ELLA
“So, are you going to tell me what that was about?” Carlos asked as he drove us back to my place.
“What? What do you mean?” I replied, my eyes on the darkened scenery outside the windshield.
“Ella J, you know what I’m talking about! Stop tryna play dumb!”
I shifted my eyes to him as he kept his on the road. “I’m not playing dumb.”
He shook his head. “You are the smartest woman I know, always have been. You know what the hell I’m referring to.”
I stared at him blankly.
“Armand Daniels!”
I lifted an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“You know what! Are you really going to sit there and pretend you didn’t notice him staring at you damn near the entire evening?”
“You’re exaggerating. He didn’t stare at me the entire evening.”
“Ella, if you don’t stop playing!”
I finally broke character, allowing myself to laugh, which in turn made him laugh as he mumbled, “I really hate your ass.”
I rolled my eyes. “Uh-huh, I know you do. Anyway, I did notice him looking at me.”
“And?”
“And I looked at him. Didn’t you?”
“What? Because I’m gay I gotta just stare at any nigga I run across?”
“No, just the fine ones, and I know you aren’t gonna lie and say Armand Daniels isn’t fine.”
“I’m not one to lie, and I ain’t starting now. Him being fine is common knowledge. I knew that before tonight. I will admit that seeing him up close was…nice.”
“It sure was. Those eyes? Those dimples? That body? If he wasn’t so damn crazy, I think I could like him.”
“Yeah, the nigga is nuts. You can see it in his eyes,” Carlos agreed.
“Is that what you saw in his eyes? Craziness?”
“Hell yeah. Didn’t you?”
“No. To me, he just seemed lost, out of place. Crazy, too, but more than anything, I saw sorrow in his eyes. I have enough of that to deal with myself. So as fine as he is, I can’t go there with him. Besides, he’s family by marriage.”
“That ain’t really family, Ella, but I get it. That temper of his would have me flying back here to kick his ass if he got down wrong with you.”
I scoffed. “You’d have to get in line behind my dad and all of my uncles. Me and him would be a FEMA level disaster. Even if I could look past his major anger issues, the family dynamics would be too much. It’s a no go on me and Armand Daniels.”
“I know that’s right!”
ARMAND
For some stupid ass reason, I waited until I was on the team plane on my way to Oklahoma to check the email Mr. Charles sent me. So I was looking confused as hell when I saw its contents, just three words: Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
Huh?
Why would this nigga send me an email with only three words in it?
Lifting my head, I glanced around the plane to see most of my teammates laughing and talking to each other. I was sitting next to Sean Drummond, a rookie who didn’t talk much, which was good with me because I didn’t want to be talked to. He wasn’t nosy, either. As I sat there, eyebrows wrinkled up while I stared at the message, Drummond kept his eyes on his own phone and AirPods in his ears, which gave me an idea. Since I was tired as hell from gearing up to do something I hated—flying—I did a quick YouTube search using the plane’s WiFi, pulled my headphones over my ears, got comfortable in my seat, and hit play. Some dude who called himself a doctor started explaining what Intermittent Explosive Disorder was—sudden episodes of aggressive or violent behavior. He said these outbursts were often disproportionate to the intensity of the situation. I opened my eyes and paused the video, glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention to me. Like, I didn’t want anyone to know I was listening to this stuff, listening to this dude talk about…me. Mr. Charles sent this to me because these three words described me. When shit made me mad, it made me too mad, so mad that I broke things or hurt people without even realizing it. I wasn’t sure how knowing this, having a name to put on what I was, was supposed to make me feel. Was I supposed to be relieved? Was I supposed to accept this shit? Was I supposed to be upset? Well, I was upset. I was pissed at the therapist for sending this stupid email and at myself for reading it hours before a game. I wanted to tear some shit up, to punch something or somebody, to—
Fuck!
What was wrong with me? Why was I so mad?
As soon as those questions popped into my head, I let my eyes fall back to my phone and the paused video.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder—that was what was wrong with me.
Shit.
You got therapy tomorrow. Don’t miss it.
That text from Nathan Moore came just as I stepped in my Oklahoma City hotel room. We lost, and losing always pissed me off. So seeing that message was especially irritating to me. I needed to get out and find me a drink and some pussy. Pussy usually calmed my nerves at least a little bit, but in addition to being pissed off, I was also tired as shit.
Exhausted.
Then there was the fact that partaking of random pussy had gotten me in trouble in the past. See, this one lying-ass chick accused me of taking it from her, and while I was able to prove she was lying, I was super careful about that shit now.
So instead, I dropped my phone and body onto the bed and closed my eyes. The only thought in my head?
I wasn’t going to no more fucking therapy.
I went to therapy.
I didn’t want to go but I did want to talk to Alvin Charles about his email. I needed to know what I was supposed to do with this new information. So yeah, I went back to that office, sat in one of those beige chairs in the waiting area, my knee bouncing, my thoughts loud in the excruciating silence as I waited for my name to be called.
Again, I was the only person in the waiting area except for the receptionist, but she didn’t really count since she was behind the glass in her little booth. I hated being alone as much as I liked it. I hated silence as much as I needed it. I was just…confusing, even to myself. Not much about me made sense other than the talent for the game I loved that I was born with, and I was pretty publicly going to fuck that up if I didn’t—
“Mr. Daniels.”
My head snatched around to face the owner of the voice, my eyes colliding with the much shorter, bearded black man standing in the doorway of the inner office. Biting my bottom lip, I stood and was sitting across from him in less than a minute.
I’d barely settled on the loveseat when he said, “Good to see you again, Mr. Daniels.”
“Armand. You can call me Armand,” I replied.
“Okay, Armand…I trust that you received my email?”
I dropped my eyes from his face. “Yeah, I got it. That’s why I’m here.”
He nodded. “What did you think?”
I shrugged, resting an elbow on the arm of my seat. “What am I supposed to think?”
“You’re supposed to think whatever you think. Let’s try this: what was the first thing that popped into your mind when you read the words in that email?”
My eyes roamed the room before landing on his face again. “Confusion. I was confused, and then…”
“And then?”
I sighed. “And then I listened to this dude on YouTube explain what it means, and I… it pissed me off, made me want to fuck everything and everyone around me up.”
“Did you?” he asked, his voice ridiculously calm.
I frowned. “Did I what?”
“Did you fuck anything up?”
“No…I just went to sleep. Woke up, got off the plane, lost the game…”
“And you stopped being angry after you went to sleep?”
“No, I was still mad, just stopped wanting to fuck things up.”
“Hmm, why do you think that YouTube video made you mad?”
I shrugged again. “Man, I don’t know. I didn’t want to hear that shit and think it applied to me. I ain’t wanna believe I had something wrong with me with a long-ass name attached to it.” This whole thing, talking to him, was mad uncomfortable, made me feel like my skin didn’t fit right again. I was about to just get up and leave when he posed another question.
“What makes you think it applied to you—Intermittent Explosive Disorder, I mean?”
Sitting up straight, I felt my heart rate increase with the volume of my voice. “Because you sent that email! Ain’t that why you sent it?! Because I got that shit?!”
“I sent it because based on what I know about you, you fit the description of that particular disorder. What I’m asking is why do you think it applies to you?”
“Because it does! Because I do the shit that goes along with it. I get mad, real mad about little shit and big shit and all shit! I’m mad right now! I wanna fuck you and this office up because being here and talking about this stuff makes my damn skin crawl. I feel like I’m choking and drowning at the same time just from being here. I hate this!”
The room fell silent as Mr. Charles stared at me, calm, quiet, seemingly unbothered by me screaming and yelling at him. Hell, I was literally vibrating and there he sat, unmoved, completely composed.
I let out a harsh breath before collapsing against the back of my seat. “Why am I like this, man? Why am I like this?” I muttered.
“Together, we’re going to find out, and together, we’re going to figure out the best way for you to manage this. I just need you to commit, really commit, to doing the work,” he replied.
After a moment or two of me staring down at the floor, I nodded. “I’ll try.”