Behind Drawn Curtains

Chapter 10

When I woke up I looked into the eyes of an old woman. She looked like my grandmother. The pearls around her neck, the peach chiffon suit she was wearing and the grey curls framing her face was enough to tell me that she was most likely next to the wrong bed.

“Hi sweetheart,” she said as I tried to sit up right, and immediately she was out from the chair, helping me to get comfy against the pillows.

“My name is Abby,” she said with a smile that could only belong to a grandmother. I pictured her in a kitchen, baking cookies in the shape of dinosaurs, waiting on the porch for her grandchildren to come over so that she could spoil them rotten.

“Hi,” I finally replied. I could hear the raspy voice I said with and my eyes started darting around the room for a glass of water, but almost like Abby was able to read my mind I found myself sitting with a glass of water in my hands within minutes.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, right?” Abby said tenderly. There was something about her that I just immediately loved. Like I just wanted to go home with her where she probably had a husband that looked like Santa Clause, and they would both just spoil you rotten.

Instead of taking my first instinct of asking if I could go home with her when I get out of the hospital, I instead just nodded. I did want to know what she was doing beside my bed.

“I’m actually a doctor, but you can just call me Abby,” the smile on her face invited me in. The fact that she was a doctor would have normally scared me, but somehow she didn’t.

“I’m a psychologist. I’m your psychologist. If there is something, anything you would like to talk about. I’m here for you,” her smiled disappeared with those words and I could finally see what was behind them. It wasn’t any form of kindness. She was just doing her job. It was all an act. I knew it.

Abby tried touching my hand, but I immediately pulled away, not wanting her to think that she had established any kind of bond between me and her. As I turned my head away from her, focusing my eyes on the window on the other side of the room she spoke again.

“You don’t have to talk to me right now if you don’t want too. You don’t have to talk about why you’re here. You can just talk about anything that comes to mind. I’m listening.”

For a moment I thought about telling her everything. For one slight moment, until I turned my head back to her and looked at the older frail woman sitting right in front of me, looking like a grandmother from a television show. How could I talk to her? She looked like she was without any sin. Like she had never done anything wrong in her life. Hasn’t seen any hardships. She looked as if she had never even heard of the word s*x before. How would she react if I told her? Would she slam her hand over her mouth in shock? Say something like: shame, you poor child? Who could talk to such a person?

“Sorry…I’m a bit tired,” I whispered.

“That’s alright. I will sit with you for a little while,” she said with her soft smile. I could almost imagine her wanting to touch my hand again, but she didn’t.

“I’m tired. I would like to sleep a bit,” I said, wanting above everything that she would just leave. I have dreamed for years of someone coming to save me, but there was no way that it would be this old woman.

“All good, but if you need me, just let them call me. The nurses know where to find me.” I could feel her hand softly brushing against my cheek. “Sleep tight sweetheart.”

I didn’t sleep but I kept my eyes closed. I was planning it again. I was in a hospital. There was sure to be lots of things that I could use to end what I have started. I was sure of that. My thoughts got interrupted by two nurses entering. With opening my eyes every slightly I could see them making the bed next to mine.

“What happened here?” the one nurse asked.

“Suicide attempt,” she answered.

“Such a young child? How?”

“Slit his wrists. The right way actually. The father got him here just in time. In tears. You should have seen the poor man. I felt so sorry for him. The doctor had to give him an injection to calm him down. It took everything not to go over and give the poor man a hug.”

“The mother?”

“She was here too. Had a bit more control than the dad. Sounds like they’re pretty close.”

“Sounds like a happy family. Wonder why the boy would have done such a thing?” I closed my eyes as the nurse turned around. I could feel her eyes burning on me.

“The dad said something about the kid being gay or something. He had a fight with his boyfriend.”

“Shame. Kids of today hey? They just don’t understand there’s lots of fish in the ocean. Always thinking that the first love is the one that will last for all eternity.”

“I still remember my first. Dwayne Meyer. Now he was a dish! Calves like a horse…”

Chatting about their first loves, they left the room. Leaving me to finally open my eyes and stare at the empty bed beside my own until the sleep finally took me over and I fell into darkness once more.

It was light in the room the next time I woke up. Someone was touching my hands and immediately I pulled them away.

“Now, now. I have to take a look,” a male voice said.

I stared up at the man dressed in white, a stethoscope dangling from around his neck.

“You hurt yourself pretty badly,” he said as I relaxed my arm and allowed him to unroll the bandages on my wrists.

“You’ve met Doctor Abby.” It was a statement more than a question. I replied with giving a slight nod of the head, not knowing what to say.

“She says you don’t want to talk to her.” He stopped a moment with the bandages and looked me straight in the eyes, capturing me with his green gaze.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said as confidently as I could. Immediately he went back to work on my wrists.

“I’m not going to trouble you too much. That’s Doctor Abby’s work. But from what I know there is nothing normal about a sixteen year old trying to take his own life.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. No, it probably wasn’t normal, but hell, if he had known what I had been through in only the past week he would have understood. He would have probably also tried to make a duck out of this life.

“Looks like you will have a speedy recovery,” he said as he finished inspecting my wounds and started to put the bandages back on. I tried my best not to look at it, but my eye caught sight of the stitches, the dry blood still thick on them.

“Is it gonna leave scars?” It was such a childish thing to ask, but I couldn’t help it.

“Yes,” the doctor said. “I tried my best, but those were some nasty gashes.”

“Okay,” I said allowing the tears to start streaming from my face again.

James had never really left lasting scars on my body. I was glad about that. I have always been proud of the fact that I did not have scars. Sometimes when I believed it would one day get better I would start dreaming. Dreaming that I would move to a city far away from James and just erase him from my mind. Forget about him and everything that he had did to me altogether. I wished for that day to come where I would have no more reminder of him, but now I knew I would never truly escape him. Thanks to me I have made scars in a place where I could never look past them. Always reminding me of that very first time something was pushed into me. Always reminding me that James was somewhere in the back of my head and that the things he had done to me would never truly leave me. I could not believe that I was the one who marked him into my skin and into my life forever. I had invited him into my body, making sure that he would always be there glancing up at me, no matter what I was doing at the time.

Weirdly the doctor left me alone when he was done, leaving me with the scars that were only momentarily covered with a white bandage, which didn’t take it away but just reminded me that it was indeed there. I was left alone with that and my tears. All alone and I wanted for nothing more than to die. To just get out of this world and stay out of it. I needed that for myself. I have never wanted anything as bad in my life. It was my only true desire. To meet the Grim Reaper.

Doctor Abby, the psychologist came back again and again, and so did my parents and the doctor that checked my slowly healing wounds. I didn’t have the privilege to say that I was tired anymore. When they wanted to see me I had to sit up and that was the end of the story.

With my parents it was always the same thing. James didn’t say much because my mother was with him every single time, but she didn’t stop talking once. I guess the doctor informed her not to talk to me about the scars that were slowly healing underneath the bandages, because she talked about silly things like my aunt and something cute that my little brother had done that day. She also brought me presents and sweets. I ate the sweets, but threw the books she brought for me on the bedside table without looking at it. It was to me just another reminder that she didn’t know me at all. Everybody knew I didn’t read. Even James knew that. I took it as a sign that she was just ignoring me on a certain level. Making sure I knew that she thought I wasn’t that important in any case.

Doctor Abby came twice a day. I think she hoped that I would eventually crack and just spill the beans.

“You need to talk to me sweetheart. About anything. It doesn’t matter what about.”

She had a light green suit on this time. The pearls was still hanging around her neck, reminding me that she was just a pure old lady and that there was no way that she would be able to handle the story that I did have to tell. And then again, would it even help telling her? I heard the nurses. They thought that James was some saint. He could fool anybody. Damn, he even fooled me sometimes when he put on his perfect father act. You would never guess that there was some monster lurking just below the surface, just waiting for the sun to go down so that he could reap the terrible evil he was so fond off.

“I… I have a friend…”

I wasn’t thinking of telling her the truth, but I also knew before I talked there would probably be no way for her to let me go.

“Yes sweetheart?” she said, a smile lighting over her face. Maybe she felt like she finally cracked the code.

“We had a fight…” I muttered, not sure if I wanted to tell the lie I heard, but certain that I would never get my greatest desire while I was in here with people watching me all the time.

“He kinda… He just fell in love with me…” I continued.

“And how do you feel about this?” she asked. I could see the sense of accomplishment starting to wash over her face.

“I dunno… Confused maybe?”

“So you think you have feelings for him?” Doctor Abby asked.

“I’m not sure… I mean, yeah, I love him as a friend. Maybe even as a brother,” I said. At least that part was true. Chris was in love with me and I did love him back – as a friend, or at the most as a brother.

“Is he your only friend?”

“Yes.” Truthful.

“So what happened?”

“He accused me of something that I really didn’t do. And he only did that because he’s in love with me. And then he left.”

The images played off in my head. I could see the hurt on Chris’ face as he accused me off having a relationship with my stepfather. I could see that he would have loved to hurt me just as much as what he believed I was hurting him. So he left. He left me to go through all the bad things that was happening to me alone. He didn’t try to protect me. Even if I was gay I would have hated him for leaving me alone. For just making his own assumptions.

“How did that make you feel?” Doctor Abby asked, now leaning closer to me, as if I was going to tell her some major secret.

“I just didn’t want to be alone. So I lost it. I just walked into the bathroom and while I was angry, just wanting to hurt someone so badly at that moment… I cut… Deep… I didn’t think I was going to die… I would never do that… I know there’s still lots of things that I need to do before I die someday…”

I hoped that would be enough to allow her to let me go.

“So you weren’t trying to kill yourself?” she asked. Something in her eyes told me that she didn’t believe me for one second, but I stuck to my guns.

“Nope. I was just really angry. I didn’t want to lose Chris as a friend.”

“And now? Has he contacted you since everything happened?”

“No,” I answered, realizing the truth. Chris didn’t really care about me at all. Otherwise he would have come to visit. He would have been here. I really did leave him. And even though I was planning to cry just for extra effect so that Doctor Abby would believe my story, I started crying, but not because I wanted too. I cried because I felt broken hearted without Chris. I felt lost. I knew he would not be my hero again. Now James would come in every single night. There would be no more rest for me on a weekend when Chris came over. There would be nobody to keep the monster away from my bed for two nights a week. I was completely alone. Chris was gone. Forever.