A Game of Broken Armor

“Do you blame yourself for what happened?”

I glanced up from the ugly carpet that I had focused my attention on. My eyes met Dr.Mantle’s and it was almost overwhelming to see the amount of concern in them. He was staring intently at me, a worried crease in his forehead, and his lips slightly frowning. The only noise in the room was the steady ticking of the clock above Dr. Mantle’s desk. I thought about the question. Did I blame myself for this? Maybe. Could I have stopped it? Probably. Was it completely my fault? Absolutely not. If I’m being completely honest with myself, I’m sure something like this would have happened eventually, whether I had been involved or not.
“Frank?” Dr. Mantle said, gently. Right. I hadn’t given him an answer.
“No, it wasn’t my fault.” I said steadily. The words were true enough, yet they tasted like a lie on my tongue. I held my eye contact with Dr. Mantle and tried to seem confident with my answer, but I could tell he was unconvinced.
“You know… that’s not really what I asked, Frank. Do you blame yourself for what happened?” He repeated his question with so much sincerity, so much sad honesty, that it was obvious he already knew the answer. For a brief moment I felt a flash of hot anger toward him for making me answer a question he already knew the answer to, until I reminded myself that he was only trying to help me.
I dropped my eyes back to the carpet. Yes, I could have prevented this. I know this now. I could have stopped this from happening; that is a fact. I could have pulled him out of the driver’s seat. I could have taken his keys from him. There are a million things I could have done. Things I should have done. But I didn’t.
Fuck, I didn’t like those thoughts. They tore me to shreds inside. Dr. Mantle always says that “What If” is a very dangerous game to play with yourself, and I guess he’s right. He usually is.
“I don’t know. I guess I kind of do.” I spoke softly. I didn’t sound confident this time. How could I? I was tired. I was tired of constantly trying to tame the monster inside me that was poisoning me with guilt and anger. He said the monsters came at night. It’s felt like night for a long time now.

How did everything go so wrong?

Notes

Hi there, this is my first fic to be posted here. I hope some of you are interested. Let me know what you think!