Revealing the Real Dr. Robinson by Dianne Drake Page B

book in his hand again, started to relax his grip then without thought or further provocation hurled it at the wall, knocking his medical diploma to the floor, along with the photos of his parents. It hit so hard it actually dented the wall. Didn’t break through so much as dimple it. But it was a dimple heard up and down the hall outside because immediately someone knocked on the door. Then there were shouts. And more knocking.
    “I’m fine,” he shouted out to them, trying to maintain more control in his voice than he felt. “Just dropped something.” More like his self-confidence dropping to the floor, shattering.
    “Don’t suppose a pot of yerba maté would fix something for you, would it?” one familiar voice rang out.
    Naturally, she would be there to hear. Humiliation heaped on his earlier humiliation. Still, just hearing her voice, even though it was locked away on the other side of the door, made him unbend just a little. “But didn’t you break my teapot?” he yelled back when he was convinced he could control the sharp cut that wanted to overtake his voice. Normally he wasn’t this edgy. Normally he let these things go without acting out. Normally... What the hell was normal, anyway?
    “I bought you another one in the village. Actually, I bought two, just in case.”
    Just go away, he thought. Please, just go away, Shanna. Even as he was thinking the words he was on his way to open the door to her. No barriers in place to stop him. “Before you come in, not a word. Okay? I’m just like everybody else. Get angry. That’s all it was. Me getting angry.” He pointed to the book. “I’m sorry about earlier, too, when you came to my room, and now I’m just...”
    “Letting off a little steam.”
    “A whole lot of steam. Sometimes it builds up.”
    “I know the feeling. I threw a chair through a plate-glass window once,” she said, bending down to pick up his diploma and photos from the shards of broken picture glass. “Meant to do it, too.”
    In spite of himself, Ben laughed. “I can picture that.”
    “You can?” she said, looking up at him. “Nobody else in my world could. In fact, they were pretty indignant about the whole thing, about how I’d had the audacity to react.”
    “React how?”
    “In opposition to my family. I was fourteen or fifteen. I had a boyfriend. You know, love of my life and all that. And I wanted to go somewhere with him...don’t remember where.” She laughed. “Don’t even remember his name. But my father refused to let me go because the Brooks family was going to be hosting some kind of event...we always hosted events. So, true to my teenage nature, I threw a tantrum.” She stood and handed the photos and diploma to Ben.
    “My tantrums were pretty much overlooked, though, because they were...quiet. No throwing books at the wall and breaking glass. More like a very passive please let me. Except that never got heard. Or if they heard me, they ignored it. So this one time I decided to get their attention. Actually, it was the beginning of several times I tried to get their attention. Other stories for other days because this was the beginning of Shanna, the wayward teenager.”
    “Who threw a chair out the window as her prelude.” An image he liked.
    “Actually, it was an antique Windsor sidechair worth about fifteen thousand dollars. Broke it to pieces. Dozens of pieces. No way to have it restored.”
    The smile on his face widened. “But did you feel better afterward?”
    “Did you feel better after you threw the book?” she countered.
    “A little,” he admitted.
    “A lot,” she admitted. “Probably because that one act got me the first honest reaction I’d ever seen from my father. He was really...mad. Yelled at me. Stood over me when I cleaned up the broken glass. Took away all the privileges a girl that age has. For a month! ”
    “You liked that?”
    “What I liked was knowing that I had the ability to make my father respond.”
    “Which