to crank the engine and squealed out of the parking space.

His mood was darker than ever, the sky over the car darkened further in response as wind ripped summer leaves from branches before their time.

Cat's paws of rain dotted the windshield,and then came the flash of lightning and the echoing sound of thunder.

He drove through the town of cobblestoned alleys, past streets full of bobbing umbrellas protecting their owners from the sudden downpour.

The day had been long and draining. But he decided that at that point, it only made sense to be patient with himself and to take it one day at a time.