He's Come Undone (5 page)

~ Julian ~

“How are you doing?” Dr. Rebecca Adair asked from her chair on the other side of the coffee table.

I hated shrink day, which wasn’t the same as saying I hated my shrink. Dr. Adair was okay, but everything else…everything else sucked, starting with the room. Like the couch I now sat on, and the coffee table with the obligatory box of tissue, placed right in front of me at an angle so it would look like the positioning hadn’t been orchestrated when in fact it had because there was always that tissue, pulled out just so far, waiting perfectly.

I imagined Dr. Adair bending over and arranging that box and that single tissue before the arrival of every patient. I had yet to grab for said tissue even though the good doctor tried like hell to get me to break down.

And that was really the thing, the core of my loathing. The way shrinks wanted you to go over this stuff again and again. Like they
wanted
you to break. It wasn’t just Dr. Adair. They were all the same.

I could say that, because I’d had three of them. Two back in New Hampshire where we used to live, and Dr. Adair, someone I’d been seeing once a week since starting school at the U of M. I hoped like hell we could drop it to every other week, because I usually felt pretty good until I saw her. How did that make any sense? You went to a doctor to feel better, not worse.

I didn’t have to go, and I’d skipped a few visits, but they always called my sister, and she always got after me. The tears. The fear. I couldn’t handle it, so I came. I let Adair poke at my scars, and then I’d leave, and then I’d start to heal, and then I’d go back for the next visit and it would start all over again.

“I met a girl,” I told her. The words just popped out of my mouth.

Dr. Adair sat with her back to a window that overlooked a park and jogging trail, her office located in her home. Patients entered through a side door, and I’d never seen what was beyond the room where we met.

Next to her was a pink orchid with two green fronds and a stem so long and weak it had to be supported with a wooden stick and some twist ties. I mean, come on. I knew orchids were supposed to represent something soothing, but I would often catch myself looking at that damn flower, wondering if it represented her patients, represented me, this person who couldn’t stand on his own. Who couldn’t deal with the world without someone supporting me. She should really have some strong and sturdy plant, something with a thick stem. Maybe a jade plant or cactus or something.

“A girl,” she said. “What’s she like?”

“Weird. She’s weird.”
She saved my life. She jumped on a drunk guy’s back and smacked him in the head.
Of course she hadn’t saved my life. I wasn’t delusional.

“In what way?”

“In a good way.” I didn’t want to go into the brawl, because I didn’t want Dr. Adair to know I was hanging out in bars. She’d lecture me about drinking, especially drinking while on medication.

I leaned into the couch and stretched one arm across the back. “She’s spontaneous. I guess that’s how I’d describe her. And so real. So bluntly honest. I love that.”

She frowned and looked down at the notebook in her hand, then back at me. Dr. Adair never talked about herself, but she seemed like the kind of person who might be married to a professor. They might have two kids about my age, and two dogs, preferably yellow labs, but maybe some kind of retriever.

“Julian, I don’t think you’re ready for a serious relationship.” This was the first time she’d ever given her opinion about anything—another annoying thing about psychiatrists.

“It’s not serious,” I told her. Not yet. “I’m not even sure she likes me.” Especially after walking out on her at the coffee shop. I felt bad about that, but when she started talking about death I couldn’t hang around. I couldn’t even
respond
because I was afraid I’d fall apart in front of her. And then what would she think? So I left.

“That’s something I haven’t heard before. A girl not liking you. Do you think that might be why you find her attractive? Because she’s not interested?”

She could have a point. I thought about her question while I stared at the orchid. What would happen if the twist ties that held it to the stick were removed? Would the flower just flop over? I’ll bet it would.

“You might not realize it, and you might not want to admit it, but you’re still very fragile,” she said. “And a relationship brings with it a lot of strong and unfamiliar emotions.”

I closed my eyes and reopened them while pulling in a steadying breath. I would not get pissed. Before I could launch into an argument, she continued with her negativity.

“As I’ve said before, along with PTSD, I suspect you’re also suffering from post-traumatic growth syndrome. When someone goes through something as traumatic as what you went through they often stop growing emotionally.”

“So you’re saying I’ll always be nineteen.” That was bullshit. Total bullshit.

“No, not always.” She riffled through her notes, then looked back up at me. “You’ve been out of the mental institute over a year, and you’re doing fantastic. I just don’t want anything to happen that could set you back, that’s all.”

“I like this girl.”

“Like you liked all of the others.”

“Others? What others?”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned girls.”

“This is different. Those girls… they came on to me. I met them at parties. They were just one-night stands. They were just looking for a good time. This is different. Totally different.”

“Because she doesn’t like you? Because she didn’t come on to you? I think that’s what it is, Julian. This is what I mean by post-traumatic growth syndrome. Yes, emotionally you might be nineteen. Or even younger. You are reacting to this girl with the emotions of a teenager rather than a twenty-three-year old. I think you’re reacting to all girls with the emotions of a teenager.”

I wanted to get up and walk out like I’d done the other day with Ellie. I was starting to see a pattern in my behavior.

“These girls. How many have there been?”

“I don’t know. Six? Seven?”

“You don’t know how many girls you’ve been with since you moved here?”

“No, I haven’t kept track.”

“Have you used protection?”

I could feel my face getting warm. “Yes.” Was that any of her business?

And then she got around to what was really bugging her. “Are the girls just objects to you? Interchangeable? Disposable?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

God, were they? Was she right?

All along I’d justified my behavior because they came on to me, they asked me out, took me home, made the first move. All of them. So what if I never called them back? That was part of the college game, right? And they got what they wanted out of me. That’s what I figured. Beyond the sex, I just hadn’t been interested.

“They wanted it.” I tried to explain. “They all wanted it.”

She watched me in that calculating way of hers. With an expression that said she thought I was full of shit and she was just waiting for me to come to my senses and admit I’d used them. God, maybe I had. I didn’t like where this was going.

The whole thing had been so heady. I’d started college and suddenly there was this buffet of beautiful girls who were attracted to me. And they were hot, and they were horny. Had I done anything wrong?

She must have seen she was upsetting and confusing me, because she changed the topic, moving to something safe. “What about running? How’s that going?”

“I have a marathon coming up,” I said, relieved to talk about something else. “Training for that. It’s not school-related. Just something I want to do.”

“And classes?”

“I like most of them.” But she probably wasn’t interested in how much I liked or disliked them. “I wish I could have gotten into the Kurt Cobain class since they only offer it every few years, but it was full.”

“And the medication? Making you tired or confused? Any side effects I should know about? Especially since this particular drug has been on the market less than a year and I’d like to be kept informed of anything unusual.”

“No side effects. Well, maybe a little forgetfulness sometimes. Like I’ll start to do something and completely forget what it was, but other than that—” I shook my head. “No problem.”

“Short-term memory can be an issue with most anti-depressants.” She made some notes, her pen scratching across the surface of her notebook. “What about sleep? Are you sleeping?”

“Yeah, fine,” I lied.

“Anything else you want to share?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Whenever you come here, we discuss talking about your life-changing event next time, and next time never comes. I think you’ve reached a point where I can’t help you anymore unless we discuss it. You aren’t going to move forward unless our conversations progress.”

Unless she cut me open and poked at me.

She recrossed her legs. “Julian, I think we should talk about it. I think it’s time.” And then she did something she hadn’t done before. She pulled out a digital recorder, turned it on, and placed it on the table in front of me, very close to the box of tissue. “Tell me about the night your parents were murdered.”

~ Julian ~

I swear my heart stopped beating then started again. Dr. Adrian’s question hung in the air while my whole body sweated, even my palms. I rubbed them against my jeans, trying to dry them.

“I can’t talk about it.”

“You keep asking about changing your visits to twice a month. I can’t do that until we explore what happened. Until I’m sure you’re coping as best you can. And part of that coping is being able to talk about it. When the memories take you by surprise—and they will, and they probably have—I want to make sure you have the tools to cope.”

“Running is how I cope.”

“I suspected as much, and I appreciate your honesty.”

“What I mean is, I don’t need this. I have running.”

“Running is like the medication. It’s a temporary fix. That’s not good enough.”

“Oh, Christ.” I rubbed my hands across my face. I pulled my hair back from my forehead then linked my fingers behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed to work through this if I ever wanted to have any kind of normal relationship with anybody.

“And the girls,” she said. “I think they’re the same thing. I think you’re using them in the way you’re using running. A diversion. A physical diversion.”

I hadn’t talked about it to anyone even though it had been over three years. She probably knew that. It probably said something about it in her notes. I’d actually done okay at first. It wasn’t until a year and a half later that I snapped, but it was explained to me that the first year and a half-—when I thought I’d done okay—I was just in this state of suspended animation. A defense mechanism.

“You found them, isn’t that right?” she asked in a gentle, probing voice.

I couldn’t seem to sit still. I leaned my elbows on my knees and clasped my hands together, staring down at the table. “Yeah,” I finally whispered. “I… um, I’d gone out with some buddies. It hadn’t been that long since we graduated from high school, maybe six months or so, and we were kinda wild. And I don’t know… I came home. It was late. Like maybe after two in the morning. Right away I knew something was wrong. Door unlocked. And then inside…”

I pressed fists to my eyes, trying to block out the memory, but once it started I couldn’t make it stop. And just like that night, my hands were shaking, and my voice was shaking as I went on to describe what I’d found.

“At first the cops thought maybe I’d done it. Isn’t that crazy?”

She made a small sound of sympathy.

I looked up and the room was blurry. “You know, you see that kind of stuff—murder scenes—in a movie, but it’s nothing like that. It’s like… well, in some ways it’s not as bad, but in other ways it’s so much worse.”

“They caught the killer though,” she said.

“Yeah. Two guys. Meth heads, looking for drug money. My parents were killed for two-hundred bucks.” I reached blindly for the tissue, pulled it out, and wiped at my face.

“Do you feel guilty about it?”

“Shit, yeah. Really guilty. Like I should have been there. I shouldn’t have been out partying. I should have been there to help them. Or I should have died with them. I dunno.”

“Survivor’s guilt. That’s what you’re feeling. It’s very common in situations where friends or family lose their lives in an unexpected way. This is what I hope I can help you come to terms with.”

She closed her notebook, reached over and shut off the recorder, and said, “That’s enough for now. We’ve made some headway today. I feel good about that.”

“I sure as hell don’t.”

She laughed a polite laugh. “It feels that way now, but believe me when I say this is necessary for you to heal.”

I tossed the used tissue on the table and got to my feet. “I think it’s all shit.”

“That’s understandable. I’m sorry. I’ll see you next week.”

Good luck with that.

I left with no intention of going back.

~ Ellie ~

Two days after Devon showed me the YouTube video, I scheduled a private meeting with the girls. We met in Charlotte’s dorm room. Just me, Charlotte and Paige. They were bright eyed with expectation, sitting side-by-side on Charlotte’s twin bed, anxious to hear how things were going.

I straightened in the wooden chair, cleared my throat, and said, “I want out.”

They stared at me. And stared some more.

I dove into all the reasons this wasn’t working, then asked if they’d seen the YouTube video.

Laptop whipped out. Quick search, and there I was.

We watched, they laughed, I checked the ticker. Almost a million hits. Then I tried to explain why this wouldn’t work, using the video as an excuse. And it was a good one. A valid one. I think at one point I started babbling, possibly incoherently.

“You like him.” This from Paige, spoken with understanding edged with jealousy.

“What?” I said with what might very well have been the worst acting I’d ever done in my life. “No.”

“You do,” Paige insisted. “You like him. It’s not the video at all. You want out because you like him. And you think he might fall for you.”

She was more astute than I would have expected, and I mumbled a few choice cuss words.

“I totally get it,” Paige said. “He’s super hot.” She looked at Charlotte. “We should have thought about this.”

“Right.”

“So, let’s just forget it, okay?” I said in a rush of words, hoping to resolve this quickly. “I’ll return the clothes and pay back the money.” Money I didn’t have. Money I’d have to earn. Find a job. A real job, even if it meant selling mystery-meat burgers. I could do it. Then I thought about the bra. Maybe I could keep the bra. I’d bonded with the bra.

“You signed a contract,” Paige said with a harsh tone I didn’t like. And now she didn’t seem so fan girl. Now she seemed more like mean girl. The cute puppy had turned into a flesh-eating weevil right before my eyes.

“Let me remind you that my dad’s a lawyer. And let me remind you that we will expose you. We’ll tell the world who the girl in the video is. And
why
you were there, so…”

How had I gotten myself into such a mess? Money. The pursuit of money. Well, not really money, but the pursuit of food and shelter.

Charlotte’s phone buzzed. She checked it, then announced: “Julian’s at The Drink again.”

I had to end this, and ending it meant a new plan, or rather an acceleration of the existing plan. I had to hurry, before anybody figured out who the girl in the video was. I’d make a move on Julian. He’d sleep with me. He’d dump me. Show over. Coach back to pumpkin. Mysterious beauty back to scullery maid. All for the best.