Marlowe's Massacre | ;

CHAPTER 21

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[.21.3.22]

The next time Doctor Roe sees Maxwell, he's waiting patiently at his clinic. More specifically inside the Galpin parked across the street. Doctor Roe checks his watch twice, it reads 10:35 a.m. Perhaps, he missed the memo, he hadn't been expecting him back. Grabbing his briefcase, he walked up to the rich car and noticed right away he had a pen in one hand and a notebook in the other. He had been so invested in furiously writing whatever in the book that when Roe knocked lightly on the window, it startled him.

Rolling down the window, Doctor Roe started the conversation first. "Why are you here, Mr. Richard?"

Because André needed him here. "I thought about this long enough, I want you to be my therapist."

A small slice of wind blew at his skin as he took in what Maxwell had said. "You seemed set on your views, what changed?" André had pleaded with him.

"I want what's best for myself." No. He wanted what André wanted, for him to get help. "I figured you're the best at what you do, you are helping Teddy and perhaps you can help me."

Looking into the car, Doctor Roe realized that Maxwell had been working on equations so he asked. "You're doing math homework?"

Smiling a bit he replied back. "Yes, I was waiting for you. May I come in?"

"Of course." He didn't have an appointment until 12:15, Maxwell would be fine. With the notebook and pen in one hand, keys in the other and his cracked phone in his back pocket, Max followed Doctor Roe inside. As he unlocked the front door, he commented. "Nice Mustang, what type if I may ask?"

"Thanks, 2015 Galpin Rocket."

In his mind, he laughed because Maxwell was truly what Teddy described him to be: An absolute rich kid with a home-felt presence. "Must be nice."

Still looking down at his notebook, he spoke admiringly honest. "You can take it for a drive if you can fix me, Doctor Roe." And the look on his face highlighted he wasn't joking.

"You crack me up, Maxwell."

Letting him in, he followed the doctor to his office, it wasn't the same room Max had been in. It was at the back of the house, where the most light shined. Outside the room's window, Max saw a garden of that same Jasmine flower laced around the house.

It was near silent, the only sound was Doctor Roe wrestling with papers on his desk and Max working on solving the problems for class before Doctor Roe was ready. "Do you want tea, coffee, water?"

"Coffee, no creamer."

As Doctor Roe left to retrieve coffee from the front of the house, Max breathed finally. He had been so nervous, his mind rushed thoughts and blurred truths to the tip of his teeth and he swore, a mirage of Marlowe appeared outside.

It waved briefly.

Max closed his eyes.

A single thought pierced him: Five weeks.

It had almost been five weeks since Teddy came to the loft and helped him rid drugs away. It had been three weeks since he had popped eight of dad's pills and one week since he noticed they were illegal prescribed.

It happened like this: A good six days went by and Max had been tempted by his body. He went through his drawers and found the box of pill bottles and just as he jutted his head back to swallow them, the name Abimelech Pharmaceutical tore his core apart. Maybe because he never looked at the name on the bottles or maybe he had been too keen on putting pills in his mouth that he never threw his attention to it, but it pulled at his throat. He couldn't swallow and his brain went bizarre because where did Maxwell know that name?