Chapter 13 #2
“You can’t handle this situation on your own anymore. You’re consuming yourself and letting yourself be consumed by your past. Either you save yourself or…” His words went straight to my brain but also to my chest. They clawed, they stung, and they hurt me.
My brain rejected them and chased them away, refusing to accept them.
“I… I… It’s fine… I’ve got it all under control.” My certainty wavered, but I didn’t fold. I didn’t break. I stayed on my feet. Because I would never again allow anyone—not even someone in my family—to control my mind like Kim had done.
Confronted with the idea of being manipulated like that again, I knew I’d rather die than “save myself.” Perhaps I had already subconsciously started down a dead-end road because I knew that it would lead to my demise and also to my liberation.
I didn’t like to say it out loud, I didn’t want to admit it, and I never would have told Logan or Chloe because it would hurt them too much, but I had no other choice.
I had come to believe that it was the only way I’d ever completely rid myself of Kim.
“You don’t have shit under control. The life you’re leading is not normal, and you aren’t—” I didn’t let him finish. My voice overlapped with his presumptuously, full of anger but also resignation.
“My life has never been normal. Since I was a kid and everything changed. I’ve always lived this way, and I can’t keep fighting anymore. Not now. It’s too late, Logan,” I said, my voice breaking.
I felt defeated, like I’d already lost the war.
Too often, I wondered where I found the strength to hold on, and more and more lately, I felt like even that strength was failing me.
I was on the edge of the precipice. I walked carefully, trying not to fall, but I was beginning to waver.
I could no longer bear the weight of my suffering, and with each day that passed, the weight of reality crushed me even more.
“The meds didn’t help me, and neither did years of therapy with Dr. Lively.
There’s nothing else to do…” I looked him in the eye.
I was telling the truth. I never pretended with Logan.
I could be myself with him and actually admit how I was really feeling.
His eyes shifted, becoming bright and clear, and I could read real love in them, the only kind I believed in.
The kind that had kept me standing for so long and continued to do so even now.
But I knew that even that love wasn’t enough.
This life of mine was a great illusion.
A dangerous game.
I’d passed through all the levels and now I’d reached the final one.
I had run.
I had run for years, trying to flee my enemy but now I was slowing down.
I was getting tired.
I was losing.
And my monsters were going to win.
At the end of it all, there was an enormous flashing GAME OVER waiting for me.
I knew it now.
Love could not save me.
Only medicine could do that.
Except that, with me, even medicine had failed.
“You’ve interrupted your therapy lots of times, Neil…” Logan moved toward me almost fearfully. It was obvious he didn’t like what he was seeing in my face or the darkness in my eyes. Still, he had to face fucking facts: I was fading. And, for the first time, I could admit it.
“I’m tired, Logan. I’m tired of dreaming about Kim and feeling her on me.
I’m tired of going back to my child mind.
I’m tired of being back in that house over and over again.
Every time it’s torture. It’s a prison. And there’s only one way to break the bars…
” I looked away from him. During the past two weeks, I’d been having more and more moments of panic, nervous breakdowns, or even just weak periods like this one.
They were signals my mind were sending to me.
Incontrovertible signals that I needed to understand.
“No!” Logan shouted, throwing himself at me.
“You don’t even think about that. You’ve got to put all that bullshit out of your head.
I don’t like the way you’re thinking at all, Neil, and it’s not like you.
You’re strong; you’ve always been that way, and you can’t just give up…
” He held my face in his hands; his eyes were locked on mine.
I could feel his heart pounding. Fear radiated off his body and sank into mine, and I felt guilty.
I hadn’t meant to scare him. I didn’t know what to do about it.
I felt truly unstable, and that hadn’t happened to me in a while.
“Neil, it’s no good, what you’re thinking and what you’re saying. It’s no good at all.” Logan gave my face a shake like I was drunk or high, but unfortunately I was neither.
“Boys, what’s going on?” My mother came into my room in one of her elegant pantsuits. She stared at me in alarm, like I was some fucking psycho on the loose. I brushed Logan’s hands off my face and felt my mood shift again. This, too, happened to me all the time.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I grumbled, grabbing my packet of Winstons and slipping it into the pocket of my jeans. I couldn’t manage without my cigarettes, especially in my current condition.
“Neil, can I talk to you?” she asked before turning to my brother. “Logan, could you give us a minute?”
My brother rubbed my arm, reminding me to stay calm. He was truly afraid; I could see it in his eyes. He left the room with one last look of concern, and I was alone with her.
“If you’re here to bust my balls, I need to let you know that today is not the day,” I said, looking her right in the eye.
“That’s what you say every day, Neil. Do you have any idea what this situation is doing to Matt?” So she was worried about her partner, not me. It was just like when I was a kid and she never noticed a damn thing that wasn’t directly about her.
Her blue eyes never left my face, but as usual they felt distant and cold to me. Incapable of communicating with me.
“Dr. Lively called me. He told me you’ve started talking to yourself again and having hallucinations of a little boy who makes trouble for you…”
“Sounds like my shrink has forgotten the meaning of the term ‘doctor-patient confidentiality.’” I laughed uncomfortably even as I realized I’d never be able to trust him again.
“He only did it because he believes the situation is grave. You are out of control,” she murmured in concern, and it took an enormous effort not to throw her out of the room.
“Mom, why don’t you go back to what you do best?
” I said, looking over her perfectly made-up face with all the disdain I could muster.
“Thinking exclusively about your own life, I mean,” I added in a low voice, looking away from her.
I tried to brush past her to get out of the room, but she took my arm, her pink fingernails digging into my flesh like she was trying to hold on to me.
Too bad there was no way to cling to a broken thing without getting cut herself.
“Is that how you talk to me? I’m trying to understand what’s going on with you. You sleep with my partner’s daughter without even thinking about the consequences. You go out every night with your unruly friends. You’re aggressive and unreasonable. You need to start listening to me or—”
I raised a hand to stop her. I had no interest in her threats. She’d always thought I was a freak, and she had never been able to help me.
And if that was how one loved a son, then love was nothing but bullshit.
“Or what? You’ll ground me?” I grinned sarcastically at her, knowing she had no real power over me. She couldn’t handle me; she never could.
She was a failure.
“Neil, I’m your mother. I just want to help you and—” She stopped when I tore myself abruptly from her grip. My mother flinched away from me and pressed a hand to her chest.
“You want to help me?” I asked, then I laughed right in her face because that was the biggest fucking lie she could have told me.
“Then where the fuck were you when your husband was ‘punishing’ me and calling me a little pervert? Where were you when my babysitter was fucking and degrading me? Where were you then, Mom? Huh?” I raged, close to her face.
My mother was the only woman—other than Selene—who could make me completely lose my tether to sanity like that.
“You can’t say those things to me…” Her eyes began to well with tears, but I didn’t care. Right then, I felt pity for no one, not even the person who had brought me into the world.
“No, you have a point. I can’t say those things to you because you don’t have the balls to admit your giant failure to yourself.
But the result is standing right here in front of you.
Take a good look and accept it. I may be a total asshole, but you were a terrible mother, and you continue to be a terrible mother.
” I stared grimly into her eyes. I wanted her to look into my face and see what I truly thought of her.
I wanted her to understand that our relationship had been in the toilet for years.
I wanted her to stop hoping for some sort of gesture of love from me because it was never going to happen.
“I know, Neil. I know you suffered so much, and I know that you’ve been hurt, but I would give my life for you and your siblings.
I think about what happened to you every day, and if I could go back in time and erase it all, I would.
I miss you so much. I miss getting a hug or smile from you or any other little affectionate gesture a son might give a mother.
I know you aren’t okay. I can see it. You can’t go on like this…
Not anymore.” She tried to move closer to me, but I stepped back, giving her an indignant look.
She was ridiculous. For years she’d begged me for something that she could never have.
I felt nothing for her except a profound sense of disappointment.
“You must not care about my life…”
I continued to ignore her words, though I knew now that I was too far gone…
I was falling.