Chapter 2

I woke to the sound of the door opening. An orderly left me a breakfast tray. The food here was a little better than I was used to from hospital food and I suspected that was deliberate. A slightly better class of food would keep the patients in a slightly better mood.

I was just finished when another orderly informed me that I had a visitor. I went out to the nurses station and was directed back to the room where Patty was waiting for me. She didn’t look like she’d slept well.

“Hi,” I said quietly when we’d picked up the phones.

“Hi, Champ,” she said, managing a weak smile. “How’re you doing?”

I shrugged. “You look like I should be asking you. I take it things at home are less than idyllic?”

She sighed and nodded. “Dan and I are very disappointed in the girls,” she said. “We love you like a son, so it’s still a family matter for us. It’s not just the girls we’re worried about, it’s you too. I know they’ve treated you very badly these past few weeks.”

“Six,” I corrected. “It’s been going on six weeks. Almost like they coordinated so that one of them was flaunting it if the other couldn’t be in my line of sight. I haven’t been sleeping since they left. I won’t even get in the bed. I curl up on the floor and try to nap. I can’t bring myself to get in the bed we shared.” I saw the tears start from her eyes and I frowned. “I’m not telling you this to upset you Mamma,” I assured her. “I just need you to understand how badly broken this is. It’s not damaged. It’s smashed beyond repair. There’s no fixing this.”

I took a deep breath and continued. “It’s ... It’s bad. If the cops had brought me home last night, you guys would have put the three of us together and tried to clear the air. I would have said all the things you expected of me and then I would have gone out to the garage for the drill. We can’t fix this. Not with a few words and a shame-faced look.”

“What do we need to do to fix it then?” she asked, eager for some plan of action.

“I don’t know that we can,” I admitted. “They’ve burned through all the love I had for them this past month and a half. They burned it into hate. The love’s still there, but it’s tainted. I can’t feel it without the pain. I don’t know why they even left. I don’t know why they needed to be hurtful and I don’t know what possessed Lana to come after me yesterday. I don’t think it matters. I can’t imagine an excuse that would make me nod my head in agreement. That leaves us in a shitty place. I can’t be there any more. I can’t come to breakfast. I can’t be at the backyard barbecues. I can’t join the Christmas toasts. I either have to leave or come between our family.”

“Don’t say that, Matt!” she begged me with tears in her eyes. “We can figure something out. Just give us time.”

“How is that fair to anyone?” I asked. “What are you going to do? Stop the girls from dating so that I don’t hear them giving their boyfriends a goodnight kiss? Are we going to split up the family breakfast so I don’t have to sit there awkwardly trying to make conversation. Do we build a privacy fence so that I don’t see the girls when they’re out tanning in the back yard?”

She hung her head. “What are you going to do? Move in with Donald?”

I shook my head. “I’m still considering what the right solution is. Emancipation is on my radar, but Dr. Spencer isn’t enthusiastic about it. Donald is no parent though. I can’t possibly float that even in my own head.”

“Oh, what a mess!” she moaned softly. “I don’t know what to do. I ... I don’t know. Is this really the best solution, Matt? You’re the resident genius. Are you sure that’s the way?”

I shook my head. “I just said it’s on my radar. I don’t feel like I can stay there. It’s too close to them. Our lives are wrapped up together. I can’t ask Mom and Lilly to split off. It’s not fair to them to have to move because I’m uncomfortable.”

“Just promise me that you’ll give it some time before you make a decision and we’ll sit down and talk about it,” she said reasonably.

“No,” I said immediately, seeing where this was going. “You’re talking about one of our family meetings where we all sit down and talk it out. If, and that’s a big if, I do decide to open the topic up to discussion, It will be you and Dan, Mom and me. Possibly Lilly, but Lana and Beck are not even to be told what’s going on until the decision is made. If the decision is that I move out, then they can be told the day I leave IF they see the moving truck and ask. Otherwise, you can break it to them afterwards. They’ve done so much damage that I don’t want to live any more. DON’T fucking put me in a room with them.”

Her face fell, but she nodded. “I understand,” she said numbly.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I’ve tried to get through it and it wasn’t possible.”

“I know. I wish it was different. Maybe in time, a little distance will soothe some of those hurts,” she said hopefully.

“I hope so,” I told her truthfully. “I hate the way this has torn us all apart. I don’t see any other way out for us though. This way, Lilly and Mom can stay put and the 6 of you can be a family.” My voice hitched and I started crying. Saying it out loud had made it real for me.

Patty put her hand up to the glass and she was crying too. I shook my head and put the phone down, bolting from the room.

I was still a mess when Dr. Spencer came in twenty minutes later. She had Patty in tow and Patty came and wrapped her arms around me, crying bitterly with me. We wept on each others shoulders and I felt some of the poison in my soul shift. It didn’t exactly lift, but I felt something. It wasn’t better, but it was different. It was a start.

Dr. Spencer took the only chair in the room and calmly waited for us to cry ourselves out. When we were calmed down, she cleared her throat. “THIS is why I’m not a fan of emancipation, Matthew. It does as much damage to you as to your parents, cutting you off from the vital support of family. Your family loves you. Something happened that seriously damaged your dynamic with your girls and I want to get to the bottom of that. If we do that, we have a chance to fix it. It won’t be painless and it might not be pleasant, but it would certainly be preferable to the girls tormenting you endlessly or you having to cut contact with all the people you love.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I said for the thousandth time. “Everyone’s asked me already. I have near perfect recall. Don’t you think I’ve been through every conversation I’ve ever had with the girls trying to figure out what I said or did that wrecked things?”

“You assume you did something wrong?” she asked calmly.

“It’s a fair assumption,” I said bitterly. “Four women dump me at once and treat me like dirt for weeks afterwards. That sounds like I mistreated them, but I DON’T KNOW HOW!”

“Let’s set that assumption aside for now. What if it was an external factor?”

“Like what?” I asked. “What kind of science fiction mind ray are we going to discuss that would have the power to turn them all against me all at once?”

Dr. Spencer smiled. “I doubt it was anything quite so grandiose as a mind ray,” she allowed with a slight smile. “Such a device would be aimed by a person though, so let’s examine that. Is it possible that someone interfered with your relationships?”

“How?” I asked confused.

“It’s high school. Your suspect pool is the whole student body. You’ve read mysteries. Put the pieces together.”

I sat there, my mind racing as I started trying to put it all together. I saw entire days of school flash before my eyes, picking out details that I hadn’t thought were important the first time. “Marlene,” I finally said coldly.

“Lana’s best friend?” Patty said, surprised. “Why her?”

“Marlene had her sights set on dating Patrick Waterman when school started, but Patrick wouldn’t go out with her unless she could find a date for his brother Vance. She had her head together with Lana a lot that first week and that’s when it all went to hell. I don’t know what she told Lana, but that’s who stood to gain the most. Why it poisoned everyone else, I don’t know.”

“I think it’s time I had a talk with my daughters,” Patty said harshly. “I promise you, I’ll get to the bottom of this. We WILL bring you home.” She gave me one last hug and got up to leave.

When she was gone, Dr. Spencer sat with me looking at me curiously. “Matt, why did you let it go on so long if you knew you hadn’t done anything wrong?”

I shrugged. “I assumed I HAD done something wrong. It never occurred to me that someone had done this to me on purpose. Especially not for something as shallow as picking up a boyfriend.”

We were still talking an hour later when an orderly peeked in to tell me there was a visitor.

Lilly was waiting for me when I sat down. “Jesus, you look awful,” she said looking upset. “What’s going on? Patty got home from here and there’s been nothing but screaming coming from their house since she got home.”

“Good. Did the girls ever tell you why they left me?” I asked directly. “This is important, Lillian. I need to know. Now.”

The blood drained out of her face. I never called her Lillian unless it was life or death.

“They made me promise not to say anything,” she said softly.

“That’s the bottom line?” I asked gently and she nodded. “Alright. I’ll miss you Blue.”

“What do you mean, you’ll miss me?!!?” she blurted, her eyes going wide.

“I can’t come home. It’s not safe for me there. I checked myself in here because I’ll kill myself if I go back there with them there. I can’t ask you and Mom to pick up and move, so I guess this is goodbye. That’s what I told Patty. That’s what the screaming is about.”

“Oh fuck! What the hell is going on!??! Fucking talk to me!”

“NO! YOU fucking talk to ME!I don’t have any answers to give. Just after school started, all four of my girls flipped their attitudes and demanded the keys to their collars. Since then Lana and Beck have been trying to drive me insane, slutting it up with their boyfriends any time they see me. Yesterday Lana attacked me at my locker. I put a pencil in her hand and begged her to just end it and stab me in the throat with it. I meant it. If she’d done it, I would have thanked her and that would have been it. She could hate me or forgive me for whatever it is that I’m supposed to have done.”

“You honestly don’t know?” she said uncertainly.

I shook my head. “NO!” I screamed. “I’ve been over everything I’ve ever done. Every comment, every touch, every kiss. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I thought I must have when all four of them closed ranks and left, but the most damning thing I could come up with was eating the last of the Oreo’s that week.”

“Shit!” she swore. “Really? You’re not sugar coating it?”

“What is it?!” I snapped. “Whatever it is, it’s already destroyed my life. I don’t have a home to go to, the women I love all hate me and I spent last night wandering the streets until I found shelter only to have the cops threaten to drag me back to the place that made me want to kill myself in the first place. I checked myself in here because it was the best option, so fucking tell me!”

“Marlene said that Tricia Saunders had to have an abortion this summer because you got her pregnant,” she whispered.

In that moment, I understood. The looks of revulsion on their faces made sense. Yet none of the four of them asked me. None of them obviously talked to Tricia since I’d never met the girl before the first day of classes.

“You knew the whole time? And it didn’t occur to you to tell them that I didn’t even KNOW Tricia before I got to high school last month?” I threw the phone at the glass and got up, ignoring the shock in her face, she was saying something, knocking on the glass. I turned and left the room.

I returned to my room. Dr. Spencer was still there waiting for me. “Are these rooms soundproof?” I asked calmly fighting to control the snarl in my voice.

She nodded. “They are. They’re not perfect, but they’re designed so that disturbed patients don’t interrupt the sleep of the other patients.”

“Can I have a few minutes?” I asked, holding the door for her.

She got up and took out her phone. “I’ll be right outside,” she promised.

I closed the door and shrieked in fury. I screamed in rage at the walls and balled my hands into fists, the sound dwarfing any other that I’d ever made with the sheer hate that I poured into it. I screamed until my face turned red and my head spun and then I screamed more until my voice was like the rest of me: broken. I dropped to my knees and my shoulders slumped as I wept bitter tears of loss. The truth will set you free, so the saying goes. Freedom is a terrible fate. To be free of the entanglements of family and home and hearth, I knelt there and grieved.

I heard the door click open and I didn’t bother to get up. There was nowhere to go, why bother.

“I take it your sister was informative,” Dr. Spencer said gently, settling herself on the chair again.

“Where do I go from here?” I asked, lost.

“Home?” she offered.

I laughed bitterly. “There’s nothing for me there. Someone told a lie about me and no one stopped to realize that it couldn’t possibly be true. They believed the worst about me without even giving me the chance to defend myself.”

“Care to share?” she asked.

“The story is that a girl had to get an abortion this summer. It was a girl I met for the first time last month.”

“That’s an unfortunate detail to overlook,” she allowed.

“Yeah,” I croaked, my voice still raw from testing the soundproofing.

“Are you going to be okay with this?” she asked.

“No. I have to decide what to do about it though,” I said. “I can’t live in a house where I’m not trusted or at least valued enough to be allowed the benefit of the doubt.”

“This is doing a lot of damage to your family. I would caution you not to overreact and damage it more,” she said delicately. “I know you’re angry and hurt. I’m not asking you to let go of that. I’m asking you to react better than you were treated. If not for their sake, then for yours.”

I nodded. “I think I’ve had enough of my family for one day. If Emma comes, I’ll see her, but I think I’m done until I can be civil. That’s the best I can muster for a long time, I think.”

“Civil is a start,” she said. “I’m going to talk with your sister and your mother. Would you like me to tell them anything?”

“No. Tell them whatever you think they need to hear. You know I trust you.”

When she left, I curled up on the tile floor and lay there. The bed seemed like too much effort right now.

Somehow I’d slept on the cold linoleum tile. When I woke, Dr. Spencer was back.

“What time is it?” I asked, my voice sounding worse instead of better from the nap.

“You were out for about an hour, assuming you dozed off shortly after I went out to talk to your sister and mother.”

“And how did that pleasant little conversation go?” I asked sourly.

“You were right that your mother would have tried to reconcile you and the girls if you’d gone home last night. I think I’ve mostly impressed on her how disastrous that would have been. Lilly’s revelation has made her slightly less charitable toward the girls. Lilly is understandably upset. She feels like that was a fact she should have caught right away.”

“No argument here,” I growled in my gravelly voice. I hauled myself up onto the bed and that was all the effort I could muster. I slumped sideways onto the bed and stared at nothing.

“Your mother has asked me to stop by your house for dinner. She wants me to explain to the rest of the family what state you’re in,” she said slowly. “How do you feel about me doing that?”

“It depends on what you’re going to tell them,” I said dully, still focused on nothing.

“That you’re suffering from prolonged stress, you’re well on your way to developing a persecution complex, with good reason, your recent experiences had left you in a paranoid state that causes you to doubt the trust you can place in anyone around you.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“That’s hardly a diagnosis to be grateful for Matt,” she said, surprised.

“You know that not to be true though,” I said and I noticed at the edge of my vision, she was smiling a little.

“The student pays attention,” she said, amused. “Reason it out for me so I know you’re doing it right.”

“You characterized my trust issue as universal, but you know I absolutely trust you with my life. I also reached out to Emma yesterday when I was in need and the only reason I didn’t call you was because you’d likely have had to report to my mother and I wasn’t ready to face the house. Paranoia is an irrational belief that everyone is out to get you. Given my experiences this summer, that belief is quite rational. PTSD is a more accurate diagnosis based on the events of the past six weeks and even the six weeks before that. I don’t have a persecution complex because my belief wasn’t that people were picking on me, it was that I HAD actually caused this, I just wasn’t perceptive enough to recognize what it had been. The prolonged stress is the only part of that diagnosis that stands up. I think you could add chronic stress-related depression at this point though.”

“Duly noted, doctor, and well done,” she said, nodding with approval.

“Are Lana and Beck going to be there for this dinner?”

“I presume so. Did you want me to downplay the extent of the diagnosis?”

“Just the opposite. Invent something suitably awful related to sex.”

“How does sexual aversion disorder sound? It’s a powerful psychosomatic aversion to having sex,” she offered off the top of her head.

“Sounds like I probably DO have that. I haven’t had a sexual thought in weeks really. Use it, but keep going. Embellish all you want. Tell them my recent experiences with women have me questioning if I wouldn’t be better off dating guys and that’s causing a whole new crop of anxieties.”