The Autumn Prince

4. Broken Mirrors

I finally looked up and met his eyes as my anger peaked. "What do you want from me?"

"Only your time. We can sit here and glare at each other if you like, but these sessions might go faster if we had a conversation. I have some cards in my desk if you want to play Go Fish."

"That's a kid's game."

He held out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Poker, then. I'll go easy on you."

"You're a—an asshole." Swearing and name calling had been firmly discouraged at Greenhill, and I found it difficult to form the words.

"I've been called worse things. Some of them have even been true." His kind smile never wavered, as obstinate as if it had been carved out of stone. The conversation went downhill from there and several more like it followed, but I eventually learned to recognize him as a friendly face, though it was months before I saw him as a mentor.

That moment arrived as I lay sweating in a hospital room in the wake of a new drug cocktail that left me violently sick and unable to distinguish between imagination and reality. Dr. Dang stayed with me all night, asking nothing, just giving me his words, something stable to focus on.

"The dragon is coming!" I remember shouting, "It's coming to get me!" I never recalled the vision itself, only crying out, fists clenched in thin, sweat-soaked sheets.

"There is indeed a dragon, Tom," Dr. Dang replied in a soothing voice. He never contradicted me in my worst moments, but coached me through them. "I imagine having such a great beast in your home is very frightening, but he is a stranger there, and able to occupy only one room at a time. You, however, have an infinite supply of rooms, because it is your home and not his. It is not cowardice to move to an orderly space and shut the door behind you. Let him rage and be at peace."

It took me more than a year to fully understand his meaning. Some things were out of my control, but they didn't define me. My choices did. Even if there was only one door, I decided whether or not to walk through, what to take with me, whether to leave it open or lock it tight. That insight had been instrumental to my development in the past decade.

I hadn't spoken with Dr. Dang since I received my college acceptance letter, packed everything I owned into a rundown Ford Focus and drove six hours to Elwin, BAU's symbiotic college town. He had met with the Berkshire-Avery advisers and gave me a glowing recommendation before they accepted my formal application, promising my condition wasn't a danger to the other students. He told them I would be perfectly capable of going about my business without faculty assistance—and then he asked me to stop by his office to make sure I understood the truth.

"I didn't tell the college everything, Tom," he'd said. "You know the dangers. I believe in your ability to thrive, but you need to be on guard, stay on your medication, don't take risks. One incident could get you evicted or expelled."

We spoke again about the many labels that attempted to describe what was wrong with me and what they meant to people like the Dean: schizophrenia at the top of that list, followed by somatoform disorder, psychosis, acute chronic anxiety disorder, and others depending on who wrote the diagnosis. The reality had been worse than the words, but they were bad enough on their own, setting people who heard them on edge, like a stick of dynamite waiting for an idle spark. My conduct needed to be perfect. The decision to drink the tea on a stubborn whim called Dr. Dang's faith in me into question.

I did it because I wanted to believe Miss Gold's offer of help was genuine. It meant I was part of something bigger than myself, and I had someone in my life who could help me discover it—even if that someone was a bit cold, self-absorbed, and manipulative. I wasn't convinced everything she said was true, but having made that one small choice to trust her, the next steps would be easier.