2.

IF ANXIOUSNESS was a person, then Dylan Blake definitely fitted that position. He had just got off the Phone with his dad’s secretary and the message he had received just made the start of his day terrible and left him irritated.

He grabs the key to his red SUV from his mirror table and walks out of his apartment. He enters his car and without checking the side mirror for any passerby or an incoming vehicle, drives off with speed but without much concern. Speeding tickets never mattered to him and paying the fines had already seemed like a hobby to Dylan.

Once in front of Green Lake Memorial Hospital, he drives into the parking lot and without much thought, brings the car to a stop, not caring whether it was in the right lane. He comes down and slams the door behind him, as he walks confidently into the hospital.

The secretary had told him earlier that his appointment was scheduled for 10am and that was exactly what his watch read as he opened the door to the meeting point of his appointment. Eyes fixed on his phone, he walks into the office and settles down on a black chair right in front of a wooden desk, totally ignoring the figure that sat across from him.

“Rude fits your description from my point of view.”

Anna Davenport stares at the rude patient in front of her, who had his head bent down, his brown hair facing her.

Dylan was aware of how rude he could be, but no one ever had the guts to speak out their thoughts, so her statement draws his attention. He looks up to finally acknowledge the presence of the person sitting opposite him, but his sudden mood swing got Anna confused for a moment.

“Hannah?”

The stoic and expressionless emotion he had on his face some seconds ago, was completely replaced with confusion and desperation.

Anna couldn’t identify what got to her more; his sudden mood change or the fact that he had just called her name. But she was a psychiatrist, so this session was more about the complicated guy in front of her, rather than herself.

“Is that the name of your ex?”

She knew he was here for an evaluation to decide whether he suffers from PTSD due to the fact that he was also in the same accident that killed his ex. So it only made sense that calling that name while having such desperate expression on his face had something to do with his dead ex.

As someone who also lost a loved one, Anna could understand what he was going through. She even had to undergo evaluation before resuming work here, as the chief of her department needed to be sure she was mentally fit to resume seeing patients again.

Dylan watches every move of the red hair doctor in front of him and found it hard to decide if Hannah was seated right in front of him or it was just a stranger who looked like her. What he couldn’t understand was why his newly transplanted heart was beating so fast while he just stares at her face.

Maybe it was the side effect of the anti-depressants he had been taking and that was why he was seeing things and feeling things he shouldn’t feel. But he knew that was currently not the case. So there was one question. Why did she look so much like Hannah?

“Are you the only child?”

Maybe there was something Hannah never told him about. Her having a twin sister, but as far as he knew, she was an only child. But he wanted to be sure.

“Yes. Do you have nightmares about the night of the accident?”

Anna tries to draw the attention of her patient back to the main focus of their therapy session but he wasn’t having it go her way.

“Everyone has a nightmare at one point in their life.”

His stoic expression was back on and this sudden change in his mood was definitely something Anna noted down. How he could go from expressionless to desperate and back to an expressionless face is something she had seen happen with some of her patients. But the person sitting opposite her hasn’t shown other symptoms stating otherwise, so she could just conclude he was naturally rude and a great actor at the same time.

“But not all who have nightmares watched their lover die right next to them.”

The only way she was getting any word out of him was to hit deep and she knew she did. After all her years of experience as a psychiatrist, one with such a trauma would definitely react to such words and his blank expression didn’t change the fact that those words affected him.

He smirks at her while staring at those hazel eyes intently. She looked daring and tough, which was quite the opposite of Hannah who could be quite shy and reserved.

“While she died next to me, she looked pretty in my eyes. Perhaps if it was you, I would have nightmares.”

She irritated him and he wanted her to pay for that. He didn’t need any therapy, he just wanted to save his position in his family, having being threatened by his father. If he didn’t get an evaluation, he wouldn’t be allowed to resume his position at the hospital of his choice. And he desperately needed to work in this city, since he had just relocated there.

A normal father would be concerned about the wellbeing of their child who had just gone through a traumatic experience but that wasn’t the case for John Blake, Dylan’s father, whose utmost concern was the public’s view on his group, G.L Group.

He just wanted to get this session over with, but this lady just had to mess up his mood and confuse him at the same time.

“Why did you agree to this session?” If he was going to waste her time, Anna might as well know why.

“Because I was bored.” He was sarcastic and Anna knew trying to have a normal conversation with him was going to be fruitless. She always had control whenever she had a therapy session with her patients, but he was so hard to even communicate with, talk less of controlling him.

“Did you even love her?” she had to press further even if he wouldn’t say anything personal about the incident.

“Have you ever loved someone?” he questions her with an unwavering smirk as he has his hands crossed over his broad chest, his cold blue eyes staring at her intently.

“You act too proud to even love someone. Was your relationship with her just a fling?”

She wanted to trigger some emotions from him even if she had to question the kind of relationship they had. The fact that he kept trying to avoid talking about his ex-girlfriend only proved to her how much he must have really cared. His attitude might say otherwise, but she knew better.

“What went through your mind during your last moments next to her?” Anna had to keep questioning him. Even if she didn’t get audible answers, his reaction to her questions might help her understand him a bit. But this time around he replies.

“I wondered if I made the right choice for dinner. You know I chose pizza over Mac and cheese.”

Those words rolled out of Dylan’s mouth with a nonchalant attitude and for a moment, Anna wondered if she had the right patient sitting in front of her. He didn’t want help and their session had come to an end.

“You don’t seem to suffer from PTSD but something more.”

“This was a fun session.” Dylan says as he stands up to leave.

He stands in front of the door he was about to exit from and turns back to face the Doctor who just had to have the same appearance as his dead ex. He also wasn’t so sure he meant the words he was about to say.

“Let’s not meet again.” And with that he exits the young doctor’s office with a triumphant smirk that things had gone his way.