No Angel

Chapter 1

I'm Shawn Carter and I'm 28 years old. I'm a Brooklyn native but now I reside in Manhattan. I'm a psychiatrist and I have a few businesses here and there. I come from a very troubled background, most would call it a success story. I grew up in Marcy Projects. My father left when I was 9 and my mother had to take care of 4 children all alone. My older immediately turned to the streets and by the age of 13 I was in the streets as well. Selling weed, crack, and whatever else that sold. My mom didn't approve but I felt like I had to be the man of the house, plus my brother started using as well as selling which was never a good mix. I knew better and I was always smarter than he was.

Everything changed when my brother was murdered. I was only 16. That was definitely my wake up call. My mother begged me to leave the game but luckily she didn't have to beg for long because I knew that that wasn't the life for me. I had to be better than my environment and I definitely had the brains to do so. I started going hard in school and even though I wasn't valedictorian I graduated within the Top 10 of my class and that was something that I prided myself on. My family was proud as well. I went off to New York University and got my degree in Biology with a minor in Psychology. And after that I was off to medical school and I've been good ever since. I have a nice house, my car is nice, I love my job, I have a girlfriend named Jennifer and things are getting pretty serious so I guess everything is good.

Well today is my birthday and my boys are taking me to the club. I haven't really made time for my homies so tonight should be a good night. We have fun whenever we link up so I know they'll try to get me fucked up. But before all of the fun I have to go to work. Yes, I work on my birthday. I'm qualified to work with people of all ages but for the most part I work with troubled teens and children. With all the shit that I dealt with as a minor, I felt like it was my calling. I could relate to those children.

I had a 3 patients today which means that my day would be a pretty relaxed considering that I usually see 7 patients per day. My first patient would be arriving 9am and it was 8:15am. I decided to eat my McDonalds breakfast and do paper work until then.

Time flew by and my first patient walked through the door. He was a 11 year old boy named Marcus. His grandmother brought him into my office once a week, she claims that he's been acting out ever since his parents died in a car accident, which is understandable. Most days he doesn't really talk but he'll write in his journal or draw a picture for me to describe his feelings for the day. We've been making progress and he's very intelligent. He hasn't been in any fight as of late so that's a major step forward.

Shawn: What's up lil man?

He just waved.

Shawn: Do you want to talk today or do you just want to color?

He smiled and I knew that he was excited about drawing.

Shawn: Did you write anything in your journal for today's session?

Marcus nodded and dug into his backpack to get his journal that I gave him. Once I retrieved it, he went over to the coloring supplies and went to work.

I read his journal and it wasn't anything deep or sad like it usually is which was a relief. He talked about how he went on a field trip to an Art Museum and really enjoyed it. He described some of the paintings that he seen and even named the artists. I was really impressed with how he was able to go into detail. You could tell that it was something that he was passionate about. I just smiled and set it to the side. I let him continue coloring since he had about 40 more minutes until his session was over. His grandmother usually uses this time to go grocery shopping and although she would run a little late at times, it didn't bother me. She reminded me a lot of my grandmother. I went back to doing my paper work and let the time fly by.