I Explode

A Story by DonielleMikel

"How angry do you get when you hear her name?"

“How angry do you get when you hear her name?”

He is so smug.

“Pretty f*****g angry, Doc. So now what.” I don’t phrase it as a question because I know he can’t really answer it. My voice is dripping in bitterness, but Doc says nothing. He’s doing that “quiet therapist” thing again. Sitting there, mustache resting like a ferret on his face. He’s trying to make me have an epiphany of some sort. But I won't. Doc, this time you don’t win.

I think he realized I wasn’t spilling any juice, so he adjusted his glasses and shifted his posture slightly.

“Glen. This only works if you do. Why are you so angry?” he asks and I resign myself to the idea of remaining silent. That is, until I couldn’t and my response bubbled up to my throat and exploded through gritted teeth.

“You know why I’m angry.” A*s.

“I want you to tell me.” The statement leaves no room for argument. But I make room.

“No.”

I’m satisfied to have had the last word. But I also know I can’t hold out long. Doc, knows that too, that’s why he’s sitting so stoic. Waiting.

“Do you wanna hear a joke, Doc?”

He nods.

I lean forward in my seat and clasp my hands together. It’s the only thing keeping me from shouting, or pulling my own hair out.

“A man walks into a bar. The bartender sees him and asks, ‘What can I get ya?’ So the man asks for a beer. The bartender slides it over to him, and he chugs the entire thing and then asks for another. So do you know what the bartender did?” He shakes his head.

“He offers the poor guy free drinks for the rest of the night to drown out his sorrows. The man was so excited that he drank beer after beer and after about 3 hours, he drank himself dead.”

Doc is quiet. I lean back in my seat, happy with my crappy joke.

“That’s not a very funny joke, Glen.”

I nod passively.

“I know.”

We are silent and all I can hear is the tick of the clock on the wall behind me. Then I feel it again, the bubbles rising in my throat.

And I explode.

“Actually, I’ll tell you another! That last one wasn’t so good. Stop me if you’ve heard the one about the guy whose girlfriend leaves him months after he gives her a kidney?”

I’m shouting, on the verge of tears. But I can’t stop. Not yet.

“A guy who loved snowboarding, skiing, and cliff diving. A guy who can't even do those things anymore since the surgery. A guy who doesn’t even have the woman he loves there to comfort him in spite of all that.” My tears are hot. I wipe at them angrily but they continue falling. It’s a losing battle.

Doc says nothing, he’s waiting to see if I have more to express. I don’t.

“I know you loved her, Glen. But-” I smile and raise a hand, effectively silencing him.

“Nah, Doc. I loved my kidney. But that woman….I would have moved the moon if she asked me to. No...I didn’t love her. I breathed her. She..enveloped me.”

And then before I knew it, I explode all over again.