“No. I’m not going to sit here and let you give her a free pass like that,” I practically shouted. “I didn’t deserve to be called a slut. Yes it was awkward and yes it was tense, but it didn’t get heated until Bree called me that. And even when it did get heated I never said anything like that. Sure, I told her she was a judgmental bitch, but at the time, that’s how she was acting. I never said that she turned into a popularity-hungry bitch over the years, though. Do you want to know why? Because even though I was thinking it and even though I feel like it’s true, Bree Rewins was my best friend at one point and that’s supposed to count for something.”
I closed my mouth, looked down at my hands and just sat there, suddenly feeling like all of the energy had been zapped out of me. I didn’t think I’d ever voluntarily said that much to Dr. M before and I wanted to take it all back, shove it all back down my throat and pretend like it never happened.
But I couldn’t.
I looked up after a minute and Dr. M was smiling at me. It was a sad smile and I wasn’t sure what it meant.
“You’re right, Carson. You didn’t deserve that. And, yes, it should have counted for something.”
I wanted to leave. I looked at the clock and saw that I had five minutes left.
Five minutes.
300 seconds… 299… 298…
“You are worth much more than an ignorant label, Carson, and I hope you are starting to see that.”
What I was starting to see was that baiting me into saying that I deserved better from Bree might have been Dr. M’s plan all along. Maybe it was and I fell right into her little reverse psychology game. Maybe it wasn’t and I was just giving her too much credit. You never knew with therapists.
“I think we made a lot of progress today, Carson, and I think we learned a lot.” Dr. M said.
Progress. That’s what my mom wanted, wasn’t it? For me to make progress? Progress meant no church camp. I should’ve been at least slightly happy about this, but I just felt numb.
I looked up at the clock again and this time Dr. M did too.
“Well, I can see that our time is almost up,” she said. “Don’t forget about doing that exercise. Five things you like about yourself. We’ll start with that next week.”
I took that as permission to leave and so I got up from the chair, eager to get out three minutes earlier than usual.
“Oh, Carson, one more thing.”
I knew it was too good to be true.
I turned around but didn’t say anything.
“Have you tried any of the activities from the list I gave you? Have you found them helpful?”
I thought about the Happy List and Kellen and that stupid movie about the green troll-ogre. I thought about how Kellen had said we should finish the list together. I thought about how stupid I was to think that would actually happen.
“That list is a joke.”
Dr. M looked disappointed. I guess I didn’t make as much progress as she’d thought.
“I hope you change your mind about that, Carson.”
I left the room without responding. What was there to say? That I actually had changed my mind but was changing it back? That for a second I’d thought things could be different, but now I realized I’d just been kidding myself?
I stopped in front of the glass door that led outside. I could see a bike making its way down the sidewalk.
“Excuse me?” I said to the receptionist. It was a different girl than the one I usually saw working here. This one was young and dumb looking.
“Give me one second, sweetie,” she said, clacking away on her keyboard with nails the size of pocket knives. The sound was going right through me.
Clack, clack, clack.
Clack, clack, clack.
“Alright,” she said after a few more clacks. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you have a back exit? My mom just texted me and said she couldn’t find a spot out front, so she parked in the back.”
“Of course!” the girl said without even looking out the window. “I know it can get kind of busy out there.”
I glanced out the door. There were three cars parked outside.
The girl got out of her chair and I followed her down the hall just as a bike pulled up to the steps.
I couldn’t see Kellen then, or ever again. I knew how this would end so there was no point in having it start. My father left and Bree left and eventually Kellen would leave too. That’s how my life worked.
Dr. M thought we learned a lot today, but I had to disagree. We did not learn a lot today. I didn’t know what she thought she learned, but I only learned one thing: No one stayed in my life because I wasn’t a necessary part of anyone’s world. Everyone could get on with life just fine without me.
Nothing lasted and nothing was permanent.
That’s what I learned in therapy today.
Chapter 21
Self-Destruct
My head is so full of thoughts
But I can’t think
My heart is so full of emotion
But I can’t feel
My mouth is so full of words
But I can’t speak
I can’t
Think
Feel
Speak
I am numb
My body is on overload
And I can’t do anything about it
I can’t do anything to release the pressure
The pressure building inside me
It won’t be long before it is too much
Before it
Breaks me
Shatters me
Destroys me
I wonder if this is what self-destruction feels like
I wanted to jump out of my skin.
I didn’t want to be alone, but at the same time the thought of being around people filled me with anxiety, and I had no idea how to wrap my head around these contradicting emotions.
The fact was I was alone. My mom had just dropped me off at home and was headed back to finish decorating cakes for happy people that were getting married or retiring or turning twelve. And I was sitting on my couch wondering how I could be relieved that she was gone but also miserable that she’d left me alone like this.
“How did your session go?” she’d asked when I got in the car (after I’d waited on the side of the building until I saw Kellen go inside).
“Fine,” I’d said.
“Just fine?”
“Yes, just fine.”
She’d huffed, clenched the steering wheel and said, “Carson, it would be nice if you started to put in a little effort.”
My mom hadn’t said anything else until we pulled up to the house. “I have some cakes I need to finish up. Will you be okay by yourself?” she’d asked.
“I’ll be fine.”
And that had been the end of that.
Yes, I’d told my mom that I’d be fine, but I felt like one look at me should’ve told the woman that I was anything but fine. Any decent mother would’ve been able to see that they were looking at a completely unfine child. But my mom had just left. And now I was sitting here trying to decide how I felt about that.
Honestly I felt kind of empty. You know when you feel so many things at once that your body goes into overload and then all of a sudden it’s like it shuts down? Like a switch is flipped because too many feelings cannot be felt and the only way your body knows how to deal with it is to shut the feels department down and restart, leaving you feeling kind of empty for while?
I guess that’s what was happening to me. The switch had been flipped and I was just a confused shell of a person at that moment.
I couldn’t stop thinking about my appointment with Dr. M. Apparently the switch only turned off my emotions since it did absolutely nothing to shut down the five-lane highway of thoughts speeding across my brain. It was just, the look on her face when she’d said we’d made progress – there was so much hope there. She’d made it seem like in the last few weeks I’d taken twenty st
eps forward, but it didn’t feel like that to me. A few weeks ago I was a moody and slightly depressed kid that was fairly comfortable with her slightly depressed state. Now I was a moody and slightly more depressed kid that got this crazy idea that she didn’t have to live life being fairly comfortable with her slightly depressed state, before being promptly punched in the face by reality.
How was I any better now than I was before? I wasn’t. I could confidently say that isolating yourself from everyone was much better than coming out of isolation only to realize that it was everyone else that had been isolating you all along. Believing that you were alone by choice felt a hell of a lot better than finding out you were alone because everyone had left you.
Dr. M had placed her hope in the wrong slightly depressed kid.
I was starting to feel restless and anxious again. I guess the switch didn’t flip after all. The restlessness and the anxiousness were a lot to feel at once, but at the same time I was empty too. Maybe the switch had gotten stuck halfway. It figured I’d get the defective switch. I couldn’t even get my emotions to work right and it was the worst combination – feeling everything and nothing all at once. It was a combination that could make a person unstable.
My legs were shaking and I just wanted them to stop. I just wanted everything to stop. My eyes darted around the room before landing on the coffee table where I’d thrown the crumpled piece of paper Dr. M had given me in therapy. The paper that should’ve held five things I liked about myself, but instead was just a blank piece of tortured tree staring back at me. Like my head and my emotions, the piece of paper was an empty that was so loud I thought my eardrums might burst if it didn’t shut up.
I stood up and ripped off my jeans, my fingers fumbling and my hands trembling the whole time. I felt a little better once I was free of them, but not enough to stop me from doing what I was about to do. I stumbled into the kitchen and started yanking the drawers open, feeling light-headed and disoriented. At some point I saw little drops of water dripping onto the counter, and I realized I was crying, but I couldn’t feel the tears. I couldn’t feel anything.
Finally I found the scissors shoved behind the phonebook in one of the drawers and I didn’t even think twice. I saw it all happen, but it was like it was happening to someone else. It was my hand holding the scissors. It was my thigh turning red and slightly puffy after one, two, three swipes. But how could it be happening to me if I couldn’t feel the pain?
I wasn’t sure if I’d broken skin. The tears that I couldn’t feel were clouding my vision and I couldn’t see my leg anymore. Was it even there? Was I even there? All of a sudden I heard a knock on the door and I looked up. I didn’t want to answer it, and for a minute I just stood there hoping whoever it was would go away. The noise started up again though and it was like the person was knocking on my skull. I put the scissors on the counter and made my way to the door like some kind of zombie.
I pushed the curtain away and looked out the window. Kellen was standing on the other side of the glass. He smiled when he saw me.
“Can I come in?” I could hear his muffled voice ask through the door.
I looked down at the lock for a solid minute. I couldn’t remember how to move my hand and unlock the door. When I looked back up Kellen wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked worried.
“Carson?”
Something about the sound of him saying my name woke me up and I remembered how to move again. Then I remembered everything from yesterday and this afternoon. I remembered that I couldn’t see Kellen anymore. I needed to tell him that.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as soon as I cracked the door open. “I didn’t see you at the therapist’s office before my appointment.”
“I didn’t want to see you.” It sounded like my voice, but I couldn’t feel my mouth moving.
“What? Carson, what happened?”
“Please just stop,” I said before I realized I was even saying it. “Stop coming over here. Stop being nice to me. Just stop all of it.”
Kellen looked surprised. “Did I do something wrong?”
I felt a little delirious and I heard my voice say more words that my brain hadn’t given it permission to say. “You’ll leave. You’ll get tired of me and you’ll leave just like everyone else, so please just do it now.”
“Where is this coming from?” I heard him say, but I was miles away. This had to be what a nervous breakdown felt like.
“Bye, Kellen,” I said as I moved to shut the door.
I hit a brick wall. The door wouldn’t budge.
“Carson,” I heard Kellen say slowly. “What happened to your leg?”
I looked up and saw that Kellen had his hand against the door, keeping it open.
“I…”
My grip loosened on the door, and Kellen opened it wider. I felt exposed. Naked. And not because I was standing in front of this boy in my underwear again.
Kellen looked down at my leg again before looking in my eyes. I wanted to look away but there was nowhere else for my eyes to go. I was afraid to look down. I didn’t want to draw more attention to my leg. I felt ashamed and dirty. Kellen was never supposed to see this. Nobody was. All I wanted to do was hide somewhere until I was gone so long that I eventually disappeared. But I was too tired to hide. Suddenly all of the pain and feelings of the past few days had caught up and slammed me in the chest.
Kellen stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
“You should go,” I said.
He ignored me and took my hand, gently pulling me into the kitchen.
“Don’t freak out,” he said, “but I’m going to put you on the counter.”
Kellen lifted me up and set me next to the sink. His hands lingered on my waist for a few seconds, and when he took them away I found myself wishing they’d come back. I needed their warmth, their life.
Kellen turned on the warm water and handed me the soap.
“What are we doing?” I asked. The fact that I was sitting on the kitchen counter in my underwear seemed normal enough a minute ago, but the soap made the whole thing confusing.
Now that I thought about it, the fact that I was sitting on the kitchen counter in my underwear had never really been normal.
“You’re going to clean that cut,” Kellen said. “You’re going to take care of yourself and help yourself heal.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just scooted closer to the sink and cupped some water in my hands, dropping it over the cut on my thigh. I winced at the sting of the water, but kept going. I washed my leg as Kellen stood by the opposite counter. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him take the scissors off the counter and put them in his pocket.
“How did you know what I did?” I finally asked, my voice cracking as I rinsed the soap from my thigh.
“I was in rehab, Carson,” he said, not unkindly. “It wasn’t exclusively for drug addicts. People came in there for all sorts of things and sometimes they left with other things. That’s one of the reasons they tell you not to focus on making friends in rehab. You tend to pick up on other unhealthy coping strategies.”
I turned off the water. Kellen handed me a paper towel and I patted my leg dry. “Have you ever cut yourself?” I asked quietly.
“No,” he said. “But one of the guys in my hall did. He went in because his girlfriend said if he didn’t do something about his alcohol addiction then she would leave him. He said he’d do anything for her and he was actually doing well too, but then on visiting day she came and broke up with him. He was a mess about it. In group he said he just wanted to drink the pain away. Then all of a sudden he just stopped talking about it. The counselors thought he was getting over it… until they found him unconscious in his room. He was holding a bloody razor blade, and there were scars all over his arms. Later on they found out he got the blade from his roommate and had been cutting for weeks.”
My stomach was in knots and I thought I might throw up. I was embarrassed and dizzy and I wanted to say something but I
didn’t know what exactly to say.
“I don’t do it all the time,” I finally said, looking down at my leg. I couldn’t look at Kellen. “The last time was months ago. It’s not a problem or anything. I just, I don’t know… I lost it for a minute.”
I heard him take a step forward and all of a sudden Kellen was standing right there in front of me. I watched him slowly take my hand in his and I looked up into his eyes. There was pain and genuine worry, but that’s all I saw in those green eyes. I was relieved. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it if Kellen had looked at me like I was some kind of community service project.
“If you feel like you have to hurt yourself to take the pain away then it is a problem, Carson. It doesn’t matter if you do it one time or a hundred times.”
I immediately tensed up. “You’re not going to tell Dr. M, are you?”
A million thoughts sped through my head all at once. I couldn’t be locked up. I couldn’t be thrown in one of those places where they told you when to eat and sleep and talk. And that’s where I’d go if Dr. M found out. There and church camp over the summer. I wasn’t sure which I would hate more.
“Relax,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I’m not going to say anything. But I think you should. She can help you sort out your feelings and figure out why you did it in the first place. Just think about it, okay?”
I nodded, even though I had no intention of talking to Dr. M about it, at least not anytime soon.
“But just so you know,” Kellen said, “I’m not going to just let it go either. I’m going to do whatever I can to help you find better ways to cope, whether it’s bringing you to play laser tag or painting pictures or – ”
“Taking my scissors?”
“Yes, that too,” Kellen said. He smiled for the first time since he’d come in the house. I could still see a hint of sadness in his expression, but I saw something else too, although I wasn’t sure what. “You’re a fighter, Carson,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re strong as hell. You just have to use that strength to fight your demons, not yourself.”
From anyone else I would’ve thought that was cheesy. From anyone else I would’ve rolled my eyes and said that they didn’t understand. But it wasn’t anyone else and I knew Kellen understood. Better than anyone, probably.
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