by Lila Felix
The fear of getting better plagued me. It was kinda like asking for someone to grant you patience. Yes, they could just pour a bucket of patience over your head like a coach who’d just won the Super Bowl. But most likely they would put you through some tests and trials to make you learn patience the hard way. I wanted the bucket—please let it be the bucket. But I knew better. And I didn’t need the bucket.
I had the will. The will had been there all along buried deep down. And I had the catalyst—Ash. I put on my shoes and still hesitated in turning the doorknob to the front door.
I walked outside, still surprised that Holly wasn’t standing there, ready to emotionally castrate me. The man next door was clipping his hedges, making them neat and uniform. I didn’t actually know it was a man who lived next door. I had no clue about my neighbors.
Just say ‘Hi’ to him. Don’t be weird. Neighbors say hello to each other all the time.
“Good morning,” I said and managed to pull a half wave, with my wrist contorted like a mannequin displaying a purse.
He reciprocated with a wave that resembled a window cleaning apparatus. I wasn’t the only one lame at waving. I mounted my bike after typing the address into the GPS on my phone. Somehow I would have to pull it out of my pocket at stoplights to see where I was going.
I got to the office building. It was a stale brick building, full of doctors: podiatrists, gastroenterologists and Dr. Mavis—whack job fixer extraordinaire. I followed the signage to her door and walked in. I signed the sheet noting what time I’d come in and what I’d come in for—I was so tempted to write something crass but refrained.
The couch in the waiting room was uncomfortable and hotel like with a sheen—probably some stain resistant coating for those like me who wanted to shit their pants just thinking about seeing Dr. Pencil Skirt. They tried to home it all up with pictures, coffee table, and lamps—but everyone knew what was to go down in here—like a crack house painted yellow.
I took the free time to give myself a pep talk of sorts, more like a ‘try not to hate the good doctor so much’ speech. I could hardly stand to look at her sometimes. But it wasn’t her or her ugly skirts or her witch shoes, it was me. She dug too deep and just when she’d hit my core, she grabbed a pick axe and started carving into it. But I needed to think of her as a bridge. She connected who I didn’t want to be anymore to someone new. I grabbed onto the arm of the stiff couch letting it anchor me in. Because I wouldn’t lie, I was ready to bolt.
“Breaker, you made it. Let’s begin,” Dr. Mavis said as she poked her head out of the office. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I pushed myself off the couch and walked into her office decorated in the same colors as my mother’s formal dining room that no one ever used. She motioned for me to sit on the couch, could she get anymore cliché? She grabbed a digital recorder instead of her whored up notepad and turned it on.
“You got here. That’s step one. And I told you this was intense therapy. This isn’t going to be a joy ride and don’t make the mistake of comparing our previous sessions with this therapy, Breaker. We’re going to break you, put you back together and start chipping away again before you’re fully healed. But this is what you asked for. Are you ready for this?”
My blood vessels were fisting the surface of my skin, begging to get out and explode in frustration and terror. But this was part of it. I nodded.
“I need verbal consent Breaker. Don’t waste my time or yours.” Damn, Dr. Mavis was a closet bad ass.
“Yes. I’m in.”
“Good,” she sat back and crossed her legs. “Now let’s begin. Do you know where Holly lives?”
“No” Whew, obstacle one avoided.
“Well, your mother does. She doesn’t know the reasoning behind it but I asked her for the information. Your mother has considered suing Holly several times but has refrained thus far. Is there a chance you still have anything that belongs to Holly?”
Jesus, she wasn’t kidding. I thought it would be like the first day of school, all listening and nodding—no homework or projects yet.
“There’s a box of some things I gave her—some things she left behind in my closet. I used to get it down and torture myself with it.”
“Today, when you leave here, you will get the box down, do not—DO NOT look inside the box or it will defeat the purpose.”
She’s gonna say throw it away. She’s gonna say throw it away, I chanted.
“You’ll take it to Holly’s house and give it back to her. If she’s not home, you will continue to go back until she is. Do not leave it at her door. You have to confront her face to face; she is the demon plaguing you. We can’t move forward until you resolve this.”
I swayed on the couch, no longer in control of my balance or the room spinning around me.
“Focus on breathing, Breaker—In and out. You have to learn to inwardly get through these episodes. I know you told me over the phone that Ash had gotten you through them before. You must acclimate to handling them yourself. She won’t always be there and she shouldn’t have to be.”
I focused on the oxygen entering my nose and the carbon dioxide exiting my mouth. I pictured one of those cartoony pictures of the esophagus and lungs working through the respiratory process. And before I knew it, I was ok.
“That was excellent, Breaker. Did you use Ash to get through it?”
I was surprised at my response, “No, just my breathing.”
“Fantastic. You can do this. And that’s our first session. Follow my instructions implicitly. I will see you tomorrow. You can call me on my cell if there’s an emergency but I will not tolerate over the phone sessions. We don’t want you to get attached to me—besides you’re not my type.” She smiled. I couldn’t believe it, the grave digging wench smiled and cracked wise. I hadn’t given her enough credit.
“No, you’re not. Thank you for this. I won’t let you down.”
“Don’t let yourself down, Breaker. You have a chance at a life. Take it.”
“I will.”
She cleared her throat, “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“You need to cut off contact with Ashland until we are finished here.”
She’d Medusa-ed me in place with her command.
“Can I call her and let her know? I don’t want her to think…”
“Yes, one time, make it brief and then no more until you are done with the preliminary stage.”
“I understand.” I answered and left her office.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I put the kickstand down at what resembled a population control apartment building. The living quarters were stacked five stories high and of course she was on the fifth floor. I took the box from the back of my bike and trekked up the flights, slower than I had to. But I hoped once I reached the top, I’d be too exhausted—no energy for a freak out.
I reached her apartment, a rusted chair lawn chair and ashtray outside the door. I knew it, she did smoke. My hands flexed before knocking, like I was warming up for it. I knocked three times with force. It gave me a zing of joy knowing that a knock which sounded like that of a police officer might scare her.
I saw a flash of something in the peep hole and knew she was coming. My heart flew to the back of my chest wanting as much distance from her as it could get.
The door opened and revealed Holly. I looked her over as she did the same to me. She was thin, and not in a good way. There were circles under her eyes and she’d dyed her hair raven black. She had on a pair of cut off denim shorts and sports bra only.
“Well, well, well, I didn’t expect you at my door Breaky.”
I found my voice after a few seconds of panic, “I came to bring you this box of things—they are yours and I really don’t want them in my house anymore.”
She giggled, “Awww, did you spread them out and cry over them after I was gone?” Someone should have slapped me when they found out I was dating her.
She is making
this really, really, easy.
“No, I didn’t. I would’ve lit them on fire but I thought maybe you’d like them to remember when you had it all and threw it away.” I swore I heard fireworks in the background.
“Huh. Well, you can set it down in here. Maybe there’s something valuable in there.” I walked into the starkly furnished, slip of a home and set the box down by the door and turned to walk out when I heard someone clear their throat.
“Breaker?” I knew the voice and floating puzzle pieces, once looking for their niche found them in that instant.
“Memphis,” I answered. As I turned around, he came completely into view, wearing a towel around his waist, shocked as hell to see me.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I wanted to return some of Holly’s things.” A flash of Ash calling Memphis ‘needle dick’ blurred through my mind and I began to laugh, so hard I leaned against the wall to stop from doubling over. They shared a look and probably thought I’d really gone nuts.
“You two have a nice life,” I finally croaked out and slammed the door behind me. I didn’t need to tell them off, they were obviously gonna make each other miserable for a long time. They deserved each other.
I practically hopped down the stairs. I got my phone and almost dialed Ash’s number when I remembered I’d been forbidden from calling her. But I had to tell her this and then I wouldn’t call anymore.
“Hi,” she answered after a couple of rings.
“Hi, I can’t talk long. I wanted to tell you that I had my first session today. I did great. And I’m not supposed to call you until this part is over. So, I have to go but I love you and I’m gonna work my ass off.”
“I know you will. I love you back.”
I hung up and shoved the phone back in my pocket before taking off towards home. I wondered if it would be ok to move out of that house.
The next couple of weeks were filled with trials. The mall was horrible. I could handle the onslaught of smells and sights. But the people looked like blurs, running to and fro in what seemed like random paths leading nowhere. Dr. Mavis came with me and stood to the side while she made me stand in the middle of the food court. It was like being the center pole while one of those fair rides, the scrambler or the tilt a whirl, cycloned around me. But I got through it.
Four weeks into treatment, Dr. Mavis surprised me by giving me a new task—confronting my mother. I’d been going home here and there, getting to know my sisters and Dad again. Family dinners had become events where we ate and ignored the water buffalo in the room, hoping he wouldn’t make a noise and ruin our shallow family time. But now I had to face him head on.
I made an appointment with her since she was always busy doing nothing. I strolled through the house towards her office. She made everything so damned formal. I knocked on the solid door, noticing the smudges I made on the polished wood. She’d hate that.
“Come in Breaker,” she said as she opened the door.
I took a seat at one of her burgundy leather chairs and waited for her to sit. She was always wound tighter than a spring on a pinball machine.
“Mom, we need to talk about all of this. We can’t just go on pretending it didn’t happen. And hiding it will just make it worse.”
“Don’t you think I know that, Son?” She rolled he eyes at me.
I figured there was no use beating around the bush, “Tell me what you said to Ash. What was the deal you made with her?”
She rearranged some papers on her desk, “I told her to clean the house, work on the yard since you ran the gardener off, and get you out of the house. I told her to do whatever she needed to light a fire under your ass.”
I’d never heard my mother say ass.
“Why?”
She got up from her desk and rested her hands on her hips and she looked out the window. After a few minutes she spoke, “I knew that girl was bad news. After I found out she’d moved in with you I did a little digging. I even tried to pay Holly off to leave you alone. But she wouldn’t take it. It wasn’t just the money, she was hell bent on ruining you. You’re so intelligent and you are too young to throw it all away because of some sadistic tramp.”
Two more words I’d never heard my mother say.
“I never intended to hire Ashland. I intended to hire Lucy until Ashland came in here with such tenacity. And even after I’d let her down she asked me one question that changed my mind.”
“What question?”
She turned around and grabbed a tissue from her desk and blotted at the corners of her eyes. “She asked me why you were so sad. So, after she left I did a more…let’s call it in depth check on her. She needed the money and her mother had mental issues. I just thought maybe she could do something the rest of us couldn’t. So I made it worth her while.”
“How much?” I had to know. It had no bearing on anything I felt for Ash but for me, I had to know.
“Two grand—per week.”
“I’m sure she put the money to good use. Ash is smart.”
She sat back down, “She returned it to me. A couple of days before she moved out, she returned it to me—the amount in full.”
We both stayed silent for a while.
“Do you love her Breaker?”
“Yes. I do.”
She pulled an envelope from her desk and handed it to me. I took it but didn’t open it.
Then I told her the things I knew she couldn’t say, “I know you did it because you love me, Mom. I know you were desperate for me to live. I’m not angry. It’s the best thing you’ve ever done for me.” I got up to leave, happy with the peace I’d made in that pristine office.
“Breaker?” She asked as I’d reached the door. I rotated to face her.
“Tell her it was worth every penny. I consider it money well spent. The most solid investment I’ve ever made.”
I looked in the envelope and inside was a check made out to Ash for twenty thousand dollars.
The rest of the treatment was frustrating but nothing, I found, that I couldn’t handle.
I ‘graduated’ my therapy earlier than ninety days, two weeks earlier. I’d broken the rules by texting Ash but I knew that I wasn’t dependent on her anymore.
I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to see her.
Ash
Two months, one week and four days—that’s how long it had been since I heard from him. Well, technically he texted me every day but his voice, his voice that could slow my world to a stop—I hadn’t heard that voice in way too long.
I needed to know. It scared me to think he wasn’t calling because he was having a harder time than he thought—or he’d quit altogether. We texted mostly about me and I didn’t ask questions for fear that I was violating some rule.
I was still working for the maid company and I hated every single second of it. I had to work by myself now. Lena had been caught stealing on my second week of work. The people we were working for had suspected her for a while and had installed cameras to catch her. But now I got paid the full amount, for every house instead of splitting it with a partner.
I made some new friends at school, I’d found a confidence I never knew and used it to my advantage. Stephanie was spending a lot of time with her new boyfriend. She finally admitted to me that she and Ozark were seeing each other. She thought I would be pissed. I laughed for three hours about it but now we were all friends. He turned out to be really a good guy when he wasn’t trying to date me.
I got to the top stair before entering the apartment, which was basically now my apartment, since Steph spent most of her time at Ozark’s house, when my phone rang.
“Hello?” I said, the phone trapped between my chin and my shoulder while I juggled groceries and my bag.
“Hi Ash. Are you busy?” His voice had changed a bit. It was huskier, more confident than the last time I’d spoken to him.
“Let me put my groceries down,” I told him and slammed everything down on the table.
“How are you Breaker?”
I sat down, on the verge of tears, “I’m so proud of you.” But I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question that I was dying to know the answer to. I wished he was telling me all of this face to face.
“Tell me about you Ash. Tell me everything. I’ve missed your voice so much. I mean, I’ve missed a lot more than your voice—just talk to me please.”
I told him everything. I talked to him for hours until my jaw ached and the milk had gone warm. I yawned into the phone after a while.
“Why don’t you go to bed, Ash. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I swear it won’t be so long next time. I was kinda restricted from talking to you since I was so attached to you.”
It hurt my heart to hear that maybe he wasn’t attached to me anymore.
“Go to bed, baby. I promise I will call you tomorrow.”
“I am in bed.”
He chuckled, “See that’s the kind of things that would’ve had me drop everything and come see you before. That’s why she didn’t want me to talk to you for a while. I cheated by texting, but the good doctor didn’t know that.”
There was no pride in love—that’s what I told myself before I asked him the hardest, most humbling question I’ve ever asked anyone.
“When are you gonna come see me?” I whispered, not sure at all if he ever would.
“I’ll be there faster than you think.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“Ash? Are you still awake?” I was—barely.
“Mmhmm.”
“I—I want you to know how much I love you. I love who you are and how you did what was best for me and you even when it hurt like hell. And I love how you took care of me when I couldn’t and wouldn’t do it for myself. If I have to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I will. I used to be scared that I only thought I loved you because you were helping me—because I needed you. But that’s not true. You made me want to be a better man. I promise I’ll see you soon.”