by DK Andrews
the picture is?” she asks, pointing at the photo.
“I’m just curious,” I say innocently.
“I guess I could tell you now,” she says, looking down at her shoes.
“If you want to tell me, tell me now—it’s not like I have fifty years to live.”
Deanna looks at her watch and says, “Finish your coffee. We should get going soon.”
I chug my coffee in one go and get up off the sofa.
“You finished already?” she says in surprise.
“You told me too!”
“Well, I didn’t mean right this second.”
“Like I said, my time is limited.” I sit back down.
What a waste of my precious time this is, sitting here, making empty conversation with Dr. Kismen when I could be with Micah.
“Your place is very nice,” I say dryly.
“You like it?”
“I do. It’s very elegant. I like the art.” I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“The man in that picture? He’s the artist.”
“That’s cool. Is he here?” I ask, looking around.
“No, he’s not.” she says, her eyes still lowered.
“Ah. That’s too bad,” I say.
“Yes, it is…” she says, her voice breaking a little. “...He’s dead.”
My eyes open wide from that unexpected bit of information.
“That’s unfortunate,” I say, and right away think that I should have come up with something more sincere and personal.
“Yes, it is,” she says solemnly as she gets up and walks toward the fireplace. She lifts the picture and looks longingly at it.
“Have you ever lost someone you love?” she asks, turning to look at me. I don’t have anywhere to run from her gaze.
I swallow the lump in my throat and try to think quickly. Frankly, I don’t know what to tell her.
“No, I guess I haven’t,” I answer finally.
“You are one of the lucky ones then.”
“I’ve never thought of myself that way,” I say.
“Of course you haven’t,” Deanna says judgmentally as she pulls her long brown hair back.
Despite being hurt by the intimation, I keep my mouth shut. She can reactivate my bracelet at any moment and keep me at Ultima until The Conversion.
She doubles down: “What? You disagree? You don’t consider yourself lucky?”
“I guess I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to argue with you, but I disagree. I’m far from being lucky.”
“Really?”
The question sets me off, and suddenly I can’t hold it together anymore.“Yes really!” I shout.“You don’t know my life, Deanna! You just think you’re so smart because you are a doctor. You are so arrogant!”
“Oh yeah?” Dr. Kismen counters. “I don’t know your life, huh? Let me guess.” She puts her index finger to her mouth sarcastically. “Unhappy little Alina Bruhler,” she whines. “What, you were raised in poverty? You have an evil mother who doesn’t love you? Join the club! Were you sexually assaulted or abused? You know how many women go through that? You get therapy. You move on.”
“Please stop,” I plead, covering my ears. “I can’t listen to this anymore.”
“No, I’m not going to stop!” Her eyes are red; she looks possessed. “Everyone has their own story, Alina. People get hurt. People suffer. But that’s not a reason to give up on life!” She begins to cry. I'm dumbstruck, my brain desperately scrambling to make sense of it all. I hate her for saying those hurtful words, but seeing her crying brings up within me sympathy for her. I want to help her.
After a minute, she seems to calm down, grabbing a tissue from the side table and wiping her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, cleaning up her running mascara. “I’m being extremely unprofessional right now.”
“It’s alright,” I respond quietly.
“Alina?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got compassion, and within your compassion lies your true self. You haven’t lost that self, despite all the hardships that you went through. It’s something for you to be proud of. The world needs more people like you.”My chest tightens, and she continues: “I just want to tell you, Alina, that life is the only thing you’ve got. You can’t just throw it away. You have to fight your fears, your resentments. You have to think of people that will be left behind after you are gone. You can’t even imagine how hard it is for them to keep living when you are no longer here.”
“What if I don’t have people that love me?” I ask.
“But you do!”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you told me in our first meeting!”
“I did?”
“Your little brother, right?”
She is right. I do have him, and he genuinely loves me.
“Somehow you remind me of Damien,” she says with a sigh.
“Who’s Damien?”
“The artist, the one who painted all these pictures,” she says as she scans the room. “I was engaged to him—we’d been together for a long time. The first time I met him, I knew he was the one for me.” She walks toward the dining area, grabs a glass of water, and offers me one. I decline. I want to keep listening to her.
“He was just so different from everyone else I had met. It felt like he was too delicate for this world. Hard to explain, I guess.” She checks her watch and continues: “We have to get going, I still need to take you somewhere, and we can’t be late for our session.”
“What happened to Damien?” I ask, following her to the kitchen.
She tosses the rest of her water into the sink and watches it drain.
“He left,” she says. “When we started dating, I knew something wasn’t right. He kept going through these phases. He was trying to ‘find himself.’ I did what I could. I tried to cheer him, which, most of the time doesn’t actually work. I tried to leave him alone and just let him be. We went to every psychologist in the city; we tried every drug that was on the market at that time. Sometimes the pills worked, but it was just a temporary bandage that slipped off after few hours. Nothing worked long-term. His state worsened day after day. And he started to pull me down with him.” She looks up from the drain. “One day I’d had enough and told him to leave. I gave up on him. Just like that,” she says, snapping her fingers. “Maybe instead of creating this revolutionary technology that transfers life, we should have created something that saves people from destroying themselves.”
I’m speechless. I’m afraid to ask her about the resolution of their love story.
“Anyway,” she goes on, “after that fight we, our engagement was over. And when I got back to the house after work, a terrifying silence welcomed me. I knew this was the end of me. I walked into our bedroom, and there he was, peacefully lying in bed, faded and cold. My world had stopped in that instant.”
Her face goes flush, and her tears begin to flow. I just stare, aimlessly, letting her be.
She washes her face with cold water, takes a deep breath, and says, “We must leave now,” she tells me while drying her face with a paper towel. “Great now my face is all puffy.”
“You still look beautiful,” I say sincerely and give her weak smile.
“Thank you” she appreciates my compliment.
“Dr. Kismen,” I say. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” Even though I’m not particularly fond of this saying, I think that in this particular circumstance, it makes perfect sense. I’m deeply touched by her story.
“I’m sorry too. And yet, I keep living, no matter how much it hurts. I live everyday thinking about him, carrying this burden and guilt. But there is nothing I can do.” She slowly walks to the hallway and opens the front door for me. “We really should go. I will show you the truth, and then you can decide what path to choose.”
We get to her car, and I watch her slide into the driver’s seat, starting the engine with the push of a button. I wonder where the car is taking us and also
why doesn’t she have one of those driveless cars? She probably doesn’t trust technology.
“You know Alina,” she says gently, “I don’t know you that well, but you seem like a decent person. Someone that would make a good friend.” Keeping her hands on the wheel and her eyes face forward on the road, she continues, “I know I can trust you.”
“Everything I did and told you yesterday and today is only between us. No one can know about it—understand?”
“I understand,” I say. I can feel my veins pulsating in my neck.“Would you get in trouble if someone found out?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Like—big trouble?”
“Most definitely.”
“Is your life in danger?” I ask, frightened.
“You mean my physical life? Or an emotional side of things?
“Yes, your physical life. You won’t get killed, will you?”
“Killed? What do you think this is, some kind of movie? You’ve got a good imagination.” she says with a laugh.“But to answer your question, no, I won’t get killed. We live in a pretty safe area—no one kills anyone around here.” She looks at me, awaiting my reaction.
I don’t find her dark humor that hilarious.
“It’s really too bad you’ve made the choice that you have,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because you are a good person,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Actually, I want to apologize again for my rude remarks back at the house. I didn’t mean to—”
“—I know,” I sympathize.
“Anyway, it’s unfortunate that very soon the world will lose such a fantastic person.”
“But when the world loses me, it will get someone even better.” I look up and think of Gabriel.
“I doubt that,” Dr. Kismen says.
Nobody ever told me that I was