#FreewriteMadness – Day 14 – a Derek Update

Day fourteen! I'm still hanging in there with #NaNoWriMo – I haven't skipped a day of writing yet – and I'm hoping to reach the halfway mark (25,000 words) tomorrow. Here's my response to @freewritehouse's fifteenth prompt, sweating. I was busy with a lot of different things today, so in this half-hour before midnight strikes in my time zone, I'll just do as much as I can. I don't want to lose my no-skipped-days streak. I intend to carry on writing for a while after midnight, so whatever I get done after midnight can be added to tomorrow's word count. My night owl tendencies are strong at the moment!

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Derek does not yet know what to make of Orla Fallon: his new counsellor with her pressed suit, blonde hair tied neatly in a bun, and a red notebook perched on her lap. He doesn't know what to expect of her, or these sessions, or whether they'll do him any good, or whether he would be better off just getting out of his chair and leaving right now (a part of him is sorely tempted to do just that)...

‘The sessions are an hour long,' she is telling him now. 'What I ask each of my clients to do is to just freely explore anything that may be on their minds. My role is simply to listen and to help my clients identify certain patterns – every now and then, I will hear something that catches my attention, and I may ask a further question about it – but that doesn’t mean that you have to know the answer to the question, or have it all sorted out, or anything remotely like it,’ she smiles. ‘If you cannot think of anything to say, that represents the best you can do in that moment. Be true to what you are feeling. I simply encourage honest self-reflection.’

'Okay.'

‘Well, now that we've covered that basic ground, I wanted to know, is there any particular topic that you would like to discuss here today?’

He sits there in silence for what feels like an agonisingly long time. There's a lava lamp in the corner: he finds himself drawn to stare at it. It's oddly soothing.

‘Sorry,’ he says eventually, with an awkward laugh. ‘I don’t know … there are a lot of things I could talk about, I suppose, but I don’t know where to begin.’

‘It is alright,’ she says. ‘Take your time. This silence can be as short or as long as you wish it to be.’

‘Well, I suppose I’m here today to talk about … the thing is … I know certain things are interfering with my ability to focus on my sport, or be as good with my kids as I would like to be. I said something to my kids recently that I – I really shouldn’t have said.’

'What was it?'

He turns to look at her, feeling slightly ashamed. ‘It was a comment about their mother.’

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Derek sweats profusely as he re-enters the dressing rooms, preparing to join his teammates for the customary post-training banter. They had a good session tonight: Derek worked hard, determined to prove that contrary to whatever O'Regan might be saying about him in the papers, he is as focused and determined as ever – that his eyes are set on victory against Italy, and he is ready to throughly lay to rest anything that might interfere with that goal.

As he takes his spot on the bench and begins to remove his shoes, he is aware of a looming presence above him.

'Fitzy?'

He looks up: it's Dwyer. 'Yes?'

'Listen, I just wanted to say ... great session tonight. You were playing a blinder. And I’m very glad your attitude is improving.'

Derek removes his helmet, nods. 'Thank you, Dwyer.'

'So ... how have you been, overall, like?' Dwyer lowers his voice and looks around furtively before asking the next question – anxious to make sure that the sound of the other squad members' laughter and camaraderie will prevent any of them from hearing it. 'Did you ... did you go to counselling yet?'

Derek smiles. 'I did. It's helping.'

'Ah good. Good. Listen ... let’s put Wednesday behind us. Things happen, harsh words are said ... it’s understandable. We’ll need all of our energy for the big battle over the next few weeks.'

'Of course.'

'Pint on Friday? The lads are dying to let off a bit of steam.'

Derek laughs as he throws a towel over his shoulder and heads for the showers. 'I'll be there!'

Anne-Marie’s navy dress still comes to mind at times – and her smile, and the shape of her golden hair as she turned away from him on that awful night – but more and more often these days, he is learning how to keep those memories at bay.

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With four minutes to go until midnight, that gave me 712 words. I'll take what I can get right now! To be continued...

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