Survivor Stories

by J P Barnaby

  “Why. Didn’t. You. Tell. Me. Not. To. Go.?” The pain in Spencer’s voice finally brought the tears Aaron had tried so hard to keep from falling. They slid down his face like they couldn’t wait to get away from him either.

  “Because you deserve better than a half life.” Aaron’s voice felt disconnected from his body, like it didn’t belong to him. An effect of the drugs, he knew, but disconcerting anyway. Maybe Spencer wasn’t really there, and he had dreamed him. That happened, especially in the beginning when he still medicated himself daily. Aaron knew he’d had conversations with Spencer during that time that Spencer had never known about because he was miles away at his own house.

  “Aaron., I. Am. Trying. To. Make. A. Life. For. Us.,” Spencer said, but Aaron could hear the underlying lie. Spencer wanted to get away from him. He wanted to be free of the constant insanity and be able to go out once in a while with friends he no longer had because of Aaron. Aaron couldn’t blame him. He’d love to be normal too.

  “If you meet someone…,” Aaron began, but his throat closed around the words.

  “No., Aaron., Do. Not. Say. It.,” Spencer pleaded, but he couldn’t finish anyway. He couldn’t say the words which would set the man he loved free. Spencer’s mouth covered his with slow, achingly sweet kisses. Soft hands cradled his face, and for a moment, he felt almost safe. “I. Love. You., Aaron., More. Than. Anything….”

  If you loved me, you wouldn’t leave me!

  “I love you too.” Aaron let the tears fall freely then, and then shamelessly he begged. “Please come back to me, Spencer, please.”

  “As. Often. As. I. Can., I. Promise….”

  And then, with one final kiss, he was gone, and Aaron rolled to face the wall again so he wouldn’t have to watch Spencer walk out of his life.

  SPENCER SAT behind the wheel of his little blue Mazda and rested his head against the plastic, unable to force himself to turn the key to start it. The drugged-out, glassy betrayal in Aaron’s eyes haunted him. Spencer had done the one thing he swore he’d never do—he’d hurt Aaron, the one person he loved more than anyone. Deep down, he couldn’t even say he’d done it for Aaron, to build a life for them. Of course that made up a majority of the reason, but if he really examined his motives, as he had over the last two weeks, he was excited about starting his life after being stuck in neutral for so fucking long. The blame for that rested just as much on his shoulders as it did Aaron’s. Falling into a comfortable routine with Aaron these last three years, he hadn’t pushed himself to find new friends or to go out, except where Aaron felt comfortable going. He’d become a completely different person since starting college, someone he wasn’t sure he recognized.

  Movement in the window, probably Aaron’s mother checking on him, made him turn the key and start his car. If he hit traffic, the drive to his new place could take up to two or two and a half hours, and he wanted to at least get his clothes somewhat unpacked before he had to work the next day. He had to work the next day. With his dad’s money, Spencer had never had a job before. The prospect excited him. He’d already made a significant amount of money all his own, and now he could support himself with the money he’d make from his job. It made him proud.

  Checking over his shoulder, he backed slowly out of the drive and onto Aaron’s street. He looked up at the house but didn’t see anything else, no Aaron, no one. Aaron’s parents and Allen had said good-bye, told him that they would miss him and to come back soon. The worry in Mrs. Downing’s eyes intensified the guilt in his stomach, but he pushed it away. He wanted to make things better for Aaron, not worse. Maybe this would make them both grow up a little. Maybe it was the jolt their relationship needed to move forward again.

  Maybe he was just a selfish prick.

  Once he got onto the highway, the drive didn’t take as long as he’d expected, and soon he pulled into the garage around the corner from his building. He’d come up the day before to instruct the movers on where to put everything, so he only had a small backpack with him. Nothing to drag up the stairs to his third-floor walkup apartment. His apartment. God, it made him giddy. Eric had called the area Lakeview, even though he couldn’t see the lake from his low-level apartment. It was beautiful, though, lots of lights and people and life. He missed life.

  He tried to take in all the trees and the iron railing around the buildings but in the end simply walked up and used his new keys to get in through the front door. He jogged up the stairs and used a different key to get into his one-bedroom apartment. The living room furniture he’d ordered wouldn’t arrive until later in the week, but he’d picked up a bed and a television, and he had his clothes. The rest he could live without. A veritable buffet of restaurants lay a block or two over on a street called Halsted. He’d seen them when he’d circled around to find the parking garage. So he could pick up a bagel and coffee on his walk to work because his office building was just a few stations down the Red Line train. He’d also looked that up when researching the apartment.

  It took Spencer three hours to unpack his clothes, books, laptop, sheets, and everything else he needed to make his bedroom a bedroom. He also unpacked his toiletry items, towels, and other things he’d need for his morning shower. Delighted to find that his favorite online grocery service delivered to his new building, he made an order to be delivered the following night after work. He felt more like a grown-up than he ever had in his entire life. By the time he had everything under control, he was startled to see it was ten o’clock. So he texted his father, who still hadn’t quite forgiven him for growing up, and then clicked on Aaron’s name. Aaron would be in no shape to return a text right then, judging by his drugged-out state when Spencer left, but he sent a message anyway. Maybe he’d get a response the next day.

  With no other way to distract himself, Spencer grabbed his iPad and crawled into bed. Even with all of the moving and excitement from the day, he figured he wouldn’t be able to sleep right away. Maybe reading or watching another episode of Doctor Who would allow him to relax. Flipping off his bedside lamp, he lay back against the pillows. He never got a chance to turn the iPad on before he fell asleep.

  ABOUT THREE in the morning, Aaron rolled out of bed and turned on his laptop. He’d been sleeping for hours and couldn’t stand lying there anymore. The drugs were starting to wear off, and he felt almost human. The pain pressed against the back of his eyes, and a choking lump clogged his throat, but he’d survived worse. He’d survive without Spencer. Even though Spencer’s words still rang in his ears, that he’d be back as often as he could, Aaron knew that, between the new friends he’d meet, the guys he’d go clubbing with, the millions of lines of code he would write without Aaron, Spencer’s life was taking a whole new turn, one that left Aaron behind.

  In their last session, Dr. Thomas had tasked Aaron with something to help with his therapy. He wanted Aaron to become more active in his online support groups and start making friends there. Aaron couldn’t deny that making friends might help with Spencer. They’d talked a few times about how Spencer lamented being so isolated. He’d had lots of friends in his afterschool deaf program—deaf kids and even some of their hearing siblings. That had all fallen away when Spencer started seeing Aaron.

  So here he sat. It had taken him a while to be able to get out of bed, but less time than it used to. Thank God, because if Aaron had stayed in bed for a week like he did in the beginning, he’d have lost time he could have spent with Allen. Allen would leave for Purdue in just over a week. After that, his own semester would start, his first without Spencer. Everything in his life had turned on a dime, and Aaron didn’t deal well with change.

  Clicking on the folder of bookmarks on his Chrome toolbar, Aaron looked through the list of PTSD-related support groups he’d found and tried to be encouraged by reading through them. The first site he went to was horribly disorganized, and he found it difficult to follow the threads of discussion. The next one had better organization, but most of the posters were people who had gone throu
gh what he had, and he didn’t want to read about that. Finally, on the third site, he found a healthy mix of disorders, which sounded so completely weird in his head. It was clean, with few ads and an easy straight-line system for comments and replies to comments. Aaron read about people who had been beaten as children and gone on to confront their abusers. He made a note to talk to Dr. Thomas about that. Though the men who attacked him and Juliette had never been caught, he didn’t think he could ever sit across from them and tell them what kind of devastation they’d caused in his life. Dr. Thomas once suggested writing them a letter, but he froze every time he sat down at the computer. They had pushed that back for later consideration.

  One message in particular caught his attention. It was longer than the others, but he liked the profile pic of a phoenix rising from the ashes. The name, MissingTwin, also piqued his interest, so he clicked on it.

  August 12, 2013

  By MissingTwin at 3:17 a.m. (49 Views /12 Likes) 7 Comments

  I see him every time I catch a glimpse of my warped reflection. It’s been four years since I watched him being ripped out of my life with a single gunshot to the chest. Four years of nightmares. Four years of our mother’s tears. Four years of guilt. And for what? Because some guy two years ahead of us in school didn’t get first chair in band? We would have doubled for prom. We would have graduated side by side and gone to college—maybe not the same college, because we wanted different things, but we’d have stayed close. He was my best friend, and I left him to die on the floor. I want it all to stop, but I don’t know how to make that happen. The shrinks don’t help. The meds don’t help. The booze doesn’t help.

  Can someone here tell me how to make it stop?

  Aaron’s heart froze behind a thin layer of ice in his chest. God, he knew exactly what that felt like, that gnawing feeling in the back of your head about wanting to make it all stop. It looked like the guy lost his best friend, or maybe his brother. For the first time in a long time, he thought about someone else, what their pain must be like.

  Clicking on the Reply link, he skipped past the other platitudes in the list and left his own: MT, no one can make it stop but you. You’re right, the pills and the alcohol don’t help. In your heart, you need to decide that you want it to stop. Aaron. He didn’t see the need to make up some clever name, because he was just Aaron, no one special.

  The next message was from a teenage girl who cut herself to make the pain go away. Aaron never wanted more pain, nothing like the pain he’d experienced that night, so he didn’t understand why she would do that, but he understood trying anything to make it stop. He left her a message too, and the next, and the next, until he looked up at the clock to see that it was after eight and he’d been responding to messages from broken people for over five hours.

  The warmth in his chest glowed as he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for the day. For the first time in a long time, he thought maybe he might want the mirror back. Right then, he wanted to see if anything had changed, because he felt different, even though he couldn’t quite put a name as to why.

  Covered by his long-sleeved T-shirt and sweats, Aaron grabbed his laptop and headed downstairs with a different determination than he’d had when he logged on to the site. He wondered if Dr. Thomas had known that helping other people would help him. As he dropped onto the couch, he grabbed his laptop once more, and while he didn’t go back to the therapy site, he logged onto his own blog and started to type.

  THE BUZZING under his head woke Spencer early the next morning. He’d roughed out how long it should take him to get to work using Google maps, but anything could happen, and he had to eat before he caught the Red Line train. With a mixture of fear and anticipation, he hit the button on his phone to turn off the alarm and noticed he had no incoming texts. He had a couple of Facebook messages, a couple of Twitter mentions, even a box full of e-mail, but nothing from Aaron. Fighting back the hurt, he climbed out of bed and headed to his brand new bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later, with nothing but his iPhone, keys, and wallet, Spencer left his apartment and headed up Newport toward Addison and Sheffield, where he could catch the train south into the loop. Eric said the office, a forty-five-story building with cards to swipe you in and out, sat on Clark across from the State of Illinois building. According to Google maps, he would only have a few minutes’ walk from the Lake Street stop, but he imagined he could pick up coffee and a bagel on his way. According to the website he’d used to plan his route, the CTA didn’t much like riders eating on public transit.

  It took a minute, once he trekked into the station, to follow the digital prompts on the machine. He’d get a monthly pass at some point, but right then he just threw twenty bucks into it, and out popped the little blue card. The worker ants marched through the turnstile one by one as Spencer watched, trying to figure out where the card went and which way. Finally one of the transit cops standing off to the side took pity and helped him slide the card, and he headed toward the platform to wait for his train.

  It didn’t take long. When the train stopped, he stepped into the car, found a seat next to a professional looking woman reading on an e-reader, and held on for a second as the train jostled them into motion. He looked up frequently, including each time the train slowed. Because he couldn’t hear the stops as they were called through the speaker system, he watched the changing board over the door, paranoid he’d miss his stop. The book on his phone held no interest for him, and he continued to watch the city pass outside the train window. Neighborhoods and streets full of color and light whizzed past in a dizzying array of people, buildings, and street signs.

  Spencer counted off stations, until finally the Lake Street station came up next on the map. His iPhone went back into his pocket as he stood up and grabbed the handle above his head, waiting for the train to slow again. He’d lived in the shadow of Chicago his entire life but had never taken the train anywhere. The independence of it made him float with a light kind of excitement.

  As he hit the stairs to take him to street level, he pulled out his phone and checked the directions. He didn’t want to start out his first day by going in the wrong direction off the train. Having conducted both interviews via Skype, he hadn’t ever been to the building before and seemed to stumble across it just a block and a half from the Red Line station. Excellent, it was even closer than he’d realized, and with the blinding luck of a great day, his new building housed a Starbucks on the first floor.

  It would be a very good day.

  The barista behind the counter didn’t even flinch as he ordered. She simply wrote his name on the cup, got the bagel started, and sent him on down the line. Apparently being deaf didn’t make him a freak in a city the size of Chicago. He liked that. He stood next to the pickup window and watched for the cup and bag which bore his name. The cup wasn’t an issue, and he picked it up immediately, but he’d gotten a text from his father and missed the bagel until he noticed the guy waving it around with an exasperated expression. With heat creeping up his neck, Spencer apologized when he picked it up, but the guy just nodded, seeming to understand.

  Nearly forty-five minutes early because of his careful planning, Spencer snagged a comfortable chair at the opposite end of the little shop from the pickup window and settled back with his coffee and bagel, considering the day a success so far.

  [Spencer] Hey, doc, things are fine. I found my building. I am eating breakfast in the Starbucks on the first floor.

  [Spencer] Have you heard from Aaron?

  [Dad] That’s great. No, I haven’t heard from him or his mother. She’d call if he were in crisis.

  [Dad] Just give him time.

  [Spencer] I will. I was just worried. He was broken when I left last night.

  [Dad] Aaron doesn’t deal well with change.

  [Spencer] I know.

  [Dad] Enjoy your first day. I’ll talk with him about it later.

  [Spencer] Thanks, Dad.

  Spencer want
ed to ask how things were going with the woman his father was dating, but with the strain in their relationship, he didn’t. Instead he sent Aaron a text, a simple “I love you,” and then clicked on Nell’s name and sent her a text. The text to her included every bit of his excitement because he knew she would understand. She’d had to break away from Spencer and his father and take a job in California, though it killed her to do so. They were kindred spirits in that respect. When she responded with excitement of her own, he smiled.

  At a quarter to nine, Spencer strolled up to the security desk and gave his name to an ancient guard armed to the teeth with equal parts attitude and boredom. The guy watched out of the corner of his eye while Spencer stood off to the side and waited for Eric to come down for him. A criminal, guilty until proven invited. Ten minutes later, the man he’d only ever seen on-screen strode from the elevator toward the security desk.

  “Thank you, Harry,” he said, and Spencer stepped forward. “Hi, Spencer, ready for some fun?”

  Spencer didn’t know if he knew anyone who considered work to be fun, but since it was his first job, he adopted that attitude.

  “Yes.,” Spencer replied with a nod as Eric led him to the elevators.

  He spent the morning filling out paperwork and having his building ID made by a little machine which printed his picture, name, and pertinent details on a card. The nice lady punched the card and threaded plastic through it, which attached it to a plain blue lanyard. Spencer pulled it over his head. He was now a corporate player. By the time Eric rescued him from human resources, he was anxious to get started with his new department.