by M. Billiter
“I called Mom last night. She checked your meds. That’s why you ended up here. She called Dr. Cordova when you were behind on your pills by three weeks.”
“You saw me take my pills last night. I swear to God I’m on my meds.”
“I saw you take one pill. And no, you didn’t take your meds during state. So shut the hell up or I’ll keep you here a week straight while they pump you full of medication,” he seethed.
“You can’t and you won’t.” I rose out of bed, ready to attack this prick, when Dr. Cordova walked through the door. The anger dropped from my face, and a soft, pleasing, Branson-like look took its place. “Hey, Doc. What’s up?” I smiled in his direction.
He nodded, then turned to Aaron. “I’m sorry to cut your time short, but I need to have a session with Branson.”
I stared at Aaron from behind Dr. Cordova and smirked. “I win,” I mouthed. And I always will.
Aaron begrudgingly left, and Dr. Cordova pulled up a chair beside my bed and hit me right away with a handful of asinine questions.
“So it looks like you’ve been off your antipsychotic medication for about two, two and a half weeks?” He looked up from his file.
I hopped out of bed, grabbed a chair and sat beside him. I was not about to have my therapy session in bed. That was way too weird.
“I dropped back on my dosage so I could perform well at track,” I told him.
He nodded. “Dropped back? The Geodon were still in your bottle.”
“Yeah, but I was still taking the Paxil, so it wasn’t like I was completely off my medication.”
Again, he nodded.
“Do you have trouble knowing who Branson is?” he asked.
I looked at him like he was nuts. “No.” I know exactly who Branson is, and he ain’t coming back.
“Are you Branson?” he asked.
I stared right at him and smiled. I couldn’t help myself. “Yes.”
He didn’t react.
“Are you a moody person?”
“Not normally, unless I get asked a lot of questions.” I smiled again for good measure.
“Do you often feel empty inside?”
For some reason, that question made Branson surface. “Yes.” His voice was much shallower than mine, yet it seemed to hold more power. It was hard to describe, only that it made Dr. Cordova stop writing and look up from his notepad.
“What happens when you feel empty inside, Branson?”
Tears ran down his face. I can answer this. But Branson’s voice rose above mine. “I stop taking my medication.”
“And when you stop, what happens?”
I’ve got this. But again Branson spoke. “He appears.”
Dr. Cordova nodded. “Who is he?”
I shook his head hard.
“It’s okay,” Dr. Cordova urged.
It’s a lie. Branson, if you tell who I am, he’ll separate us forever.
“Who is he? Does he have a name?”
“At first I didn’t give him a name because it would make him real.”
Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
Branson covered my ears with his hands.
Dr. Cordova leaned forward and touched my knee. I wanted to whack it away, but Branson was too busy shutting me out.
“It’s okay,” Dr. Cordova repeated.
Branson shook his head. “He won’t go away. He won’t go away.”
Branson lifted his hands off my ears just long enough to hear Dr. Cordova. “Medication will help alleviate the visual hallucinations. When did you give him a name?”
Branson shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
“But giving him a name, that made him real?”
Branson slowly nodded. I could feel myself losing control.
“What does he look like?” Dr. Cordova asked.
Branson sat forward like the question interested him. I took great pride in that. I was, after all, his best friend. Really his only friend. “At first, he looked like an assassin.”
Dr. Cordova tilted his head.
“You know, like Bourne Identity,” Branson said, and I smiled. That’s right, Branson. I’m a badass.
Branson shook his head hard and it hurt, like he was trying to erase me. Like I was an Etch-A-Sketch and could just be erased. Like I had never mattered.
You need me, Branson. I’m all you have.
But Branson closed his eyes tight until it got so dark that I couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see me.
“Branson?”
When Branson opened his eyes, I was still there, but my vision was hazy.
“Are you okay?” Dr. Cordova asked.
No, I’m not okay. But Branson nodded.
“So why an assassin?” Dr. Cordova prodded.
“My mind had to make sense of my actions,” Branson said as clearly as he had spoken in a very long time.
Let me back in, Branson. I’m here to help.
“What actions would those be?”
“All the fucked-up shit the shadow people did,” Branson replied.
“Is it one person or multiple?”
“One person.”
“I’m not sure I understand the shadow people.”
“It started off as shadow people,” Branson said and then suddenly shook his head.
“Branson?”
“That’s not right.”
It's okay. Branson. You don’t need to tell him. You’ve said enough.
“What’s not right?” Dr. Cordova asked.
Branson, details aren’t important. Just answer the fucking questions and let’s get back to our life.
“It didn’t start off as shadow people,” Branson corrected.
“Okay.” Dr. Cordova flipped a new page in his notepad.
Oh great. Here’s another hour we’ll never get back. Fucking Branson. What the hell?
“Can you recall the first time you consciously remember seeing something?” Dr. Cordova asked.
Branson closed his eyes, and I could tell he was trying to remember when it first started. That was a long time ago.
“In the eighth grade,” Branson said with his eyes still closed. “I was using the restroom at school, and I thought I heard the door open. I’m still not sure if it did or not. But I finished using the restroom and opened the door, and there was a black shape outside.”
Suddenly I felt his heart rate accelerate at the memory. You don’t need to relive this, Branson. You’ve got me now. But Branson’s eyes remained closed, and he continued to recite the nightmare to Dr. Cordova.
“It freaked me out. It was like this big thing touching the ceiling. It was all dark. Oh God, I don’t even know how big it was, but it scared me.” Branson opened his eyes and they were misty. The memory scared Branson.
I’m here for you. I’m your protector. You don’t need to be afraid when I’m around.
“That must have been awful. Did you tell anyone?”
Branson shook his head. “I went back into the stall and curled up in a ball, trying to hide my feet so it wouldn’t see me. And finally, after a couple of minutes, I figured if it was there, it would've gotten me by that point. So I opened the door and it wasn’t there anymore.”
“How old were you?”
Branson shrugged. “I don’t know. Eighth grade, so like twelve, maybe thirteen.”
“And then the shadow people appeared?”
“Actually, it was these blurry little images that did things. Like all these shadows that merged into one person that did something. I never really saw one person, just a shadow of a person. Does that make sense?” Branson looked at Dr. Cordova, and I could tell it made perfect sense to him.
Shut up, Branson. This is our shit. We don’t need to tell him our secrets.
But he did. It was like once he started talking, he couldn’t stop. Either that or it was the medication they kept pumping him full of. Fucking hospitals.
“And the shadow people grew into this assassin?” Dr. Cordova asked.
Branson la
ughed. He hadn’t done that in a really long time. “I don’t know if he grew into an assassin, but I had to build a character in my mind of someone I don’t want there, but has to be there to explain all the fucked-up shit I do.”
“And what is it this person you created does?”
“I had to create a character who would execute what I needed them to do,” Branson said, and even I heard him repeat himself.
Dude, you’re sounding like a Rainman. "One minute to Wapner. One minute to Wapner."
“And what is it you have this person do?”
Branson may have repeated himself before, but he was pretty loud when he leaned forward and looked right at Dr. Cordova. “Defend me.”
“And who is your defender, Branson?”
Don’t say it, Branson.
“What’s his name?”
Don’t open your fucking mouth.
Branson heard me and smiled like I had when I looked at Aaron before Dr. Cordova kicked him out of our room.
You need me.
“Trevor,” Branson said strongly, loudly, and with clear conviction. “His name is Trevor. And I want him gone.”
33
Tara
Branson was in a psychiatric critical care unit. "He just needs a little pharmaceutical help from a licensed professional," I told Ed, my children, and even Clive, his counselor. I began to believe that in a matter of days, Branson’s brain would clear up and he’d be back on track, making new goals.
On the way home from the hospital, I phoned Senator Bailey’s office and canceled Branson’s congressional interview for the naval academy, explaining that Branson had a physical setback at state track that landed him in the hospital. I hadn’t lied, but I stretched the truth. Branson didn’t land in the hospital until a few days after state track. Even though he had resumed his medication when I brought him home from his father’s house, the effects of missing so many doses quickly caught up with him. When Aaron called from the end-of-the-year track party and I counted Branson’s pills, I knew the next call was to Dr. Cordova. He suggested we check Branson into the psychiatric care unit.
“Let’s have him evaluated and see where he's at,” he'd said.
So I left my son for a few days of treatment. He just needs a little pharmaceutical help. I repeated the mantra every five minutes as a salve to ease the pain that stabbed at me and made it hard to function.
My mind kept wandering back to Branson looking up at me in his father’s house. Tears in his eyes, pleading for help. He just needs his meds.
The only way I knew how to get through this without the numbing distraction of work, which I no longer had, was to do the next best thing: bake. I wasn’t a great cook, but I could bake.
I dusted off my cookbooks and went to task in the kitchen.
Before long, I'd placed a tray of warm, fresh-out-of-the-oven blueberry muffins on the kitchen table. A copy of the Wilson High School newspaper was tossed beside Aaron’s backpack. I sat down with a cup of coffee and looked at the front page. Senior class photos of the homecoming court were featured front and center. I glanced at the row of potential king and queen candidates and gasped.
“Ashley Bailey?”
“Yeah, I want her to win.” Aaron walked in and grabbed a blueberry muffin off the tray.
“Why would you want her to win?” I looked at my son while he practically inhaled the muffin in one bite.
“Ashley’s the nicest girl in the school, and she’s beautiful.”
I think my jaw dropped; for certain my stomach did. “I can’t believe you’d want that skanky little girl to win when she’s made your brother’s life a living nightmare.”
A puzzled look crossed Aaron’s face.
“Is it the blueberry muffins, because I’m still kind of new to the whole baking thing,” I said.
“No, they're perfect.”
“Then why the look?”
“Why the hell would you think Ashley made Branson’s life a nightmare? She’s the nicest person Branson and I have ever met.”
I feigned a laugh. “Well I guess she may have been nice to you, but Little Miss Senator’s Daughter was going around bullying Branson and spreading gay rumors about him.”
“Uh, no she wasn’t.” He reached for another muffin. “She would never say anything like that in her entire life, and if she did, I’d know about it. The girl barely says ‘Jesus Christ,’ and that’s the worst swear she says.”
I shook my head. “Aaron, I’m not talking about swearing. I’m talking about slander and spreading vicious, malicious lies about your brother’s sexuality and basically bullying him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, heading toward the refrigerator and grabbing the gallon of milk.
I walked to the cupboard and handed Aaron a glass, lest he drink straight from the jug. “Well I’m not proud of this, but I read all about it in your brother’s English journal. Ashley Bailey made Branson’s life a living hell.”
“Ma, I don’t know what he wrote down, but it’s not true. I’m always with Branson. Besides, they don’t even have any classes together.”
I leaned against the kitchen counter. The heat from the dishwasher radiated against my back. “They’ve got to be in a class together, because Branson made some comment about her driving or something? Anyway”—I grabbed the dishtowel off the kitchen counter and folded it—“he got in trouble and had to serve detention for his comment and missed track. She’s not nice.”
“Ma, Branson was in detention for screwing off in anatomy. He was messing with the chemicals when they were doing a lab.”
“So he wasn’t sent to detention over something he said about Ashley’s driving?” I placed the towel neatly on the counter.
“If there are any comments going around, it’s from Branson about Ashley. He’s always messing with her.” Aaron held up his hand. “In a joking way though. If anything, Branson’s kind of flirtatious with her.”
If I wasn’t already leaning against something, I would've dropped like a fly. “What? You mean he likes her?” I felt light-headed. “Then why would he write in his journal that he doesn’t and that she was spreading rumors about him being gay?”
“Ma, he’s obviously not been in his right mind when he was writing that.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. Oh my God.
“What’s going on?”
I shook my head.
“What did you do?”
I dropped my hand and looked at my son. “I completely torpedoed my career because I believed everything I read in his journal.”
“Why would you do that?” The mixture of anger and sadness in his voice was palpable.
I understood. It made no sense to my son why I would forfeit my job, our financial security, and my reputation. It made no sense until I looked into his beautiful hazel eyes and explained.
“I had to protect him.”
34
Tara
“How are you?” Dr. Cordova scooted his chair toward the couch, something he’d never done before.
The air left my lungs as I looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
His lips pursed together like he was considering how to phrase his next sentence—again, something he’d never done. “Branson suffered a psychotic break.”
I shook my head. “No, he just got off his medication for a while. He just got off track.”
He said nothing.
I looked into his gray-blue eyes. I didn’t know this man very well, but I knew he had never lied to me before. Covering my mouth with my hands, I cried into them as I rocked back and forth, but nothing comforted the loss that tore through me. Branson wasn’t going to come home today or tomorrow. The Branson I knew wasn’t ever going to come back home. I was completely shattered, and there was no way to put the pieces back together.
I lowered my head and wept.
“Tara?”
I looked up at him.
“I’d like to discuss some treatment options with you.�
�
I nodded, then shook my head. “Actually, could you first explain to me more about a psychotic break? I know I should know more about it, but I don’t.” Internally I knew. I knew the moment I saw Branson at Ed’s house. I knew the way a mother knows when something’s wrong with her child before he even utters a word. It was my mind that couldn’t seem to make sense of what my soul already had.
He tilted his head. “Once a person has a psychotic break, they never fully recover to their functional level from before.”
My body trembled. “Oh my God. I should've made sure he was taking his medicine. I checked his daily pill holder, but each day was always empty.”
“He was probably putting the pills back in the bottle.”
“I should've made sure. Oh my God.” I wiped my eyes, but the tears streamed down my face faster than I could wipe them away. “This is my fault.”
He shook his head. “Staying on top of symptoms and being compliant with medication are key with this illness.”
“Branson was feeling better. He seemed better.”
He nodded. “And he had state track and didn’t want the weight gain, so he stopped taking his medication.”
I closed my eyes, mentally berating myself. Why didn’t I check the bottle? I opened my eyes and looked at the doctor. “So when he stopped taking his pills, that’s what caused the psychotic break?”
“His symptoms progressed quickly. We never know from case to case how going off the meds will affect someone. For Branson, his psychotic break means he went from seeing shadowy figures and hearing things to actually believing his friend, Trevor, was real.”
It felt like someone had walked across my grave. “He’s not real?”
A grim look crossed Dr. Cordova’s face. “No, Trevor is a delusion. He’s as real to Branson as you are to him. However, when Branson’s illness is being treated, Trevor no longer appears. When he’s off his medication, Trevor comes back.”
“So… it's like he snapped? Like what we read about in the newspaper when a gunman goes on a shooting spree?” Oh my God.
“Contrary to what is often written in the news, people who suffer from a mental illness that has psychotic symptoms, like schizophrenia, don’t snap, but they do have drops, with some drops being greater than others. Mental illness is greatly misunderstood in our society.”