39. Chapter 39
Everything feels and sounds different when he’s gone.
Not quieter, but emptier. Like the walls exhaled when he left and then forgot how to pull the air back in.
I stand in the middle of the living room with my arms folded tight across my chest, staring at the door he walked out of just yesterday. The same door he told me not to try and the same door that might as well be painted onto the wall for all the good it does me without a car.
I begin to pace, because the stillness makes my thoughts too loud. I don’t scream, it seems worthless. I don’t throw anything or cry. All of that feels useless when the person I want to aim it at isn’t here to see it.
So I do the thing I’ve always done when something doesn’t make sense. I get busy being nosey.
It begins as something small and absent-minded. A drawer opened here. A cabinet there. Nothing too invasive, at least not at first. I tell myself I’m just familiarizing myself with the space since I hadn’t done it when Alex was here. That the act of snooping somehow reclaims some of my control.
That lie lasts about ten minutes.
Alex doesn’t live here, not really. The cabin feels borrowed and too temporary. There are no personal touches beyond what he brought for me; paint, food I like, books he clearly chose with me in mind.
That, more than anything, is unsettling.
I find my way into the bedroom that we share and push within. I choose first the dresser he had claimed as his own. The top drawer is clothes; black and grey, folded with precision that borders on obsessive. It’s him to a T.
The second drawer however, that one is exactly what I’ve been hunting for.
It is full of files.
I bite down on my lip in excitement and slowly pull one free.
They’re all old and yellowed at the edges, with papers clipped instead of bound.
Screaming of institutionalized order that is begging to be pried apart.
Gathering what I can in my arms, I move to the bed and flop down.
Preparing to dig into what he clearly wanted me to or he wouldn’t have left it so readily found.
I think.
Well, if not, then the ass shouldn’t have left it here and me alone. I flip the first file open and still when I find what I read.
Juvenile Psychiatric Evaluation
Alexander James Dormsworth
Age: 16
I suck in a breath, my gaze bouncing over the words. I had expected to find files on myself, not on Alex himself. Maybe even files of other clients to snoop through, but this… this is going to be interesting. Mainly because he refused to talk about his past with me or give me anything about him.
I flip the paper and continue.
Reason for Admission:
Arson. Suspected homicide.
“Shit,” I hiss and rub at my neck. The homicide itself isn’t what shocks me, it’s the age and how early he started. My eyes dart back to the files and I begin to absorb it all.
Physical abuse by a father that was documented as severe and repeated. His mother was non-interventional who displayed patterns of passive neglect and failure to protect. All of it keeps getting worse and worse the deeper I delve.
They describe injuries. Broken ribs. Bruises in various stages of healing. Burns. Cigarette marks. The kind of language professionals use when they don’t want to acknowledge cruelty with emotion.
And worse, how many times had I seen these marks on him in the dark and thought nothing of it because I simply didn’t bother to care. Because I was too wrapped up in my own head and my own problems.
Christ, I’m not the only one who needs therapy.
Though, I guess from my understanding Alex had turned Pitch into his own kind of fucked up therapy.
Then I find a line that ties everything together in a neat little bow.
Incident Summary:
Subject intentionally set fire to family residence while both parents were inside. Fire resulted in total loss of structure and parents were found deceased at scene.
He was sixteen.
Sixteen years old when he decided to end the lives of his parents, and after reading what I did, I can’t say I blame him. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the exact same thing. And I don’t know what that says about me for sympathizing with him over it.
I let myself wonder over everything. The way he watches people and dissects language. The way control isn’t something he wants, but something he requires. I even think of his questions in the mirrored room.
Who hurt you?
Why did you sit?
Why did you come here?
Not just curiosity, but recognition in a similar form. Abuse in separate doorways, but neighbors none-the-less. I don’t think he saw me as different and interesting, he just saw someone who might be able to see him back.
I keep reading, despite some small part of me that says its morally wrong to.
He was institutionalized after the fire and diagnosed with conduct disorder and antisocial traits. High intelligence, of course. But emotional detachment was noted early. And to no shock of mine, he had been flagged for manipulative tendencies.
Then, at twenty-one it seems he had been reevaluated and deemed improved. That his emotional regulation was within acceptable range and he was rehabilitated.
I wonder when that switch between sixteen to twenty-one occurred where he learned to mask so well.
You would think with the manipulative note they would realize that he would do such a thing, but who knows.
I’m not a doctor, so I can’t say one way or another.
I would think it would be common sense though that he might not be all that he appears at face value.
Let alone let the man go into a field of medicine.
I drop the file onto the bed and lean forward to place my elbows on my knees, my head dropping into my hands as I think.
His father beat him and his mother let it happen. Then, to settle the score he just burned the whole world down around him.
And fuck do I understand it.
I see the lines now.
It makes me think of Heath and Peter. Of the way Alex went so very still when their names left my mouth. It wasn’t exactly empathy, but I do believe it had been alignment.
I close my eyes and inhale shakily. He was just a fucking kid and no one bothered to save him, and that I understand more than anything.
I gather the files back up and hurry back to the drawer, carefully placing them within where they belong. Tucking away something fragile instead of something horrifying. When I close it, my hands linger on the wood.
I’m not afraid.
Because instead of running, my thoughts spiral in a new direction—one I don’t have language for yet.
If this is how he was made…
What, exactly, does that make me for staying?
I exit back into the living room, and for the first time since he left, the silence doesn’t feel empty. It feels like a giant ass question, and I don’t know if I’m brave enough to answer it.