aterovis_bm_reapthewhirlwind.p65 (12 page)

Aidan turned to me now. “Can I tell Dr. Wohler what’s going on?” I thought for a moment, and then nodded my consent. He quickly and succinctly outlined the events leading up to my depression and my attempted suicide that morning. When he had finished Dr. Wohler sat for a minute tapping his chin with one index finger, his expression unreadable. Then he pulled a legal pad out of a desk drawer and asked me a few questions. He scribbled on the pad the whole time while I talked. A mental picture of him drawing nudie pictures while I rattled on popped into my head, almost making me giggle out loud. I decided I was definitely in the right place since I was apparently going “nucking futs” as the t-shirt says.

When he’d used up his questions, he looked up and asked Aidan to excuse us. After he had slipped quietly from the room, Dr. Wohler turned his full attention on me.“Well, Will,” he said after a few seconds of carefully studying my face, “as you probably already know, you’re in a pretty deep depression. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that depression is very treatable. Since your depression seems to be mainly because of your situation right now, and maybe some residual issues 104

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that you need to deal with regarding your upbringing, we could just work through it in some sessions. What I think is the better course is for us to set you up on some mild anti-depressants, get you out of this funk, get you so you’re thinking a little clearer, and then we can really tackle those problems. You’ll be able to handle a little poking at sore spots once your depression is under control. What do you think?”

I nodded hesitantly.

“Do you understand what causes depression?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Okay, to oversimplify it, there are lots of little cells in your brain, but they don’t touch. To get information from one cell to another they need a conductor. That conductor is called serotonin. When your body isn’t producing enough serotonin it can cause all sorts of problems, but the main one is depression. What we need to do is increase your serotonin level. Are you following me?”

I nodded.

“Okay, great!” He pulled open another desk drawer and pulled out some small boxes. “I’m going to give you some samples of a medicine that I think will do the trick. It’s a very mild drug that has very few, very mild side effects and it’s not habit-forming. You won’t feel an immediate difference; it takes a few weeks to get into your system. If this doesn’t seem to be working for you then I want you to tell me that. This may not be the right drug for you, but I promise there is a right one.

This isn’t an exact science though, and we may have to try a couple before we hit the right one. I’m betting this one will be the ticket, however.”

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He slid the boxes across the desk to me and I picked them up.

“These are on the house. Take two of those a day to start with. I gave you a two-week supply; that’s the ear-liest that you would see some effect although it takes others longer sometimes. Is it okay if I bring Aidan back in now and tell him what we’ve decided?”

I nodded again and he pressed a button on his phone and spoke into the receiver, “Linda, could you send Aidan back in please?”

Aidan was back beside me in no time. Dr. Wohler directed his comments to him, “You were right to bring Will here, Aidan. He was definitely in need of a doctor’s care. He is depressed but we are going to treat it ag-gressively with medication.” He turned back to me.

“Will, do you trust Aidan?”

I thought for a moment then nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Good. I think you know that not too many roommates would go to this length for someone they’ve only known for a month. I’m going to give Aidan the medicine to administer for now until you are in a better frame of mind.” Aidan took the boxes and we both sat looking expectantly at the doctor. “There’s one more thing I want you to do for me before you go, Will. I would like you to make a covenant with Aidan that you will not hurt yourself before talking to him. Can you do that, Will?”

I looked down at my lap and nodded somewhat hesitantly.

“Say it.”

I looked up, startled.

“Look at Aidan and say it. Tell him that you promise not to hurt yourself without talking to him first.”

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I slowly turned my head until I was looking into Aidan’s piercing green eyes. I saw myself mirrored in them, looking like a deer caught in headlights. I focused on the twin images of myself and forced the words from my mouth. “I promise I won’t hurt myself without talking to you first,” I whispered hoarsely.

“Good!” said Dr. Wohler. “Now remember, you made that promise in front of a witness and a man is only as good as his word. Aidan, take care of him, keep an eye on him and call me if anything comes up that you can’t handle. He probably shouldn’t be left alone for a few days. Do you have some friends to help out?”

“We’ll be okay,” Aidan said confidently. I was glad someone was confident.

“Good, okay then. Will, I’ll see you in two weeks.”

***

Once, Gabe even spent a tortured hour trying to make conversation while I stared dumbly at the television.

But most of the time it was Aidan that watched over me, he even started sleeping in my bed, chastely of course. As far as I could tell, he never strayed from his side of the bed. At first, I thought the constant attention would be suffocating, but in reality, I found it very comforting. It was nice to know someone cared that deeply.

When the next week began, Aidan stayed home from school. When I protested, he said that everything was already arranged with his professors and for me not to worry about it.

Things settled into a nice, comfortable environment in which I slowly but surely began to feel better. The black curtain of depression began to lift and I began to 107

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feel hopeful once again. But as my spirits began to rise, so did my restlessness. I was working at my drawing table one day with Aidan sitting nearby as usual. He was supposedly reading, but he was at my elbow if I so much as farted crooked. I got up to go look for a notebook that I was pretty sure was in my closet but Aidan insisted on getting it for me. After some bickering, I gave in with a sigh and went back to my drawing. When he still wasn’t back after several minutes I called back without looking up, “Did you find it? I told you I should just get it myself. I’m not an invalid you know.”

“What are these?” he asked quietly from directly behind me. The closeness of his voice caused me to jump.

I turned to see what he was talking about. He was holding one of my sketchbooks, the one in which I had drawn my suicide fantasies.

“They were—from before,” I said softly. Looking at them now, I felt a strange horror, as if someone else had drawn them. It seemed impossible that they had come from my mind and my hand.

Aidan ripped the pages from the book with such a sudden, savage motion that I jumped again. He angrily shredded them one by one then gathered all the tiny pieces of paper and tossed them into the sink where he burned the whole lot. A strange shudder went down my spine as I watched the flames lick at the shreds of paper, eventually consuming them completely, leaving only a black mess that Aidan washed down the drain.

The whole episode bothered me more than it should have. We ended up going to bed earlier than usual and I was extra glad for Aidan’s presence in my bed that night.

I awoke suddenly with the acrid smell of smoke still 108

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in my nostrils. I pushed myself into a sitting position and felt a sticky wetness on my hands. I looked down to see they were covered in blood. Whose? Mine? A knife lay on my pillow, glinting in the semi-darkness. I looked for Aidan but he wasn’t next to me in the bed. I was alone. Suddenly fire was all around my bed, jumping and leaping closer and closer like a living thing. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. The flames crept closer and I squeezed my eyes closed so I wouldn’t have to watch my skin burn away like the edges of the paper.

“Will! Will!” It was Aidan’s voice. My eyes flew open to see his face, wide-eyed and frightened above me. “It was just a bad dream, Will. You’re okay. I’m right here.”

My heart felt like it would beat right out of my chest and my breathing came in ragged gasps. Could it have been just a dream? But it must have been; there was no fire, no smoke, no blood. I was in my bed and Aidan was holding me, but the terror still clung to me like stubborn fog in weak sunlight.

“It’s okay, Will,” Aidan whispered as he wrapped his arms around me. I felt my body slowly begin to relax into his and I snuggled closer. I hadn’t felt so comforted since I was a little kid being held by my parents after a bad dream. I slowly drifted off to sleep.

The nightmare stayed away for the rest of the night and I awoke the next morning with Aidan’s arm still around me. I sat up suddenly, waking him in the process.

“Mornin’…,” he mumbled sleepily.

I looked around the room for signs of a fire. It was silly I knew, but the nightmare images were still so vivid in my mind.

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“Whatcha lookin’ for?” Aidan asked.

I lay back down without answering. Aidan raised himself up on one elbow to look into my face. “Are you okay?” he asked. Before I could answer, the phone began to ring. Aidan looked around for it. It was on my side and since I hadn’t made any move to answer it, he leaned over me to grab it up. His face was just a frac-tion of an inch from mine, so close I could feel his breath on my lips. Our eyes locked and he froze, the ringing phone momentarily forgotten. It stopped abruptly and the sudden silence brought us back to ourselves. Aidan quickly rolled back to his side of the bed. We carefully avoided looking at each other for an awkward moment before the phone began to ring again.

“I’ll get it,” I said quickly. “Hello?”

“Will! Just who I was looking for! Did I wake you up?” It was Nikki.

“No, I was awake.”

“Oh, because I just called and the phone rang and rang and no one answered so I thought—well anyway, I’ve got some good news. How soon can you get to the gallery?”

“Um—how soon can I get to the gallery?” I repeated to Aidan.

“An hour?” Aidan suggested with a shrug.

“An hour,” I relayed.

“Perfect! See you then! Ciao!”

“See you then,” I said to a dead line. “Nikki wants me to come to the gallery; she said she has good news.

Have you ever noticed how you can hear the exclamation points when she talks?”

Aidan laughed as he sat up. “Do you think she sold one of your paintings?”

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“That would be so cool!” I exclaimed as I jumped up out of the bed. For the first time since my depression had set in I felt really excited.

Aidan got up and started out of the room. “You take your shower first. I’ll cook us breakfast. This calls for a celebration!”

“We don’t even know what we’re celebrating,” I called after him.

“Who cares? I’m just glad we’ve got some good news for a change.”

After we had both showered and enjoyed a delicious omelet that Aidan had whipped up, we arrived at Avant Guard slightly ahead of schedule. Today, the Dixie Chicks were serenading walkers-by on the plaza from the open door of the gallery. They were belting out a good-bye to Earl as we walked into the seemingly empty showroom. As we were standing there trying to decide what to do next, Derrick pulled his appearing trick. I made a mental note to ask Nikki how he did that. When he saw who we were, he dropped his poise and yelled over his shoulder, “Nikolia, it’s your latest find, the next big thing.”

Nikki swept past him with a wide grin on her face,

“Guess what?”

“I sold a painting?” I guessed.

Nikki frowned. “No, I’m sorry Will; you didn’t sell a painting…” I felt my face drop before she went on,

“…you sold all three!”

“What?” Aidan and I chorused, then I added, “You’re kidding!”

Nikki laughed. “I stirred things up a bit, called a few people to come see them, told them you were a newly discovered talent and boom—they sold themselves.”

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“I can’t believe this!” I said.

“I can!” Aidan laughed.

“Now before you get your hopes up, I priced them on the low side since you are an unknown at this point, but now we have a benchmark. They only go up from here. We never really discussed prices so I hope you aren’t disappointed.”

I was surprised to realize I hadn’t even thought about money. Just the fact that someone thought my art was good enough that they wanted it was enough for me at the moment. “How much?” I asked.

“Three hundred.”

I blinked. “Dollars?”

“No, pesos. Of course dollars.”

“For all three? But that’s great!”

“No, not for all three; each.”

“Th-th-three hundred dollars—each?”

“That’s nine hundred dollars,” Aidan said helpfully in a somewhat awed voice.

“Minus my commission of course,” Nikki said with a wink. I felt like I needed to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit. I swayed a bit as Nikki went on, “How do you feel about doing a one-man show? I’d like to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. These people that bought your paintings are the types who like to brag about their latest acquisitions to all their rich friends, so you can be sure your name will be circulating right now. I’d rather not wait more than, say, a month or so.”

I was still reeling from the last blow so it took me a while to catch up with her and realize what she was saying. Things always seemed to happen faster than I could keep up with when Nikki was around. “One-man show? Are you serious? When?” I finally managed.

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“Very serious. As for when, well, it’s the beginning of October now and I’d really like to get it in before Thanksgiving, so let’s say mid-November. That would give you about a month. You wouldn’t have to do anything but paint; I’ll take care of everything else. Think you can pull it off?”