by Nicky James
Dashing a look at Beck, I caught him studying me, oblivious to the doctor and her beauty. The warmth and concern in his eyes and the brush of his hand over the small of my back reminded me how close we’d become. Close, yet achingly far apart at the same time. Dealing with each passing day took every bit of my strength and left me with nothing to give. My lifelong dream had come true, and I couldn’t find a second of inner peace to enjoy it.
“It’s good to see you so mobile, Grayson.” I cut my gaze to Dr. Kelby and attempted a smile, noting the way she tipped her head as she studied me. “How’ve you been?”
“Not so great. Thanks for seeing me.”
“Who’d you bring with you today?” She eyed Beck.
“This is Beck. He’s… a friend.” I wasn’t sure if he wanted to be outed, so I took the safer route. It earned me a frown, so I must have fucked up. “Do you mind if he stays?”
“Whatever helps you feel comfortable. How about you tell me what brought you here.”
I blew out a long breath as I rubbed a hand over my right thigh. Where to begin. Anything I said was going to make me sound like I’d lost my mind, but that was why I was there. Right? Admitting it, then riding the wave wherever it took me. Even if that wave went directly to the nut house.
So, I started at the beginning. I told her about the first few days in the hospital and how I’d had this uncomfortable feeling surrounding the passing of time. I told her about my nightmares, my panic attacks, the warped perception of reality that snuck up out of the blue. The obsessions. The fear. I told her about the incident at the dealership. About Beck’s clock. About the pages of timekeeping I couldn’t explain. The drinking. And finally, the recent thoughts of just ending it all.
Once I started, it poured out of me. Only when Beck took my hand did I realize I was shaking and crying. It was just one more thing I hated. All my control was slipping. Emotion dumping had become a regular occurrence. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Frustration. It all sat on the surface for everyone to see.
“I’m just so tired. I can’t sleep. I can’t make it from point A to point B in my day without everything caving in on me. I’m just so done.”
Dr. Kelby offered a tissue box, and Beck took it from her hands, holding it out for me. I blew my nose and blinked the puddles from my eyes.
“Grayson, I’m hearing a lot of different things that seem to be coming at you all at once. I want to focus on them one at a time. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
Nodding, I helped myself to another tissue, wadding it into my palm.
“Let’s start with your accident. We talked before about how everything happened and about your being stuck under the house for three days. Did you know how long you were there before the doctors told you?”
“No. It was all too… consuming. Confusing. I was scared. Trapped. In pain. It was dark and cold. I didn’t know how long I was under there. When they said sixty hours, it came as a shock, I guess.”
“Were you aware of passing days? Did you register sunlight?”
“No. It was too dark. There was never any light. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I remember waking up from being unconscious a few times and not knowing how long I’d been out.”
“Hmm.” She made a few notes on a pad of paper in front of her. “Tell me about your nightmares.”
I stared down at the result of my accident, the metal contraption that functioned as my leg. A heavy weight sat on my chest. It was a constant pressure. Always there, sucking the life from me. Draining. I didn’t have much left to give. I blinked away more tears and continued, even though I didn’t see a point.
“They’re mostly a recreation of my time under the house, except, there is always something in the darkness I can’t see. A being. I know it smells me and that when it finds me, it will kill me. I want to get away. Run. But I’m trapped, and I can’t move. Other times, I am running, but he catches me….” I trailed off as a sympathetic stab of pain shot down my leg. “There is pain. He’s eating my leg, but I can’t see him. I can only feel him consuming me.”
“That’s pretty frightening,” Dr. Kelby said, her voice soft and soothing. “Is this a nightly occurrence?”
I looked at Beck, searching, because although I mostly remembered each time I dreamed, there had been times he’d told me I was crying out and thrashing in my sleep, and I didn’t recall a thing.
“Most nights. Maybe five times a week,” Beck said, turning to face her.
Did he realize he’d just implied we shared a bed? How else would he know?
The doctor didn’t flinch. Nodding, she marked more notes and canted her head as she watched. “Do you experience the same sensations of being stuck under the house when you’re awake? Does anything trigger you back there or is it strictly a sleep time thing?”
“The dark,” Beck offered before I could speak. “I’ve witnessed a few occasions where he slips into a panic attack when it’s too dark.”
“It’s not the same,” I corrected, the snap in my tone making Beck sit back and cut his eyes away.
“How is it different?” the doctor asked.
“I don’t know. It just is. Darkness just triggers me back there. But I don’t relive the experience like when I dream. Mostly I just feel the fear again. I relive the fear.”
Nodding, she pursed her lips as she referenced her pad of paper. “Let’s talk about triggers. You’ve told me about how time seems to distort or change pace for you. Does this happen at random or have you singled out anything that causes these changes in perception?”
I laughed humorlessly as I shook my head. “Lately it feels like anything and everything sets me off. The ticking of a clock, the speed of traffic.” I waved a hand at Beck. “The auctioneer at the auction we were at a few days ago. If it’s too quiet or too still. If I notice time jumping forward and can’t pinpoint what I’ve done.”
My heart skipped, and I clutched my watch, desperately wanting to rip it out and check it just because we were talking about it. Beck read my mind and caught my hand, forcing it to remain motionless.
“And when you are pulled into these… episodes, you called them… What happens?” Dr. Kelby asked.
Shoving away Beck’s attempts at soothing me, I bent over, resting my elbows on my knees. Unveiling the mountain of problems was almost as exhausting as climbing it. “My heart races. Sometimes I get this feeling of needing to escape. I get clammy and hot all over. I shake. I can’t breathe.” I tore my fingers through my hair, staring at my prosthesis, cursing its existence because I was fine before all this happened. “It’s like an overwhelming sense of fear covers my body and squeezes me until I think I’m going to die.”
I trembled. My teeth chattered. Unable to resist, I took my watch out and held it, staring at the second hand journeying around the face. Inside my head, I counted the seconds.
“Is it happening now?” she whispered.
When I didn’t answer, Beck placed a hand on my back.
We talked more about triggers, isolating the different feelings associated with the speeding and ceasing of time’s movement. Dr. Kelby asked about my motivation, my work, my intent to drive again, and my future plans.
After an hour and a half, I was raw. Lost in my head and no longer willing to be a part of the conversation, I stared into the distance. Numb.
So, so tired of it all.
“Grayson, can you look at me?”
My head weighed a thousand pounds as I lifted my gaze from the floor. Turning my watch in my hands, I found the bright green eyes of my therapist and wondered if my life could ever be that radiant again.
“When someone experiences severe trauma, often it is accompanied by lingering post-traumatic symptoms that won’t necessarily go away on their own. Revisiting and reliving that traumatic experience over and over and suffering panic attacks and fear are actually quite common. Have you heard of PTSD before?”
I nodded.
“With all you went through, it doesn’t sur
prise me that you would be experiencing a touch of PTSD.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with all this time warping bullshit?” When Beck rested a hand on my knee and squeezed, I knew I’d been too abrupt. “I’m sorry,” I gritted. “I just don’t think that fits.”
“You’re right. I think this derealization of time you’re experiencing is something different altogether. However, I think it too was triggered by your accident. You were kept in a state of time-deprivation for sixty hours while under extreme stress. You were pinned and unable to get help. Time was immeasurable as you understood your condition to be depleting. Your awareness of your own mortality grew out of proportion because your survival relied on you being found on time. I believe, it lingers now and has manifested into what I might call chronophobia. Do you know what that is?”
Great. So I was a headcase.
“No.” I sneaked a look at Beck, but he was listening intently. The poor man had been trying so hard to keep me together. He clung to this tiny thread of understanding like it would change everything.
“It’s an uncharacteristic fear of time or the passing of time,” she explained. “All your symptoms point in that direction.”
I blinked, absorbing, then snorted and turned to Beck. “I told you they were gonna lock me up.”
Beck flashed a quick look in my direction but immediately consulted the doctor again. “So what does he do about it? You can fix it, right? It will go away.”
“The best thing for Grayson at this point would probably be some intense cognitive therapy. Learning how to handle triggers and episodes. Understanding how to reduce stress so his brain perceives and processes time correctly.
“Grayson, I’m not a pill-pusher. I believe excessive use of things like anxiety medications don’t always do people justice. But they can help. Chemical imbalances in the brain occur during times of extreme stress or trauma. The brain releases something called dopamine. It’s a chemical in your brain that affects your emotions. Sometimes the brain gets stuck in a surge of release and needs to be reminded not to flood your system. That’s what the drugs do. Once it’s back to normal function, weaning off drugs and letting the brain continue naturally is what I like to do.
“Based on what you’ve shared, I think your anxiety is consuming. I would like to put you on an extremely low dose of anxiety medication while we continue working together. Combined with a couple sessions a week, I think we can help you feel less like you’re ‘losing your mind’—as you put it.”
She spoke of pills and therapy and retraining my brain, but all I heard was you’re broken, you’re crazy.
“Anxiety meds,” I repeated, attempting to absorb the notion.
“Also, I think a low dose anti-depressant wouldn’t hurt as well. That too isn’t something I see as permanent.”
I didn’t have to ask why she thought that was necessary. The fractured workings of my mind crumbled. I pushed a strained smile to the surface and nodded.
“Sure. Why the fuck not. Dope me up.”
We left the office with a handful of prescriptions and another appointment booked for the following week. Beck, not wasting a minute of time, drove directly to the pharmacy to get them filled.
“This will help,” he said when we returned to the car with my head drugs. “A step in the right direction. I bet in a few weeks you start feeling like a new man.”
His positivity was patronizing.
I had nothing to contribute, so I stared out the window, unresponsive, as he drove us home. When we arrived, Beck shoved water and pills into my hand like I was six and smiled with such hope.
Was that how he saw me? Broken? Crazy?
“How about we start with a shower and a shave? We’ll get you cleaned up so you feel refreshed, and maybe you’ll see how positive today was.”
Positive?
“I think I’m gonna lie down.”
“Forget it. Come on, I’ll help you. I want to see you smile.”
He dragged me into the washroom and encouraged me to sit on the closed toilet seat. It was all a waste of time and energy. Where was I going? Who was I impressing?
“First, I’m gonna shave you. Will you let me? That’s kinda sexy, right?” A hopeful gleam lit up his eyes as he tilted my face and ran a thumb over my scruffy cheek.
When I didn’t respond, he dug through the cabinet and found shaving cream and a new razor. Sitting on the edge of the tub, he placed a hand towel in my lap and popped the cap on the can.
The whole time I watched, my heart ached. For as long as I could remember, Beck had been everything to me. I’d yearned to hold him in my arms and love him openly and freely. I’d dreamed of having a life with him beyond friendship. I still did.
We’d broken that barrier. My dream had come true.
Yet, sitting before him, I was a shadow of the person I used to be.
I’d wanted to give him the world, but since finding this new level of intimacy between us, all I’d given him was frustration, pain, and resistance. And a responsibility he didn’t ask for. I felt as though I was freefalling through space, tumbling and turning without any knowledge of up or down. This wasn’t the person I wanted to be, and it definitely wasn’t the face I wanted Beck to see.
How long until he resented me? Hated me? Blamed me?
Or worse, gave up and walked away.
Before the wad of shaving cream he’d squirted into his palm came into contact with my face, I caught his wrist. The hope in his eyes dimmed.
His brows dipped, but he attempted a smile. “You trust me, right? I won’t cut you, or rather, I’ll try not to. I’ve never shaved another guy’s face before.”
I couldn’t do this to him.
Such beautiful hazel eyes, such an incredible mixture of both green and brown. Perfect lips I’d been lucky enough to taste. Hair like silk and curls I could knot around my fingers for the rest of my life. Had I ever stopped and told him?
I shook my head and lowered his hand. When I stood, my name left his lips with question ringing in his tone. Leaving him in the washroom, I went into the bedroom and found my duffle bag in his closet.
He followed.
“What are you doing?” He stood in the doorway, uncertain and tense, but I didn’t answer.
I emptied the few drawers of clothes I had into the bag and zipped it up. From the corner, I collected my crutches and headed back down the hall. Beck caught my arm, but I shrugged him off.
“What the fuck? Where are you going?” He was on my heels and slapped a hand on the door before I could escape. “Stop and talk to me!”
When I turned to him, the pain radiating from his multitoned eyes was something I never wanted to see—especially knowing I was the cause. I studied that pain. Recorded it all so I would never forget it. It was me who’d done that.
He grabbed my hand, his eyes wild with emotion. “Gray, what’s going on?”
A crushing, debilitating pain grew in my chest. It ached. I unclasped our linked hands and touched his face. Ran my fingers over the faint scruff on his cheek and brushed the pads over his lips.
“I’ve loved you all my life. Every day, with every breath I’ve ever taken. Do you know that?”
“Gray…”
“I haven’t been fair to you, and I hate myself for it. This isn’t the man I want to be. It’s not the man you deserve.” He went to speak, but I touched a finger to his lips and shook my head. “I want to give you the world, but right now, I barely have the strength to stand on my own.”
“Don’t abandon me.”
I smiled, my eyes watery and blurred from the tears I could no longer control. “I will never abandon you. You hold my heart, Beckett, so I can’t live without you.”
I kissed him. Memorized his taste and the feel of his lips, soaked up every sensation as I breathed him into my soul.
“I’ll be in touch,” I whispered against his mouth.
Then I left him there, stunned and speechless.
As I descended the s
tairs, he called out, panic rising in his tone, but I wouldn’t turn around.
I couldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beckett
With a sinking feeling growing in my chest, I dropped onto a kitchen chair. I was hot. Cold. Confused.
Gray was gone.
There had been something in his eyes. Something troubling and haunting, and for the first time in the twenty-two years that I’d known him, I didn’t trust him. My insides churned, and nausea made my skin clammy.
“Do you know how close I am to offing myself? Do you know how many times a day that thought runs through my mind now?”
Over and over I listened to his pained voice saying those words. I tried calling him, but it went to voicemail. I texted, but there was no response. As a last resort, unsure what else I could do since he refused to hear me or let me help, I did the one thing I knew would piss him off.
I called his mother.
“Beckett, sweetheart, it’s so good to hear from you.” In less than a second, she realized I never call her. Her tone changed. “Is something the matter? How’s Grayson?”
“Hey, Mom. He’s… not doing so well. I don’t want to worry you, but he’s kinda fallen off the rails, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh my… oh… Anthony! Anthony, come here, it’s Grayson,” she called to her husband. “Where is he? Let me talk to him.”
“He’s not here. That’s why I’m calling. We were at the psychiatrist's today. She’s basically diagnosed him with depression, PTSD, and some phobia thing he’s developed. An anxiety disorder, I guess. I don’t think he took it well.”
Short of explaining our relationship, I thought it best to stick with the facts of everything else that was troubling him and leave the conversation we’d just had out of it.
“Do you know where he’s gone?”
“No. I tried calling, but he won’t answer his phone. I’ll keep pushing. He might have gone to the house. He was telling me earlier this week that it’s almost livable. The structural work is done. I can’t think of where else he’d go. I just think he needs someone around right now. Someone he won’t push away. He shouldn’t be alone.”
