doppelgänger --> there's never just one {sequel}

dennis

It was time for Dennis's annual checkup at the doctor's, and quite frankly he was way past due.

After all the nagging from Bex for weeks straight he decided he was sick of hearing it, so he finally agreed to call the doctor to schedule another annual physical.

He was not excited.

He couldn't remember a time in his life when he was excited to go to the doctor's office, but what was special about this time was they were going to check on his lungs if his breathing didn't sound right, and he knew it wouldn't when they checked.

Dennis had been smoking more than he ever had over the past year or so, perfect timing for his next doctor's appointment, and while he sat there waiting on the table, kicking his legs forward and backward like a little kid, he also was anxious to hear what the doctor would say. He knew it wasn't going to be good.

And he knew Bex knew it too.

He could tell by the look in her eyes and the way she walked in the doctor's office to begin with. She wasn't in a very good mood. And Dennis also knew she was frustrated with him. Frustrated that he didn't make an appointment sooner or the first five hundred times she said it, and frustrated that she knew there was going to be something wrong, and it was all his fault. She'd also told him over five hundred times before to quit smoking and even went through and made a thorough list of all the benefits it would have if he stopped smoking.

He'd been doing it for so long; he couldn't see how she didn't understand. He couldn't stop. It was too late to quit now.

When the doctor rapped lightly on the door and pushed it open gently, greeting the couple, that's when he knew things were just going to go down from there. 

"Dennis, it's been a long time since your last visit," his doctor commented after he greeted them. "What brought you here all the sudden?"

"I did," Bex answered for him, "after a lot of nagging."

The doctor chuckled although she'd said it with a serious and hard, frustrated tone. She forced a smile, and then once the doctor looked away again, glared back up at Dennis.

He guessed she couldn't help herself but to be angry with him for not complying.

"Alright, now I'm going to listen to your breath and could you take in slow, deep breaths for me, please?" The doctor placed his stethoscope on Dennis's lower back and then upper black almost to his shoulders, and Dennis breathed, knowing it was rattly from both his horrible smoking habit and being anxious. When the doctor didn't respond for a moment, didn't say a word, Dennis felt a drop in his stomach.

Oh no.

He prepared for the worst.

As the doctor pulled back, he looked Dennis in they eyes, and Dennis tried to keep eye contact as hard as he could. "Well, Dennis, I have to say..... you're breathing doesn't sound too great. Have you picked up your smoking habit again?"

Dennis couldn't help but just blurt it right out, "I never stopped."

The doctor paused to look back at him for a second. "I hope you realize that if you continue for much longer, you'll have to get a stoma at the base of your throat, which is an opening to help you breathe better....."

At this, Bex looked even more angry, and shot another glare at Dennis. I told you this was going to happen, she mouthed.

I know, he mouthed back.

Why did she always have to be right?

Paperwork here and there, information and pamphlets and by the time they left the office, Bex was smirking, satisfied that she was right and hoping with everything that this would be the breaking point to make him finally stop smoking.

Maybe this would be it, or maybe it would take a lot more than that even still at this point.

No one ever knew with Dennis Biersack.

He was so unpredictable.