by J P Barnaby
“SO, I just reached up and touched you?” Aaron asked in utter disbelief. He had absolutely no memory of it. Vaguely, he recalled he wanted Spencer to look at him so he could make his friend feel better. It had been Aaron’s fault, not Spencer’s, that he’d had a flashback. Normal people can tolerate being tapped on the shoulder; there was no way Aaron could let Spencer feel guilty. Spencer was looking down, and that frustrated Aaron because, not only did that cut off their communication, but he found he liked looking into his friend’s face. His eyes expressed every emotion, every reaction, just as if he’d spoken them aloud.
Spencer nodded, and the barest trace of a smile pulled his lips up at the corner. Aaron smiled in spite of himself. Deep down, he had to admit he liked the idea of touching Spencer’s face. He just wished he knew how it had been possible.
As Spencer drove, silence fell over the car, and Aaron became lost in his thoughts. So much had changed about his life in the last few hours, which was strange to him since he still felt like the same damaged person he had been when he left for school that morning. Doctor Thomas had given him so much to think about, including, it seemed, his very first breakthrough.
His mother stopped him with questions about his forehead, startled that something had happened to him. He tried not to think about the last time he’d been hurt when she hadn’t been there. With more patience than he knew he had, Aaron told her he’d cleaned it and dressed it himself. No, he didn’t need her to check it. Yes, he’d put on antiseptic. Finally, he told her he had homework just so he could get away.
When he got up to his room, Aaron quickly pulled out his laptop and sat on his bed. There were hundreds of sites he could use for his blog, but a quick search of his favorite technology reviews narrowed down his options. What he really needed was a site where he could choose to publish some of his entries to registered users and some only for himself. There were just some things Aaron was sure Dr. Thomas would have him write about that the good doctor didn’t need to see.
Aaron found a site that matched his requirements, and it didn’t take long to create the address. It actually took longer to come up with a title and a subtitle than the address. “A Fucked up kind of life,” that just about summed it up. It felt a little strange to use that kind of language when the blog itself was for Dr. Thomas, whom Aaron considered an authority figure, but if it was going to help him, he had to make it his own.
The first blog entry, the one where he got to be poetic and introspective, came rather quickly, so he created a new post and started to type.
A Light in the Darkness
Posted by Aaron at 8/28/2010 6:43 PM | Add Comment | Personal
Darkness pervades my every thought, my every action. There is nothing, not a single reprieve from the horror that lives inside my head. It has ensconced itself, as surely as if it had been born there. Maybe it had. Had there always been a dark place inside of me, and it merely took that one unspeakable act of violence to unleash it?
But what of the light?
“How did your study session with Spencer go?” Aaron’s mother asked him as she came up that night to call him for dinner. Feeling immensely guilty about not sharing his flashback or his talk with Dr. Thomas, he merely replied it had been fine. Her face lit up, and she seemed genuinely pleased he was able to socialize with a friend. Aaron didn’t have any concrete reason to hide his new relationship with Dr. Thomas, but deep down he held onto the belief that seeing this new therapist under his terms without any involvement from his parents would make a difference. That maybe because it was something he was doing for himself rather than something they were doing for him, there would be a positive outcome.
“I’m glad you two had a nice day. Why don’t you wash up and come down for dinner. I made tacos,” she told him, smiling as she picked up his laundry hamper and left the room. For the first time in his life, he felt a little guilty about allowing her to wait on him like that, and resolved to take it down to the laundry room next time and get his brothers to do the same.
It was about time the Downing boys started carrying their weight.
“Allen, could you hand me the cheese?” Aaron asked his brother as they sat at the dining room table just a little while later. While his mother watched, stunned, Aaron dug into his third taco. He hadn’t eaten very much of the pizza at Spencer’s, and he found to his delight he was rather hungry. It didn’t happen often, and he was going to take full advantage. Allen looked at him for a minute and then set the bowl of shredded cheddar cheese between them. Anthony, who sat across from Aaron, was on his fifth taco.
“Okay, if you boys are going to eat like this every night, you’re going to have to get jobs,” John Downing commented as he watched his sons, completely delighted. Between them, the boys had eaten well over a dozen tacos, and it didn’t look like they’d be stopping anytime soon. Aaron looked up just in time to catch the glowing look his parents exchanged, and it made him smile. His parents hadn’t smiled, hadn’t looked happy like that, in a long time.
“We should have a cookout this weekend,” Anthony thought out loud between huge mouthfuls of food. “We haven’t done that in, like, forever.” Looking up hopefully at his father and then his mother, he smiled, and then at Allen’s loud guffaws, picked the lettuce off his face.
As his mother started to answer, Aaron laughed, while she stopped midsentence and looked on in amusement.
For just one evening, it was almost as if nothing had happened, like he was normal. Aaron wished he knew how to make that last. He was almost reluctant to let it end and go upstairs to work on the blog. Shattering the good feeling hurt his heart, but after a few minutes, he trudged up to his room and sat down at his desk.
A Touch of Magic
Posted by Aaron at 8/28/2010 9:12 PM | Add Comment | Therapy
When Dr. Thomas told me I had touched Spencer, not once, but several times during the course of my episode, I didn’t believe him. It wasn’t until my eyes found Spencer’s and I saw, not the pity I had expected, but hope, that I decided it must be true.
But why?
My own mother, the person I love most, who is closer to me than anyone else, can’t touch me. This boy, whom I have known but a few weeks, has broken though when no one else could. How is that even possible?
My whole life, even when I was a child, people told me I had an analytical mind. I suppose that is why I always excelled at debate. Lately, my intellect has been completely overshadowed by fear and emotion, except when I am coding. It is only then, lost in the logic and the syntax, when my mind is fully engaged, that I feel any kind of connection to the boy I had been. When I code, I don’t feel helpless.
Is that the key?
It can’t be. There are other people, the instructor and other students, that I associate with programming. I didn’t reach out and touch them. Those people aren’t friends, though. Spencer is the first friend I have made since Juliette was killed. No one had ever approached me, had ever extended that hand of friendship.
Is that the difference?
How can kinship with a friend outweigh the relationship I have with my mother or my brothers? I’ve never reached out and touched my mom or Allen. A simple pat on the shoulder or just grabbing my hand causes an immediate panic. Even before their hand reached me, my whole body would tense, making my heart race.
With Spencer, I didn’t even think about it, I just reached out for him.
Maybe that is the point.
I reached out for him. I controlled the touch. Could it really be that simple?
His hands shook as he typed the last word. Shifting in his desk chair, his back protested from being so tense for such an extended period. Time seemed to stop while he wrote, but his computer clock told him it had taken an hour just to write those simple paragraphs. He reread the last few lines. Maybe that was the secret—it was contact he initiated. But somehow, he didn’t think that was the entire reason for success. Deep down, he believed he could touch Spencer not only because it was som
ething within his control, but also… because it was Spencer. Aaron didn’t want to admit this in a blog entry Dr. Thomas would read, but he couldn’t help but feel there was something special about Spencer that allowed the contact to happen. Either because he was so understanding of Aaron’s problems, or because he was such a great friend.
In his whole life he’d never felt closer to anyone, not even Juliette, and it had happened so quickly.
“I think you made very good progress with the blog,” Dr. Thomas said a few days later, as Aaron sat cross-legged on the floor of the rec room eating Chinese takeout. Spencer and his father had mastered the art of chopsticks, but Aaron ate with a fork, much to Spencer’s amusement. The doctor had read Aaron’s blog post aloud at the start of the session, so he felt relieved that he hadn’t put in anything about how close he felt to Spencer. Neither Spencer nor his father needed to know that bit, especially since he wasn’t really sure what it meant.
“Thanks, I’d never really thought about doing a blog before. The shrinks always wanted me to keep a diary, but it felt kind of girly. The blog makes more sense to me because I can configure the security on it, and keep the things I want private from ever being seen. I feel more comfortable with that than with a little heart-shaped lock that wouldn’t even keep out my twelve-year-old brother.” Aaron took another long drink of soda to wash down the spicy noodles. His parents didn’t like Chinese food, so he’d never had it before. Too embarrassed to admit that, he ordered the same thing Spencer got, and to his surprise, he really liked the chicken and noodle dish.
“I’m glad you feel comfortable with it. I think it’s going to be invaluable when you start analyzing some of your behavior patterns. I have a few more questions I want to address before we get to today’s session. Do you self-medicate?” Dr. Thomas asked as he set his Chinese takeout box on the table and picked up the notebook he used for their sessions. A pen appeared almost out of nowhere, and he looked up at Aaron expectantly.
“I don’t know what you mean. Like do I take the pills myself without following the directions or something?” Aaron asked as he pulled another forkful of noodles from the container and popped them in his mouth.
“That, or do you drink?”
“I only take the pills when I get really stressed out, like when I have a flashback or something bad happens and I can’t deal with it. I used to drink, a lot,” Aaron admitted and then wished he hadn’t said it. His parents could get into trouble if anyone knew their underage son drank.
When he stopped talking abruptly, Dr. Thomas grabbed his soda from the table and popped open the top.
“Aaron, I’m not here to judge you for drinking. In fact, I’d honestly be surprised if you didn’t after what you went through. It’s a horrible thing to cope with, and alcohol is a pretty effective way not to think about it anymore. Of course, it’s not a long-term solution by any means, but I need to know all of the elements of your situation in order to be able to help you.”
“I did drink. I’d sneak liquor from my parents’ cabinet, only… after a while, I don’t think it was much of a secret anymore. I think they were at a loss about how to help me. They never said anything about the missing booze, but they had to know. At least they could get some sleep at night too,” Aaron finished in almost a whisper, ashamed he’d forced his parents to condone underage drinking just to be able to sleep.
“And when did that stop?” Dr. Thomas asked quietly.
“When I met Spencer.” The words were out of Aaron’s mouth before he could stop them.
Spencer looked up, chicken and noodles suspended in midair from frozen chopsticks. Aaron’s face heated as he studiously avoided Spencer’s gaze, and he felt the blush radiate, lighting up the room. Aaron caught the look Dr. Thomas gave him, and then Spencer, and wished he could melt into the carpet.
Dr. Thomas continued to question Aaron, who answered the best he could. Spencer became unnaturally quiet as he watched from the corner, and Aaron would have given anything to know what was on his mind. If only he had the balls to ask.
Fourteen
SPENCER: OKAY, I’ve been looking at this for an hour! WTF!?! I am taking a break. Please tell me what I am missing?? Please???
SPENCER: public static class StringExtensions
{
Public static DateTime ParseDateTime(string dt)
{
string dayOfWeek = dt.Substring(0, 3).Trim();
string month = dt.Substring(4, 3).Trim();
string dayInMonth = dt.Substring(8, 2).Trim();
string year = dt.Substring(10, 4).Trim();
string dateTime = string.Format(“{0} - {1} - {2}”, dayInMonth, month, year);
DateTime returnValue = DateTime.Parse(dateTime);
return returnValue;
}
}
Aaron laughed a bit at Spencer’s frustration because he knew exactly what that felt like. He’d just gone through it a few days ago when he screwed up and forgot the base index on an array was 1, not 0. So, his entire loop was off by one value. It drove him crazy until he finally found it. Copying Spencer’s code into his .Net development environment, it took him about ten minutes to create a quick program to instantiate the class and bounce data off it. Isolating the problem code made troubleshooting easier than keeping it in the entire application, if at all possible.
The first date he sent into the instantiated object worked fine; so did the second and the third. Okay, you want to be difficult then. He thought back to what Dr. Mayer had taught them just the other day about testing their applications—always test the extremes, the boundaries, and anything it’s not supposed to be. If a user can enter something into an interface, they will. So, he took the lowest and highest dates that the DateTime type would accommodate. They were fine. With all the specific substring functions Spencer used, maybe it had more to do with the format of the date when it came into the class. Not to mention he had no error trapping and no formatting tests within the class. It was almost like he wanted a user to fuck it up. So, instead of entering a date with the standard format, he dropped the first digits on the month and day and entered 1/1/2000 instead of 01/01/2000. Bingo
AARON: Fuck yeah!
Aaron minimized the chat window and went to work on adding some testing to the class for different date formats while he waited for Spencer’s response. He was surprised when the computer dinged almost immediately. Spencer must be done with his break and back to coding. When he brought up the window again, his breath froze in his lungs.
SPENCER: Fuck! You make me so hard.
What. The. Ever-loving. Hell? He pushed the desk chair back, distancing himself from the shocking words on his screen. Panic choked off his lungs, and his heart threatened to leap from his throat. Aaron couldn’t believe, after everything they’d talked about, everything they’d been so careful not to say, how Spencer could say that to him. A vibe must come off him that just says fuck with me. God, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be friends with Spencer if that was the expectation. He couldn’t…. He just… he….
SPENCER: Oh my God, I’m so sorry. That was not meant for you. I was talking to someone else in another window, and when yours came up, I didn’t check the name.
Aaron couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t answer, he couldn’t do anything but just stare at the words on the screen and try to stop the images that flooded his mind. As he pulled back up to the desk, his hands shook on the keyboard. His throat burned as the words came back to him and assaulted his mind.
Suck me good, that’s right, kid, make me hard so I can fuck you.
You make me so hard.
SPENCER: Please, Aaron. I am sorry. Please say something.
AARON: I found your error. I’ll send the code in an e-mail.
SPENCER: Not about the code, I could give a fuck about the code right now.
AARON: What the hell kind of conversation were you having that you would send that to me by accident?
Anger, humiliation, fear, it all swirled and
burned in his chest. Damn it, he hated feeling like that, so out of control, and all over a few words on the screen. No wonder his parents wanted to dump him off somewhere.
SPENCER: I was talking to someone online about sex, getting off while we talked. I never meant for you to see it. I don’t get a lot of action since people think I’m retarded. I have to take it where I can get it.
Aaron didn’t go online much, and he certainly didn’t socialize when he did. He couldn’t even socialize with people standing in front of him, much less people all over the world. Though, maybe it would be easier to talk to someone he would never see. He had no idea. Everything had been so screwed up for such a long time, nothing seemed real anymore, nothing but the fear.
AARON: Do you do that a lot? Maybe we shouldn’t talk over chat.
SPENCER: No, I don’t do it a lot. Just sometimes.
AARON: Why?
SPENCER: Why don’t I do it a lot, or why do I do it at all?
AARON: Both, I guess.
SPENCER: I do it because I am sick of being alone. It feels good to be wanted, even by someone I will never see. I don’t do it often because it just feels empty.
Aaron didn’t know what to say to that, but he didn’t want Spencer to feel empty, and he didn’t want Spencer to feel guilty about screwing up the screens for his chat. Yes, it had shocked Aaron, and he hated the way it scared him, but Spencer hadn’t done it intentionally to hurt him or torture him. Somewhere deep inside, he knew Spencer wouldn’t. A quick but confusing image of Spencer lying back on a nondescript comforter with his hand wrapped tightly around his cock flashed through Aaron’s mind, and he jerked his hand away from the keyboard as if he’d been burned. It was the first sexual thought he’d had in such a long time. Fear boiled up, bubbling from his stomach to his chest, and filled him with such conflicting emotions he had a hard time processing them. Fear, attraction, guilt, lust… panic.
