by T. T. Kove
‘That’s good to hear, Glenn. Everyone should have at least one supporting family member.’ My parents had never cared. I didn’t think they had that in them, to be honest. But I had Leo. And Andreas’s family felt more like a family to me than my actual blood relatives ever had. And now I had Glenn too.
Things had been bleak once, but they’d turned out for the better. For him, and for me. Our situations were different, what we’d gone through and suffered weren’t anything alike, but we’d come out the other side stronger. And most of all, we’d come out the other side loved.
I had my chosen family and my boyfriends.
Glenn still had his mother, even if the other two people who had comprised his family weren’t part of it anymore. He had Nik and me.
Considering what we’d come from, we were damn lucky. We couldn’t ask for more. We truly had everything we needed right here already.
Chapter 14
The papers shook in my hand as I sat cross-legged on my bed and stared down at them. Tears streamed down my cheeks, silent ones I couldn’t do a damn about. I wished I could cry for real, just get the whole sobbing and bawling part over with so I could calm down.
But I was strangely calm. And yet not. My hands were shaking, my mind was whirring, and yet my heart rate was normal, my body seemed like it was frozen on the bed. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t think clearly.
My phone was ringing too, but I couldn’t let go of the papers I was holding to answer it.
On the one hand, it felt like I finally had answers, even if they weren’t the answers I had expected. On the other, it felt like my whole world was crumbling around me because this was it. This would follow me throughout my entire life. Once you got a diagnosis, it was damn hard to get rid of it. If you ever could.
I didn’t think this was something I could ever be rid of.
‘Shit.’ I turned my head away, trying not to focus so much on the heading. On that word. Or those two words as it were.
Bipolar disorder.
My phone stopped ringing. Then it started up again.
I finally looked down at it and saw Andreas’s name flashing on the screen. The dam broke for real then, upon coming face to face with reality, with him.
‘A-Andreas,’ I hiccuped into the receiver.
‘Alex?’ He was immediately on alert. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Th-they th-think I’m b-bi-bipolar.’ The papers fluttered to the floor as I let them go to curl up, one arm pressing my phone to my ear and the other wrapping tight around my legs.
‘What? Bipolar? You’re not manic, Alex. Or psychotic.’ So clearly he knew a little bit about it. ‘How can they diagnose you with that?’
‘Th-there are d-degrees.’ The psychiatrist had explained it to me earlier and the papers said the same as well. ‘Th-they think I’m b-bipolar two.’
A beat of silence, then... ‘I don’t know what that means.’
’N-not as high highs and not as low lows.’ I wiped my cheeks on my sleeve. It got soaked from all the damn moisture currently on my face. ‘Not mania and not psychosis. Th-there’s something they called h-hypomania. J-just a little higher than a normal person would be, but not enough to lose touch with reality completely.’ I’d listened and absorbed everything the psychiatrist had told me even if it hadn’t sunk in. I was good at retaining information. It was the only thing I was good at.
‘Okay.’ Andreas seemed to have found his calm again. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad, Alex.’
‘It’s bipolar!’ I lost it, the sobs coming for real now. ‘It’s fucking bad. It’s the people always portrayed as crazy on television.’
‘Those are the schizophrenics,’ he argued gently. ‘I mean, bipolar two? Doesn’t sound so bad compared to the regular kind.’
‘Bipolar one,’ I informed him.
‘Yeah, right, that. No mania, no psychosis. That’s good, Alex.’
‘No one is g-going to hire someone who’s diagnosed with bipolar. It doesn’t matter if it’s two. All people hear is bipolar and they immediately think you’re crazy.’ I didn’t want to be the crazy guy. I didn’t want to be different from anyone. I’d been on the outside my whole life. No friends, no family, no nothing. I’d been the smart but weird kid that cut himself.
‘Hey, people aren’t allowed to discriminate in this country. It’s the law. You don’t even have to tell future employers of your diagnosis. They don’t have a right to know about that, and even if they did, if you are the best candidate for the job, they cannot say no to you based on a little mental illness.’
‘“A little mental illness”?’ I laughed through my tears now. Saying something like that was just ridiculous. ‘It’s not a little bit of anything. It’s pretty life-changing.’
‘Is it though?’ he asked patiently. ‘You’ve lived like this for how long? You don’t know what it’s like to be anything else. And now, if they’ve got the diagnosis right, they know what they’re dealing with. It’s that much easier to help you manage it.’
‘They’re taking me off my anti-depressants again,’ I sniffled, staring down at the mess on the floor.
‘Why?’ Now he sounded alarmed.
‘People with a bipolar diagnosis shouldn’t be on antidepressants. It induces mania. So I’m weening off them over the next week, and then starting mood stabilisers, and then I can start antidepressants again.’
‘Why can’t they just start you on mood stabilisers while you’re on antidepressants?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’ I’d just sat there in complete silence as the psychiatrist talked. ‘They wouldn’t do it like this without a reason though.’
‘No, I guess that’s true.’ He still didn’t sound happy about it.
I wasn’t either. I felt like the antidepressants had made me better for the past two weeks. I’d been in the psychiatric centre for three weeks now. Minus a couple of nights, I’d spent with Glenn. But he was gone now too. Back to Oslo and his job. And I was all alone here without any of them. I had Leo and Thomas and Ben, but it just wasn’t the same. They couldn’t hold me the way I wanted to be held, they couldn’t kiss me, they couldn’t pound me into the bed until I stopped thinking and feeling.
‘I don’t understand how they figure you’re manic though.’
‘Hypomanic,’ I supplied.
‘Yeah, that. How do they figure that out, huh? You’re almost never happy, Alex.’ I could hear it pained him to admit that.
‘I’ve basically told them my entire life story. They figure there are periods where I’ve been hypomanic, but mostly I’m depressed.’ I’d been so sure I’d get diagnosed as depressed. Clinically depressed or major depression or something. That was what I was. But no. They’d given me a kick to the balls with a bipolar diagnosis instead.
A sob escaped me again and I fell onto my side, curling up as I pressed my free hand to my mouth.
‘Hey, Alex,’ Andreas said softly. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’
‘Then why does it feel like it?’ Never in a million years would I have thought this would be the outcome. ‘Bipolar is so much worse than plain old depression. I was so sure it was that. That antidepressants would work. And they did. I think they do work, but now I have to wean off them again.’
‘That sucks, babe. But they do know what they’re doing, right, so hopefully, you’ll feel better when you’re on the kind of meds that won’t eventually make you worse again.’
Tears were wetting my pillow, making it uncomfortable to lay on. But I didn’t possess any strength to move again anytime soon.
‘I know they made this diagnosis for a reason, but I don’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever been hypomanic.’ I couldn’t wrap my head around it. People were happy when they were manic, right? Even for hypomania, which wasn’t as severe as flat out mania, people were happier than normal. When had I been happy? Apart from when I was having sex, I hardly felt happy at all.
‘I don’t know, Alex. You’ve got you
r periods where you’re happier. But I’ve always thought it was just the natural you coming through the depression.’
‘Yeah.’ That’s what I’d thought too. And now I was stuck with a bipolar diagnosis I had no idea what to do with. One that would make life even more difficult. One that would make people think I really was crazy. ‘I love you, Andreas.’
‘I love you too, never forget that.’
I closed my eyes at those words, relief washing over me. Not that I’d thought he wouldn’t say them back, he always did, but it was good hearing them anyway.
‘I know it sucks right now, getting a diagnosis you hadn’t expected at all,’ he continued. ‘But it’ll get better. You have an answer now. You know what’s wrong. That makes it that much easier to treat, yeah?’
‘I hope so.’ I was such a mess. My whole face wet and blotchy and likely red from all the tears. My nose was snotty. Good thing no one could see me right now. I wasn’t a pretty sight. ‘How’re you doing?’ I wanted to steer the conversation away from me. We always talked about me, but almost never him. I felt bad about that, that my issues were always taking up so much time.
‘Oh, you know, school every day, homework every evening. It’s hard. But it’ll be worth it in the end. This semester to go, then it’s out working for a year before it’s back to school for my third and last year. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s two and a half years to go until I reach it.’
‘That’s good.’ I admired that about him, that he was so focused, that he’d always known what he wanted to do. In two and a half years he’d be a policeman. What would I be in two and a half years? I had no idea. Probably nothing. Likely working the till at the local supermarket. Now there was a horrible thing to imagine for my future. Maybe I’d be even worse off, not having a job at all, but being on welfare.
I didn’t want either of those two futures.
I wanted to make something of myself. To have a job I liked and that I didn’t hate going to every single day. A job that had meaning. Andreas was going to help people, either directly or indirectly, as a policeman. Protect people from the bad guys, getting them off the street. But what did I want to do? As usual, I drew a complete blank. I had no idea.
‘Are you seeing Thomas and Leo today?’ he asked then.
‘Yeah, Leo’s picking me up after work. I’m having dinner with them. Ben’s coming too, I think.’
‘Do you feel better now that they all know?’
‘Hmm?’ My mind was drawing a blank. Knew about what?
‘About you and Glenn.’
Oh. That.
‘Yeah, I guess. There’ll be no misunderstanding. But now Glenn isn’t here, so...’ It sucked. I wished he could’ve stayed longer, but he had a job. It was only a part-time one, but he liked it. He couldn’t mess that up just because I was a mess.
Glenn had no clear plan for his future, but he was happy with his present. He knew he might not do it for the rest of his life, and he was okay with just going with the flow.
Maybe I should learn a little from Glenn instead of yearning to be like Andreas. The truth was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life as Andreas did. I wasn’t happy about anything at present like Glenn was. But was it so bad to do something temporarily while I figured out what the future held? As long as I knew it was temporary and I wasn’t stuck doing it for years on end, I should be fine, right?
Chapter 15
‘Should we be completely open about it?’ I asked suddenly. ‘I mean, now it’s just your family that knows. And Sarah and Viktor.’ Sarah finding out had been an accident though. We hadn’t known she was home. I certainly hadn’t wanted for her to find out the way she did.
‘He is your boyfriend too,’ Andreas said. ‘But as I’ve said, it’s all up to you, Alex. He’s your boyfriend, so I can’t decide if you should be open about it or not. We’re open. We always have been. But I get that’s it weirder coming out as having two boyfriends.’
‘What will your friends say to that?’ He had two good friends from the Police Academy, after all. Two straight, masculine blokes. ‘What will they think about you? Or me, for that matter.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are they going to think you aren’t enough for me?’ I kept going through scenarios in my head on how people would react. Strangers, my friends, his friends... It was exhausting. ‘Are they going to mock you for it? Are they going to think I’m an arsehole who went out and got himself another boyfriend when I’ve already got you?’
‘I’ll explain that whole poly-business,’ Andreas said. ‘Besides, Kristian and Amir are good guys. They wouldn’t think badly of you or me.’
‘You don’t know that. They must already think it’s weird that you, as a straight-looking guy, are in a relationship with me.’
‘Why do you say it like that? There’s nothing wrong with being with you.’
‘I can never pass for straight. Or fit.’
‘That has nothing to do with anything, Alex. No, you’re not masculine. But you’re not a femme guy either.’
‘I’m a depressed wreck who cuts himself,’ I pointed out.
‘A straight guy could be a depressed mess who cut himself too,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s not just gay men who show emotions, you know. That’s stereotyping. People who likes girls aren’t always masculine, confident guys who've got their entire lives on track.’
‘I know. I know.’ I pressed my eyes closed again, breathing out.
‘And what does that have to do with anything, anyway?’ he asked. ‘It’s not a competition on who can pass best as straight. Frankly, I think that’s bollocks that people immediately look at someone, see a fit, masculine bloke, and just assume he likes fanny. I didn’t presume Kristian or Amir was straight.’
‘But they are, aren’t they?’
‘Well, yeah. But that’s beside the point. No one should presume something just from the way people look.’
‘I know that. But people do anyway.’ I would always be the wreck who cut himself, at least as long as people could see my arms. If they didn’t... I was probably just the guy who liked to suck cock. Those were the two things I’d been known for in school, after all. Why should adult life be any different?
‘I’m so fucking gay for you, Alex.’
I laughed at that, not able to help myself. ‘Gay for you isn’t a thing.’
‘Sure, it is. I love girls. Really, I do. But I love you more. You’re the only guy for me.’
‘You must’ve liked guys before me.’ He did identify as bisexual, after all. The whole gay-for-you was an inside joke between the two of us.
‘Not really.’
‘Oh, come on.’ I was not the only guy he’d been attracted to. I refused to believe that.
‘Okay, I can look at a bloke and think he’s fit. I’d tap that. I do so with girls too. But you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to be in a relationship with—and that goes for both guys and girls.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ I muttered, my chest squeezing tight at his words. It was a good sort of tight.
‘Too bad I’m so far away.’ He sounded wistful now. ‘I’d love to fuck you into the mattress. I’d do it exactly how you like it and I’d make it last forever.’
My breath hitched. ‘I wish you were here, so you could do that. Also, just so I could see you and hug you. And kiss you. I miss you so much.’ I hadn’t seen him in over a month, after all. The day he and Glenn drove me to the hospital was the last time I remembered seeing him. When he’d come to visit me in here, I’d been completely gone in my brain fog.
‘The winter holidays are only a few weeks away,’ he reminded me.
‘I’m counting down.’ Or I would, as soon as I checked the exact date. Maybe I should make a little chart on a piece of paper, so I could cross out every day that passed. That actually sounded like a very good idea. A plan for my immediate future.
Begin small, work up to bigger things.
Ye
ah, that was what I had to do. I couldn’t start big right off the bat. I needed to take small steps. And for today, I was making a little calendar in one of my notebooks. I was pinning it to the wall, and crossing out every day that passed until the winter holiday and Andreas was here.
In the meantime, I needed to get my medication sorted. I needed to work on getting better. I didn’t want to lose another two weeks with him (or one, in the case of the winter holiday, it didn’t last longer than that), where we could’ve spent some proper, quality time together without schoolwork or anything else taking up most of our time. Or his, it wasn’t like schoolwork had taken up much of mine.
‘Glenn’s not coming with us back to the winter holiday.’
‘What? Why?’ I clutched my phone tight again now. ‘He didn’t say anything about that before he left.’
‘He has to work,’ Andreas said. ‘But he did mention, when I saw him yesterday, that he was thinking of taking you on a trip when you get better.’
‘A trip? Where?’ I had heard nothing about this. ‘And why are you hearing about this before me? How often do you and Glenn talk together about me?’
‘More than you know,’ he teased.
‘It doesn’t really feel weird having two boyfriends, you know,’ I said, almost sullenly. ‘But having those two boyfriends constantly speak together behind my back about me, that’s weird.’
‘We only want what’s best for you, babe.’ I knew he was smiling now, finding this funny. I could tell from the sound of his voice. ‘I read online the other day—Nik gave me some links—that the term for us is an N quad.’