116A/N: I just wanted to check that you've seen all the warnings for this story (slash, language, mention of drugs and self-harm)
My slim finger trailed on the bookshelf, passing one book after another as if deeming them unsuitable for entertainment. I could feel the accumulated dust clinging to my skin and I would've immediately wiped it on my ripped jeans if I hadn't spotted it. My eye immediately caught the small, red notebook that was carefully crammed between Physics for Morons and Calculus: Part I. I knew this little booklet. Good God, I'd used it enough times to ingrain into my brain the perfume that wafted from the pages every time I opened it.
Slowly and hesitantly, I pulled the object from between the two monstrous books. It seemed smaller than before, yet it felt heavier. Was that my imagination? It must have been. Either that or the broken lock magically gained ten pounds while I was gone this summer. Why had I even kept the stupid lock anyway? I'd lost the key long ago, not to mention that the thing couldn't close to begin with. I couldn't help but wonder if diaries were always made so fragile. Maybe that's why little brothers found it so easy to piss off their hormonal, older sisters. Because it was so damn easy!
Then again, who was I to talk? I was the owner of such a girly thing…
My finger snuck between two random pages before pushing them apart. The first thing that hit me was that familiar smell of vanilla and roses. I almost chuckled at how nostalgic everything seemed. It was like nothing changed. My eyes quickly scanned the clumsy handwriting and my stomach dropped at the content. This was all the evidence I needed to know that things had changed. Everything had changed. Still, I couldn't help myself. I knew I couldn't let go of the past just yet. I knew this because I found myself reading the sloppy writing.
May 14: It's so funny how I always thought that I was unlike others because of my lack of caring. I just couldn't make that connection, and up to a certain point, that frustrated me. But when I was in the car one day, mom told me: "You can't love someone if you don't love yourself first." That gave me an idea. If I find out more about myself, then I can connect with others. So, I sat on my bed for a couple of hours, when no one was around, and I started thinking about my personality…
"That's because, you buffoon, you had shut everything down," I smiled, finding the irony funny in a very non-humorous way. I was so young and I wanted to "connect" with people. Now, I simply wished to detach myself.
Shaking my head at my thoughts, I flipped the page to a couple of months later and read on.
August 6: I can't tell when it started. It was after the nightmares...or was it before? It might have been before, but I didn't notice it then. It really came to me when the dreams started; when I began searching for who I was. At first it was fun. A great new expedition, I might have said. But, after I felt comfortable with my being, I also felt empty. It was a strange void, like something was...hmm...how should I say it...wrong? Miserable? Upset? I still can't put my finger on it. It just...it wasn't happy. Every time I'm alone in a room I feel...alone. But, it's more profound that just not having others around you. It's strange, and, honestly, I'm becoming exasperated with myself now that I'm trying to explain it…
Oh, you poor poor fool. That was just the beginning. You should have remained blissfully ignorant. What were you doing, opening yourself up like that? At least before, your ignorance worked as something akin to a shield. Sure, it was small and cracked, barely protecting anything, but it was definitely better than nothing…
October 19: I try to occupy myself with things that keep my mind from being stagnant. Constant entertainment, like the computer, doesn't allow me to look internally. As a result, I don't have to feel the flood of overbearing sadness. Every time I lie in bed, or meditate with Rachel, or just think to myself, I try to control my tears and sobs. I cried when Rachel was meditating next to me. She never noticed. I'm just that good. And it's funny, because you'd think she would have noticed, considering we were side by side and two inches apart from each other. But, she didn't. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Honestly, I can't tell. What I try to do is keep up the facade. I think my mask is crumbling, though. I've been crying once too many times, lately.
Rachel, my older sister, was always more of a boy than a girl. She has a rather boyish air about her, and no, I'm not focusing on her small boobs that I know she pads in the hope of seeming a size bigger. I'm talking about her broad, square shoulders, her powerful legs and her walk that screams "I'm a man and if anyone wants to wrestle, I'll gladly beat you up!" Don't get me wrong, she doesn't look like a man. She's just more aggressive than the average girl and revels in how tough she is. This is probably the reason why I hadn't noticed how upset she was. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend and, for the next month, was absolutely devastated.
October 25: I don't want to deal with anything anymore. I can't stand talking to my friends sometimes. It's not like I don't want to, but more like they are interrupting me. Like, at that moment, I'm supposed to be sleeping and they keep on poking at me with a stick to wake up and be cheery. And I do wake up, and I do put on a smile, but that doesn't mean that I'm happy.
More depression…I flipped through the pages.
October 30:…But, I was so upset with that at some point in the past. Not now. Now, I honestly can't tell you that I care. Not to be rude (and I'm just being honestly blunt when I say this), but I can't find myself to care. I'm just tired. Continually, and hopelessly tired. Exhausted, really...
Even more depression… I quickly skipped ahead to the time when all the real crap started. Aha!
January 5: I took a shower today, and it just seems to me like they keep on getting longer and longer. It used to take at most half an hour, but as the weeks go by, my time in there increases. Today it was 48 minutes, and that's only because the water was getting cold. I think it's because when I'm in there, I know that I'm alone. It feels good to be absolutely positive that no one will approach you. It's like my own little world in there.
I should have known something was funny when I started taking longer showers. I should have known something was up when I suddenly felt better when people weren't around. Just looking back at how things escalated made me absolutely furious…
February 2: I sometimes feel like I want to bang on the walls and punch through them. But, at the same time, I feel hopeless knowing that I will never be able to do that. At home, things are better. School, on the other hand, is a nightmare. Just sitting in my desk is horrifying. I can't get up and leave and I'm forced to contain myself from morning to noon. And, sometimes, I feel this need to get up and scream, like I want to say something important, but I don't know what it is. I begin feeling nervous. I start shaking my legs, wringing my hands, clutching my pencil tighter and refraining from tearing the papers in front of me and throwing my things across the room. My heart beats faster, my temperature rises and the more I think about how much time is left, the worse I feel. A second seems like a minute; a minute seems like an hour. An hour is beyond my explaining abilities...it's eternity...
I wish I had known my friend Leslie had anxiety issues.
February 10: I'm constantly sick. Did you know that? Probably not. Unless you're family. If you are, you might know that I'm always getting the sniffles or something. What you might not know is that I always wake up with a sore throat. That's why I don't like talking in the morning. Usually in the afternoons I get stomach aches and at night I don't really feel anything except fatigue. It's like a bad...something...what's the word I'm looking for...not program...schedule! It's like a bad schedule for messed up patients.
I wish I had known Rachel got sick from sleeping under the vent and that my older brother, Corbin, ate food he knew he was allergic to. Mom used to yell at him for doing stuff like that, but after a while, she just came home from work and crashed.
February 18: At this point I'm jamming to some pop music. It's the only time I feel energized. I want to dance, but in the end I don't because I know that if someone walked in, they'd say I look stupid. I also love singing. Too bad my voice is atrocious. Music is probably my only connection to this world. I don't know what people would do if music did not exist. Personally, I think we'd all rot and die. This song I'm listening to now is making me want to smile. I only truly laugh with myself. It might be sad that I am the only one who can make me really laugh. Oh...wow...I just felt really sad again...I was not expecting that...It was like a sudden pang...I want to go...
I wish I had known my friend Nick was bipolar.
March 23: My showering timetable has changed. I'll take baths at unreasonable times: 2 am, 3 am, 5 am… My schedule is inconsistent. One day I'll shower in the middle of the night, and the next I'll shower right after school. I bathe whenever I feel like it, even if I've just finished. I even go into the bath twice in one day. At first I'd stay there for half an hour. But, over the following weeks, the time spent under the water has dramatically increased. It's even inched up to two whole hours. Of course, no one notices anything. It goes overlooked. And so, I let the water wash away the dirt on my body as well as the tears on my face. After all, most of my time under the shower is spent crying.
I wish…I wish I had known that Leslie had just been sexually assaulted…
April 14: I sleep on the couch. I hate my room. I've tried opening the windows in an attempt to circulate air, but to no avail. I've cleaned that room, organized it, vacuumed it, reorganized it, you name it… The air doesn't feel fresh to me. I feel so dirty walking in there that I run to the showers. It's like whatever is lingering there is clinging to my skin and seeping through my pores. It's disgusting and, in turn, I am too…
I wish I had known that Leslie hadn't left her boyfriend, the man who had touched her without her consent.
May 11: I want to die. I want it so bad, I could almost kill myself. But, I don't have the guts to do anything. I just wish my soul would leave my body and not return…
I wish I had known Leslie's mom had caught her sneaking out of her house to meet her boyfriend. She was under lock and key for a while. I wouldn't have known. Leslie never wanted to hang out with me after school.
May 26: Have you ever felt that anger, that disgust that makes you choke? It crawls under your skin and creeps through your veins. And you can't get rid of it because simply looking at your flesh is too gross. You know that disgust that makes you just want to throw up? And, it doesn't matter where you are. You just want to somehow purify your body because it's so impossibly, revoltingly filthy! And then, you find yourself torn between punishing it for being so dirty or leaving it be, because there's no way you can clean it; no shower can get rid of the grime…
I wish I had known Leslie's boyfriend was stalking her, ever though Leslie had told him they were officially over.
June 21, July 2, August, September, October, November…The days, the weeks, the months, I could go through them with a flip of a page. I went through so much; so much pain, so much anguish, so much crap!
My eyes flitted over key words. Disgusting, filthy, suicidal, cutting…
For the next year, when I wasn't listening to Leslie's never-ending whining, I was fighting a war with a self-inflicted addiction. I was fighting my battles, desperately trying to stay alive for one more hour, desperately trying to persuade myself that eating was healthy, desperately trying to stay away from sharp objects that relieved this utterly overwhelming sensation of thousands of strong emotions flooding into me all at once…
And I won.
It took help from my Mom, a lot of time and even more willpower, but I kept everything harmful at bay. I learned to begin expressing myself. At first, I forced myself to love my body but, eventually, I didn't have to. I was healing. Both my physical and emotional wounds were closing. Sure, there were scars, but I saw them as medals of victory, rather than something shameful. And though I'm still not strong enough to show them to the world, I'm proud of myself.
Or at least, that's how I felt until Leslie started calling me at 3 and 5 in the morning telling me she was high. I was still recovering and, even though she had no clue what I'd gone through, she tried convincing me how easy it was to just give in. I stood strong for the first week. I told her what she was doing was wrong, but she just giggled at me and mocked my "ignorance." I was feeling hopeless all over again. There were times when I was actually berating all the hard work I'd done. I was this close to relapsing that one night when I dropped the phone and broke down. I cried in anguish and clawed at the hardwood floor in what was pure determination to not touch my skin, to not do something irreversible. My Mom walked in on me and that's when everything really started changing.
It was easy for the two of us to get into spiritual therapy. Our family has a history of such stuff. Rachel and Dad can see the future in their sleep. My Grandma from my Dad's side speaks to the dead through dreams. Corbin sees spirits and ghosts, even though he shuts up pretty quickly when the topic pops up. My Mom performs Reiki and enjoys learning the art of healing. And me? I was the psychically dense one of the family.
So, when I went to the countryside to meet my Mom's mom, I was surprised to walk up to this cozy cottage belonging to a plump, jolly old woman. We never really visited Ma, mostly because she was so far from society. That and the fact that my Dad's side of the family thought she was odd. I did too when I saw her wearing that ridiculously yellow, flower-patterned dress. As if her black shawl and gardening boots weren't contrasting enough to convince me that she was a little off…When my mother knocked on the door, she answered, smile as radiant as the sun, and ushered us in with a "Mary, doll! It's been forever, dear! And, Corbin! You look nothing like the pictures!"
I didn't know why the hell I was in the middle of nowhere, with a lady I didn't visit often enough for her to know me, but my mom seemed to think it was a good idea, so I followed suit. I introduced myself as Micah, the second son and the boy who couldn't see ghosts. She laughed heartily and grabbed my hand, leading me to a wooden stool. I was apprehensive at first, since the entire cabin looked like something out of a fairytale, stone walls and wooden furniture and metal pots hanging off racks on the wall. She definitely fit the role of the witch, what with the suspicious way she was looking at me. It wasn't until she petted my head and turned to my Mom saying something absurd like, "I can't even feel him under all that muck," that I knew I was in for the ride of my life.
The old lady urged me to take a shower, which I did, very thankful that she at least had indoor plumbing. It was a quick wash and, as I walked out of the restroom all fresh and clean, I saw the two of them catching up. The second they noticed my presence, my grandma grabbed my hand and smiled, "That's much better!" I didn't think I was that dirty when I'd walked in, but I didn't speak my thoughts. I felt lighter, like the country air was sweeter or something. So, when Ma asked my Mom, "How in the world did he get so filthy?" I was immediately offended. The reply wasn't something I was too happy about, mostly because it seemed like my Mom had already spilled the beans about all my shameful acts. But, the old lady shook her head and said, "I asked how he got filthy, not how filthy he was!"
Both my mom and I were confused by her remark. It made no sense to us. Well, not at least until she clarified that "Half that guck wasn't him. It's all residual energy. Who in the world have you been spending your time with, son?"
And that's when I, eyes wide enough to pop, found out something I wished I knew a bit earlier.
I wish I had known I was empathic.