“Why the fuck do you care?” By that point, my harsh language and tone were completely out of line, but John didn’t seem surprised or intimidated by how I was reacting.
“Do you love her?” he volleyed back, and I thought seriously about justwalking away. Immediately. But then I looked up and considered. If the sky were a sheet of paper, it would have been easy to just take a pencil and scrawl my thoughts across it. I could even use my index finger to trace the words right there in the clouds, and Selene could read them, and I wouldn’t have to explain to her why I’d run away after the night we’d spent together.
Why couldn’t life be that easy? I had to talk instead.
Bullshit.
Words were just insignificant sounds. Just yap and babble.
They could hurt, though, and could even destroy.
“Quit it, John,” I said menacingly, letting him know that he was overstepping and pushing my limits. Loving Selene? That was blasphemy for me. Sure, I cared about her. I wanted her very much; I felt affection for her and a kind of tenderness, but nothing more.
“I want her. I think.” I surprised myself with my answer, which I offered to the doctor with an uncharacteristic lack of confidence.
Fuck.
John just watched me, waiting for me to do or say something else. Then, without really knowing why, I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the paper fortune that said, “Kiss me like you love me.”
I’d kept and read it over and over again. The more I thought about it, the more mixed up I became.
“Her name’s Selene,” I admitted finally. “The last time I saw her, I ran away and left her with a crappy little Post-it note on her desk. It was after I got this,” I confessed, handing the incriminating slip of paper to the doctor so he could see exactly what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
“‘Kiss me like you love me,’” he read thoughtfully, holding the paper tight between his fingers. He looked up at me, visibly confused. An uncomfortable silence descended upon us. Feeling awkward, I wondered why I was even talking to him about Selene. There were a lot of potential reasons. Maybe I needed to tell someone. Maybe I couldn’t keep all my fears inside anymore. Maybe I wanted to learn how to deal with it all? I didn’t have a father to talk to about that kind of thing. I never had. I had always lacked a male presence I could actually look up to, so I’d always come to Dr. Lively when I felt like I needed someone who could understand me as a man.
“I asked her to kiss me like she loved me, but I was joking. I certainly don’t believe in that bullshit.” My voice was low and flat, and I felt suddenly keyed up, so I lit another cigarette. “But I wasn’t expecting her to actually do it or, even worse, that she’d try to tell me that she…” I sighed. John’s eyes, bright as sand illuminated by the sun, watched me thoughtfully. He wore a small smile that I couldn’t read.
“I see. Well, that is indeed a problem,” he said drily. “But, Neil, you know that there are a lot of possible feelings, and it’s not always easy to identify them precisely.” He turned the little paper over in his hands and looked ponderously at it.
“Hmm… Nice, John,” I said, looking impassively at him, a shadow moving over my face. “Too bad it slides off me like dirty water.” My voice was so cutting that his lips turned down in a crestfallen grimace.
“You know, doctor…” I leaned back against the bench and put out another cigarette butt. “A person’s outlook on life changes when they’ve seen too much harm firsthand. When they’ve seen it in their own home, the place where they’re supposed to be cared for, protected, comfortable, and…” I gave him a bitter smile. “…loved,” I finished emphatically.
“Love becomes something different when it’s whispered in your ear by a grown woman when you’re a child. A woman who touches you without your permission, takes off your clothes, and forces you to engage in sex acts all the while telling you, ‘No, Neil, this isn’t wrong. This is love.’” I clenched the pack of Winstons in my fist and looked away from John’s face, which would undoubtedly be dumbstruck. “This is the first time I’ve told anyone other than Dr. Lively about that, but that is the reason I hate that fucking word.” I turned to John and saw him staring into the middle distance.
“That woman would whisper it to me when I came. She hid the immorality of what was happening, the filthy sex we were having, behind those four little letters. She told me it was a form of love, what she was doing to me, to mislead and cajole me. I still remember how I would run for the shower, soaked in sweat, and I’d scrub my skin raw trying to get her smell off me until I had these little rashy spots all over me. Then my mom would come home and smell something weird in my room, and I certainly couldn’t tell her what had happened in my bed…” I observed John’s eyes and hisclenched-tight jaw. His breathing had gotten labored and his nostrils kept flaring like he was trying to hold back some angry outburst.
“And how long did that situation go on? When did your parents find out?” He cleared his throat and sat up stiffly. For the first time since I’d met him, Dr. Keller seemed vulnerable.
“My parents were always away working. My father ran his huge company, and my mother, well, she was building her fashion house. She only noticed something was wrong when I started having behavior problems—aggression at school, excessive anger, hating to be touched, and insomnia most nights. Typical symptoms of abuse,” I explained, chewing nervously on my lower lip. “The whole thing went on for about a year. It was the most hellish time in my life,” I continued coldly. John closed his eyes and rubbed his face with his hand.
“And she… Is she…in prison now?” he asked cautiously, trying to catch his breath after being shocked by my revelations. How many similar stories had he heard over the years in his practice? Why was he so shaken up by mine?
“No, she was transferred to a psychiatric facility,” I answered vaguely. My head was throbbing, and there was a stabbing pain in my chest that felt like it was crushing my lungs. I felt like I was tumbling into the same abyss I always entered when I remembered.
“I still feel soiled and ashamed of what happened to me. I cannot give love because I got it in the wrong way. I can only connect it to something vile, and I certainly can’t get with a girl like Selene. She couldn’t even imagine how dark my past really is. If she looked deep inside me, she’d see nothing but emptiness. My family are the only people who know about my issues because I’ve never wanted people to think I’m crazy. It’s still a struggle not to hurt myself or to give in to the wrong temptations, even if they would ease some of my pain. Most of the time, I transfer the pain from my mind into my body and vent it as anger. Hatred. It makes me feel alive, free if only for brief moments. And I don’t care about hurting anyone. I don’t know who I am, John, and I don’t know what I want. I think I’ve been lost for so long that I no longer even know which direction I’m heading. I’m just wandering through Hell, alone, trying to understand where I belong.” I stood up,feeling the need to put some physical distance between us. John also got to his feet with a sigh.
“You need to look inside yourself, son, and think about everything you’ve dealt with, everything you’ve managed to overcome. You have to be proud of yourself for going on in the face of challenges that are almost insurmountable to a child. Other people have no clue about the powerful emotions you’re juggling.”
The doctor tried to put a hand on my shoulder, but I stepped back to avoid being touched. Sensing my discomfort, he tucked his hand into his pants pocket instead. “But you’re here right now, and that in itself is a victory. You got back up, tried to move forward like a true warrior. And that’s what you are.” He gave me a reassuring smile, but my face remained grave as I listened to him. “Thank you for putting your trust in me and sharing that part of yourself.” His voice was kind and quiet, and I gave him a small smile in response. Then, I watched as he walked back over to the entrance of the clinic.
After our talk, it was clearer than ever that I could never reciprocate Selene’s feelings.
I’d rather keep her at arm’s length than slowly lose her over time because of my issues.
I had protected her and tried to be there for her because I knew that I cared for her.
My eyes had known it when they first fell on her, wearing that childish Tinkerbell sweater, and then my body knew it the moment my fingers brushed her velvet-soft skin.
