The Art of Hero Worship (7 page)

“I’m not leaving you,” Liam replies, all
panic suddenly absent from his voice, and replaced with cool
resignation. With a shake of his head, Liam drops to his knees and
bends, covering me almost entirely with his bulk.

Pop-pop-pop….

Next thing I know, the parking lot is
filling with police cars, sirens blaring. And there’s a big van and
SWAT guys and soon Liam is pulled off me and I’m being dragged away
behind a hulking policeman and his protective shield.

As I make my graceless exit from the chaotic
scene, there’s a clamor of angry shouting, orders and threats from
what I can make out, and then I hear a single gunshot coming from
the shooter’s direction.

Pop!

“Liam! Liam! Liam!” I hear my own voice
screaming.

“All I’m saying is that you aren’t the
same—never have been—since
that
thing
happened in
April.”

“That thing” is how Mom refers to the
theater shooting.

“And if you’d just listen to me for once in
your twenty years, you’ll transfer out of that hillbilly college up
in the sticks of Vermont and enroll in the far superior college in
your very own home town.” She’s standing over my usual spot on the
couch, shaking a wooden spoon at me, as this debate erupted halfway
through her making the double-chocolate fudge brownies she’s so
proud of. “You can live at home, and I can keep your laundry clean
and cook for you, too.”

“Mom… I’m okay. I’ll be fine when I get back
to Batcheldor.”

“Fine like you were
the
first
or
the
second
time that whacko tried to shoot you
dead?”

I’m used to her saying stuff like this but
it still sends shivers up my spine.

“You quit your job at the Quik-Mart last
month—admit it Jason—it was because you were afraid somebody would
pull a gun on you, which honestly concerned me, too. And you just
sit here on the couch day after day—no job, no girlfriend…. You
aren’t even seeing Kendrick and Dan from high school, and they’re
your best friends.”

Were my best friends… before I met
Ginny.

Next she’s going to dismiss my therapy as
“expensive and totally ineffective.” I know the woman well.

“And that psycho-babble-doctor you’ve got…
Dr. Jeffries… well, don’t get me started on him.” A blob of brownie
batter flies off the spoon she’s waving and lands on my knee. I
just leave it there because who really cares? “If seeing that
head-shrinker was doing you any good, honey, you’d be all better by
now.” Her tone suddenly turns from nagging to sweet. “Stay here in
Wilson, Jase, and let your Mama take care of you….” She leans down
to caress the side of my face, but I turn away.

“Mom….” She doesn’t understand PTSD, which
is what Dr. Jeffries says I have, but then I don’t either. Still, I
try to control the sharpness in my voice. This isn’t my mother’s
fault. “I’m getting better. Just give me some time.” I get up from
the couch and head to the bedroom where I spend ninety percent of
my life, thinking if I make it one hundred percent I won’t have to
deal with Mom anymore. Solitary confinement actually sounds
tempting.

My room has turned into my escape from the
past and present, and it’s starting to look like I’ll be spending a
lot of my future in here. It’s become the only place I feel
safe—from crazed gunmen and Mom’s draining lectures. For crying out
loud, I was at a college performance of
Hamlet
and I was
nearly killed; I’m no dummy and I realize the risk of working at a
convenience store. They’re robbed at gunpoint all the time. Some
enclosed places—like stores and trains and, of course, movie
theaters—are just too hard for me to face. I can’t go through the
pain again, so it isn’t worth the risk.

For a while, I thought my symptoms fell
under the category of “normal stress response to a traumatic
event.” In fact, the feeling of emotional numbness started the
second time Dom tried to kill us. Then there were all of the
nightmares and the way I replayed the two life-threatening events
in my head, time and again.
All
of this is normal
, I
was told by Mom and my high school friends who came to see me. But
when the “normal response” refused to go away, or even diminish
over the passage of time, I knew something was wrong. Like
messed-up-in-the-head-big-time wrong.

I left school right after the second attack.
Batcheldor College allowed any student who was having severe
emotional difficulties with regard to the theater shooting a pass
on final exams. I left as soon as I got checked out at the hospital
and was declared “fine.” Then I went home to the loving arms of my
overprotective single mother. Thankfully, my roommate packed up my
stuff in the dorm room because I just couldn’t bring myself to do
it. I retreated to Wilson, New Hampshire, and the safety of
home.

I never even reached out to say goodbye to
Liam, who saved my life and most of my sanity… repeatedly. I’m not
sure why I left without saying goodbye. It’s just what I did. I’m
almost certain I did it for the same reason that I never allow
myself to think about him.
Never.
Too much pain associated
with his memory. Not to mention too much confusion.

Once in my room, I stop in front of the
full-length mirror and glance at my reflection. My jeans are barely
hanging on to the curve of my ass and my T-shirt looks two sizes
too big. Technically, I’ve been starving myself. It’s not really
intentional—I’m just never hungry anymore.

I’m starting to realize that running away
has not been successful in helping me to avoid pain. Yeah, I’d
avoided certain physical reminders—the school buildings and the
college town, people like Liam who bring back the memories so
vividly—but I soon started having flashbacks that were as real as
the shootings, themselves. Just like the night of the theater
shooting, time is again standing still for me. But now weeks have
passed me by, months even, and it feels as if the shootings just
happened yesterday. And like another shooting could happen at any
moment. I guess pain that hasn’t been dealt with follows you
wherever you go.

I throw myself down on my
freshly-made-by-Mom bed and try my hardest not to think, but the
more I try to keep my head blank, the more intrusive the thoughts
of the attacks become.

Something’s got to give. I can’t go on like
this.

My cell phone rings. It’s a sound I have
come to dread, as on the other end is always someone I have no
interest in being interrogated by, like high school pals who just
don’t get
the new Jason who doesn’t ever want to leave his
house. I don’t recognize the number, which means it could be a
random reporter doing a news story on mass shootings. I need to
relive that experience like I need another hole in my head. Ugh,
so
not funny. But on the off-chance it’s the girl who’d been
in a terrible car accident that I gave my number to, from the PTSD
support group at the clinic Dr. Jeffries encouraged me to join, I
know I have a responsibility to answer. I do so reluctantly.

“Jase?”

I’m pretty sure I know the voice. And for a
split second, I experience a sensation of relief, just like the one
I’d had when I learned that the final gunshot, on the day Dom had
tracked us down at the hotel to kill us, had been Dom taking his
own life and not ending Liam’s. “Yes, this is Jase.”

But I have no doubt at all who’s on the
phone when he blows out a breath and allows his trademark sigh.
“Just calling to… to… like….”

“To check in on me?”

“Well, yeah. I guess… something like
that.”

“I’m still alive and kicking. No crazed
gunman has taken me out since we last saw each other.” I hope he
can hear the smile in my voice, even if it’s a fake smile.

“Well, that’s good.” He isn’t buying my
false sense of joviality; somehow I’m certain of this.

How does he know me so well as to hear the
lie in my voice on the phone, when we’re barely more than
strangers?

“I want to see you, Jase. And I’m going to
Massachusetts on Friday, for a weekend on Cape Cod. I want you to
come with me.”

Liam Norwell is probably the most direct
reminder of the worst two nights of my life that I can possibly
think of. “I… I’ve got to work.” I lie to him with some
difficulty.

Silence.

“And I don’t think my mom is ready for me to
go anywhere yet.”

“’Kay.”

“Plus, I… I don’t think I’d be too much fun
to hang out with. I’m not exactly a barrel of laughs these
days.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of
that?”

I want to see him. I need to. I wish he’d
plead with me, or insist that I go with him. Order me to do it,
like he did when he forced me to stay safe on the nights we were in
so much danger.

“I
need
to see you, Jase. This… this
visit is really more about me than you.” I hear the sigh and it
sounds more pained than I remember. “Will you come with me?
Please.”

“When will you be here to pick me up?”
Suddenly all I can see in my mind’s eye are Liam’s arms. So strong
and protective and everything I needed… everything I need. For
months all I could see when I closed my eyes was Dom. And now I see
Liam.

Mom is about to lose it.

When I first told her of my plans to go to
the Cape for the weekend, her response was to laugh in my face.
“I’ll believe it when I see it, Jason. You haven’t moved from that
couch in days except to go pee or hide in your bed.”

As she watched me pack my bag on Friday
afternoon, her tune changed slightly. “So tell me about this man
who is supposedly ‘rescuing you’ from your mother and the safety of
your home this weekend.”

“His name is Liam Norwell, Mom. He’s the guy
who saved my life.”
Twice.

Mom couldn’t think of anything negative to
say to that.

She became more direct when I sat down on
the chair by the window, watching for Liam to pull up in his
Charger. “What makes you think that just the sight of this young
man isn’t going to send you emotionally right back to where you
were in April? Tell me that, young man?”

That time I had no smart comeback.

And finally, when his car pulls into the
driveway, Mom asks me, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to miss your
Sunday afternoon support group meeting?” She’s always tried to tell
me that the PTSD support group is a colossal waste of my time so I
know that she’s grasping at straws because she’s scared for me to
be out of her sight.

“Mom, I love you and I’ll call you when I
get to Cape Cod. Have a great weekend.” Before I step out the front
door, she grabs me and hugs me and clings to my shoulders, and I
know that she loves me, too, but she just doesn’t know how to do it
in the way I need right now.