Light in the Shadows

by A. Meredith Walters

  Fate was a fucking bitch.

  I felt bad for seeing Lisa's wariness. So I came from around the counter and gave her a hug. The much taller woman squeezed tight before letting me go. “You look great,” she said kindly. I cleared my throat uncomfortably. Yeah, I'm sure I looked a hell of a lot better than the last time she saw me. I had been a complete wreck. So I was sure anything had to be better than that.

  “Thanks. How's Ruby?” I asked, realizing that I missed Clay's wacky aunt. I missed her store. I had made it a point to stay away from my favorite shop, knowing it would be too painful to go inside.

  Lisa's face softened at the mention of her girlfriend. I had always loved the natural and beautiful affection between her and Ruby. It was something I had aspired to have in my own life. And at one time, I thought I had it.

  “She's Ruby. Wonderful as always. Still trying to force herbal tea down my throat on a daily basis.” We both laughed. Ruby was formidable when it came to forcing herbal concoctions down your throat.

  “She'd love to see you,” Lisa said softly. I looked away, not sure how to answer. I'd love to see her too. But it was too soon.

  “Yeah,” was all I said, feeling the need to end the conversation and get my ass out of there. But then, as if by compulsion I spit out, “How's Clay?”

  There was an immediate silence. I couldn't believe I just asked that. My heart started to hammer in my chest and just saying his name out loud was like a bomb going off inside me. My hands were clammy and I felt strangely light headed. Jesus, I was a mess.

  “He's...better,” Lisa said. I looked back at her and she appeared guarded. As though not sure how much she should say. Not that I blamed her. Clay had made it a point to not let me know exactly where he was. He had sent me a letter, telling me to get on with my life and move on and not once did he mention ever wanting to talk to me again. Without giving me any say in the matter, he had cut me off. Clay and I had been toxic together. I thought I was helping him but in reality I hadn't been. My denial and refusal to talk to anyone about what was going on with him had ultimately been his undoing. So, talking to the ex-girlfriend who had single handedly helped him walk off the cliff, had to be awkward for her. It was a wonder she was talking to me at all.

  My eyes zeroed in on my sneakers. I felt small. And vulnerable. “That's good,” I choked out. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell. I wanted to disappear into my hidey hole and never come out. Damn, and I had been feeling so good too.

  “Maggie, sweetie,” Lisa said quietly and I looked up at her again and I wanted to cringe at the blatant sympathy in her eyes. I hated sympathy like I hated polyester. It made me itchy and uncomfortable. “I know things have been rough for you. I saw how much you loved him. Just know he's really trying to get himself together.”

  I swallowed around the lump that had formed in my throat. I couldn't deny the relief that I felt at her words. I wanted Clay healthy and whole. I wanted him to get better. And I could admit that I hoped once he did that, he would come back to me. Because even as angry as I was at him for giving up on us, I missed him so much I hurt with it. So hearing that he was trying was the absolute best thing I could hear.

  “I'm glad,” I told her sincerely. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Rachel and Daniel were watching Lisa and me intently. The concern for me was obvious on both of their faces. I gave them, what I hoped, was a reassuring smile. I also noticed that Jake was paying close attention to my exchange with Lisa. I wanted to roll my eyes at the lot of them. Did they think I was going to fall apart just by talking to a person connected with my ex? Sheesh, they should give me a bit more credit than that.

  “I should get back to it. It was great seeing you again, Lisa,” I said; ready to put distance between me and the sudden reminder of my painful, not so distant past. I gave the other woman a final hug and started back toward the counter.

  “Do you want us to give him a message? We're planning to see him next week for his birthday,” she called out, just as I was about to make my escape.

  The breath left my lungs. Clay's birthday. Of course it was coming up. I thought about the present I had worked on for him just after he had left. It still sat, wrapped in newspaper, underneath my bed. I squared my shoulders and shook my head.

  “No that's okay. Have a nice trip,” I said dismissively, not wanting to talk about Clay anymore. Lisa seemed to take the hint. She picked up her to-go cup and with a last smile, left the café.

  I noticed that my friends didn't approach me. They knew I wasn't in the mood to discuss what had just happened and I appreciated their sixth sense when it came to my feelings. Jake gave me space as well and for that I was grateful.

  Because right then, my mind was too full and my heart was too heavy. And that's all I could focus on.

  Chapter Three

  -Clay-

  I stared down at the spiral notebook in my lap. The pencil in my hand was limp between my fingers and I couldn't focus on the chicken scratch on the pages. My breathing had become shallow and my heart rate had accelerated to an alarming rate.

  I was in the midst of a full blown panic attack. Dr. Todd was looking at me with concern which should have freaked me the fuck out. Because not much marred the good doc's placid calm. But I must be making a massive spectacle of myself if he looked as though he were ready to put a tranq needle in my arm.

  “Breathe, Clay. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Count backwards from twenty. Slowly. In and out.” Dr. Todd's words were firm and I needed that right now because my mind had rioted against me.

  I followed his advice and closed my eyes, concentrating on the numbers in my head. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. I clenched my hands into fists, trying to control the urge to scratch at my skin until it bled. I needed the physical hurt to erase the horrible goddamned agony in my heart.

  Not once did Dr. Todd touch me, no comforting hand on the arm or pat on the back. Which was good, because I would have punched him in the nose if he had. Instead, he sat in the chair opposite of me, counting with me down from twenty. Reminding me to focus on my breathing.

  After going through the count down five times, my body finally started to unclench and my heart rate began to slow down. My breathing was less shallow and it felt safe to open my eyes.

  “Better?” Dr. Todd asked me, the concern gone, replaced by his typical neutral expression. Some people might be bothered by the therapist’s lack of emotional response. For me, it was exactly what I needed. I had lived my life being ruled by my feelings, worrying about what those emotions would do to the people around me. So having someone sit there, seemingly unphased by my shit, was nice.

  I nodded and put the pencil down in the crease of my notebook. I closed it without another look, knowing that what I had written on its pages was what precipitated the level ten meltdown. The sound of some sort of new age music punctuated the silence. It made me think of Ruby and in that moment, that was more crucial in helping me get my shit together than anything else.

  “Man, I wasn't expecting that,” I let out in a quiet rush. I ran my shaking hand through my hair, knowing it was probably sticking straight up. Good thing I didn't give a crap about things like my appearance.

  Dr. Todd smiled in understanding. “You handled that really well, Clay. You're learning to manage your attacks much better. You should feel good about that.” I knew the doc was trying to offer me something to feel positive about. But I didn't want any of it.

  Just when I thought I had things under control, the reality of who I was smacked me squarely in the face. Being nuts was no fun let me tell you. I was a far cry from being the lovable eccentric. The wacky dude who mumbled to himself and wore his pants inside out. Nope, my kind of nuts was scary and consuming.

  Sure, my new meds were huge in helping me regulate my swings. Therapy had been instrumental in allowing me to work through the millions of ways I was sabotaging my life on a daily basis. I was learning other coping skills, ones that didn’t involve a blade t
o my skin. I hadn't cut myself in over a month. These were all reasons to feel successful. I was a far cry from being the man I wanted to be. But I was getting there.

  Then stuff like this happened. It was reality's way of smacking me in the face and telling me to wake the fuck up. Have I mentioned how much I hated reality sometimes? If it were a guy I’d beat the shit out of him. Because if I couldn't even write in a damn journal about how messing up things with Maggie had destroyed my entire world, I wasn't ready to see the outside of these walls yet. And I wanted to be ready so freaking badly.

  Dr. Todd said Maggie had become my trigger. Can you believe that? The girl who had easily been the best thing in my life was now my greatest nightmare. According to the good doctor, I was pinpointing all of my anxiety, all of my shame and guilt onto her shoulders. How messed up was that? After doing the “right” thing and letting her go, I couldn’t even have the memories of her. Because now when I thought about Maggie, I wigged out. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. It was way too reminiscent of how bad things became before I came to Grayson.

  Dr. Todd was trying to help me work through it. I was seeing him three times a week and at least one of those sessions revolved around how I needed to learn to forgive myself. He said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. But you try to forgive yourself after you hurt everyone you have ever loved. It doesn’t make you the most enjoyable guy to have around, that’s for sure. Life of the party I wasn’t.

  This process was painful. Actually it sucked balls. It was like forcing yourself to look in the mirror after you had been doused in battery acid. I felt ugly and raw. And I wasn’t a fan of the guy inside me that I was getting to know. But Dr. Todd was trying to make me see that I wasn’t the horrible person that I seemed to think I was. He was making me recognize that I was taking control of my life. That person that had hurt Maggie so badly was only a part of the person I was and he didn't define me. He liked to tell me that I had to learn to accept all sides of who I was if I hoped to be healthy and whole.

  Once upon a time I would have laughed off the psychobabble. But now, in this reality, I couldn’t afford to do that. So I bit my tongue and drank the Grayson Center Kool-Aid.

  Some days it worked. Some days I was able to talk about my relationship with Maggie without sobbing like a little bitch. There were times I left my sessions feeling like I was a step closer to being the person I wanted to be. The guy who would be able to show up on Maggie May Young's doorstep and tell her that his life would always begin and end with her.

  Today was NOT one of those days.

  Dr. Todd held out his hand for my notebook. I gave it to him, wishing he'd let me burn the stupid thing. Journaling had never been one of my favorite therapeutic activities. But the counselors here loved it. I had been told over and over again that sometimes it's easier to write down your feelings than talk about them. That when you feel overwhelmed, just jot it down. What-the-fuck-ever.

  I thought it was nothing more than an exercise in reminding me of my colossal screw ups. Hey Clay, sit down and write about how much of a jack ass you are! Sounds like a fun day, huh? I'd hate to go back through that thing and read the ramblings of a guy who had messed up his life and spent an inordinate amount of time feeling sorry for himself because of it. I’d rather be kicked in the nuts.

  “Do you mind if I read what you wrote? I'd like to see what triggered your reaction,” Dr. Todd asked me. If I said no, he wouldn't push. Not about that. There were some things Dr. Todd pushed me about. Things he forced me to face even when I didn't want to. But the cool thing about him was that he understood when he needed to back the hell off. It's what made our dynamic work. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. Except that I was in a mental health treatment center in Florida. And I wasn’t a gun slinging outlaw. Oh fuck it, never mind.

  The point was that I had fought therapy for so long that our easy candor was pretty unbelievable. It was no secret that I didn’t like people. I avoided them on a good day. But Dr. Todd was different. Maybe it was the fact that he didn’t look at me like I was crazy. There was no forced sympathy or condescending advice. He let me talk. Or he let me stay silent. He'd push when he needed to but let things go when I needed him to.

  So having him check out my journal surprisingly didn’t feel like a complete invasion of privacy. Something I had written had thrown me into a tailspin and go figure, my therapist wanted to know what that something was. Made sense, right? Plus if I ever wanted to get out of here and get on with living my life, I had to figure out how to handle this new level of bullshit I had unloaded on myself. Why couldn’t my life ever be simple? What happened to the normal teenage experience? Shouldn’t I be making inappropriate remarks about girls’ tits with my friends and devising ways to get my girlfriend to screw me?

  Nope, I had been given the shitty parents and chemical imbalance card. Woohoo! Lucky me!

  I nodded. “Go right ahead.” My voice sounded thready and breathless from my most recent round with the crazies. Dr. Todd gave me a small smile before opening my lime green notebook. He thumbed through the pages until he stopped at the entry I had written. He had asked me to reframe a painful memory. He had told me to think about something that hurt, something that had been extremely difficult for me and to look for a positive to take from it. Reframing was hard on a good day.

  Had I mentioned that today was a not a good day?

  When Dr. Todd had finished reading, he looked up at me. “Well, you definitely picked a doozy to focus on,” he said in a way that made it difficult for me not to laugh. I appreciated his dry humor.

  “Well, you know what they say. Go big or go home.” My lips quirked in an effort to smile. I probably looked as though my mouth were spazzing out.

  Dr. Todd gave me an answering smile and looked back down at my notebook. “I'm glad to see that you were going in the right direction with this activity. Tell me what made you have the reaction you did.” Ahh, so now I was going to talk about my feelings. I just loved when therapy became so clichéd.

  “Well, I think it's pretty fucking obvious how I was feeling. I had a goddamned anxiety attack. I wasn't hearing the birds fucking chirp and seeing rainbows, okay!” I bit out angrily. Dr. Todd closed the notebook with a snap.

  “No, I'd say not. Don't get defensive, Clay. Now please tell me, what were you feeling?” he asked me again. I took a deep breath and tentatively started to think about the situation I had just shared in my journal. I had to be careful. I couldn't lose it again. I had come too far, I would learn to deal with this shit or it would kill me!

  “Angry,” I said shortly, settling on the truth. I could have dodged the question, but after my little episode, I was too exhausted and way past hiding what I was thinking.

  Dr. Todd frowned. “Angry, huh. At who?” I wanted to groan. That was a loaded question.

  “Maggie. Me. Ruby. My parents. Take your pick.” I was feeling petulant. I knew this wasn't earning me any therapy brownie points but I was so raw I could bleed. I wanted to bleed. I wanted the pain that only a razor could bring. It would be a hell of a lot better than facing the demons that raged inside me. The demons that on days like today seemed to never be far from completely obliterating me.

  Dr. Todd didn't say anything, he just watched me as I processed what I had just said. “I'm angry. With everyone. My parents are easy. They fucking suck. They've never been parents. They just stuck my ass in here to rot.” I gave a humorless laugh. “They wanted me to lose it. They wanted an excuse to get rid of me. Too bad for them, I'm gonna get out of here and live my life,” I said vehemently and I saw Dr. Todd try to cover his smile.

  He nodded. “You're feelings are definitely understandable. But more importantly, you are seeing that you are in control of your life, not your parents. You having control is what will help you move forward.” Sometimes Dr. Todd sounded like Ghandi or something. I could get annoyed by it, or I could hear his words for what they were. The truth.

  “I'm mad at Ruby for
making it so easy to deny what I was doing to everyone around me. If she had just laid it on the line, told me she knew what I was doing...” My words trailed off and Dr. Todd cut in.

  “You would have gotten help? Stopped cutting?” he asked me pointedly. I arched my eyebrow, seeing what he was doing. He was trying to make me see how irrational that anger was. He was walking a very fine line. I could either get ragingly pissed or acknowledge the validity of what he was saying. It could go either way really.

  For the moment I ignored the delicate balancing act and continued with my train of thought. “I'm mad at myself for being such a fucking waste. For screwing up everything in my life. For not holding it together and letting my parents win,” I ended softly. I ground my clenched fists into my eyes, feeling a headache start behind them.