A Broken Kind of Life (29 page)

“Are you sure that’s where you want to start?”

“It’s less horrible than the other things they did to me, and it’s the first thing that popped into my head. Go ahead and write it up there.” Aaron shrugged and hugged his knees a little tighter to his chest. Dr. Thomas turned slowly, almost as if he were reluctant to do so, and wrote the word
dying
on the board in the center oval. Then, he drew a line up and to the right, away from the oval. He drew a circle at the end of that line and wrote the word
senses
.

“Put yourself back into that memory, experience it, and tell me what your senses are telling you: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.” The words sounded as if they came out only by sheer force.

What Dr. Thomas didn’t understand was that Aaron needed to do it. He needed to get it out of his head, for his mother and for Spencer. Heart slamming against his rib cage, he closed his eyes and let himself go back, back on his knees for the sadists who nearly destroyed him.

“I’m cold,” Aaron started as the memory took shape in his mind. “It’s cold in the garage and the floor is like ice. I’m lying facedown, alone. Juliette is already gone.” He cracked one of his eyes open and watched Dr. Thomas drawing more little circles around
senses
, blurred through the wetness in his eyes.
He filled them in with other words: cold, pain, and fear. Aaron closed his eyes again, forcing the hot tears that had welled in them to fall. “There’s no sound except the wind and rain howling against the roof. The men are gone. The life is draining out of me onto the floor. I hit the power button on the phone in my pocket, but I can’t get it out to call.”

Aaron began to rock back and forth on the couch.
There is blood everywhere…. He’s not going to make it this time.

“All I can see is the blood—”

“What the hell is going on here?”

Aaron’s eyes flew open, and he looked around wildly at the sound of his mother’s voice. Out of instinct, he kept himself wrapped in the ball as he found her face, which was red, shocked, and livid. Spencer stood next to her, looking confused and wary.

“Mom, I…,” Aaron started as he wiped the wetness from his face and stood up. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. His mother would be so hurt when she found out he’d been in therapy and hadn’t told her. The last thing on earth he wanted was to hurt his mother. She’d been everything to him for so long.

“Aaron and I are in the middle of a session, but by your reaction, I’m guessing Aaron didn’t tell you that he started working with me,” Dr. Thomas said quietly, and Aaron admired his calm confidence. At that moment, Aaron had neither calm nor confidence, but then Spencer’s father hadn’t just broken his mother’s heart.

“Who are you?” she demanded and strode into the room to put her five-foot-two frame between himself and Dr. Thomas, as if she were shielding Aaron from him.
Ever his protector.

“My name is Dr. Henry Thomas. I’m a clinical psychologist specializing in severe trauma. I met Aaron when he came to spend time with my son,” he explained and turned the whiteboard around to push it back against the wall. At that moment Aaron saw the other circles Dr. Thomas had drawn. Shame welled up inside him as he wondered how much his mother heard.

“Aaron, we’re leaving. Let’s go,” his mother said with a venom he rarely heard from her. It rang of disgust, anger, and contempt.

“Aaron is an adult, capable of making his own decisions. You can’t force him to leave,” Dr. Thomas said quietly, and Aaron’s mother spun around with raw fury in her eyes. Aaron stood up with every intention of getting between them and reasoning with his mother, but her next sentence stopped him cold.

“I know all about you, Dr. Thomas. We researched you thoroughly when we were looking for a therapist for Aaron. I thought you were a savior until I found out that you’re an alcoholic and that your practice closed because your partner was having sex with an underage patient. That’s not the kind of help my son needed or deserved. Now I find out you’ve been treating him without my knowledge or consent. How are you getting paid, Dr. Thomas? I haven’t gotten any kind of statement from the insurance company. Was that part of the plan to hide it from his family? What are you doing with my son?”

Spencer’s eyes were wide as he looked between his father and Aaron’s mother. He looked sick but unsurprised by the accusations. Did he know his father was an alcoholic? Did he know about the underage patient? He lived with Dr. Thomas; he had to know something. Aaron didn’t believe Spencer’s father would hurt him or set back his recovery. He’d been helping Aaron.

“Mom,” Aaron said after taking a deep, steadying breath.

She clutched at her handbag, and her wide eyes filled with tears.

“I… I need to talk to your father about this. I don’t like him treating you. Maybe we can find someone else, someone who—”

“No,” Aaron interrupted. “Dr. Thomas has done more for me in the last couple of months than anyone has ever done. He’s taught me techniques to help control things that set me off. He’s helping me work through some of the stuff in my head.”

“Let’s go home and talk it over with your father,” she said, and her voice brooked no argument. Aaron looked helplessly at Spencer and then at Dr. Thomas.

“Mrs. Downing, Aaron is an adult. If he wants to continue treatment, I will abide by his wishes.” Aaron’s mother started to interrupt, but he continued. “However, I did tell Aaron it would be better for him to include his family in therapy. I was under the impression that you were at least aware of his choice. Why he’s not mentioned it, I can only make an educated guess. But this is
his
life; you need to take his wants and needs into consideration.”

“I have always made sure my boys had what they needed. All of them. You’ve known him for what? A month? Two months? How could you possibly know what he needs? Is your son getting what he needs from you?” Michelle’s face paled as Spencer stepped up beside his father, ready to defend him, but she stood resolute in her judgment.

Aaron saw the fight coming; he could feel it. Still shaky from the mind-mapping exercise and the memory he’d had to conjure for it, he couldn’t take watching them fight. They, along with his father and brothers, were the people in his life who meant the very most to him. He also needed to work out what he’d heard about Dr. Thomas. Not about the partner getting caught with an underage patient, but about the alcoholism. The doctor really had no control over what his partner did, but he did make the choice to drink. With the memory of his attacker’s beer-laden breath still fresh in his mind, Aaron didn’t want to think about the atrocities men could do to each other while drinking.

“Mom, let’s just go home, please….”

With a soft look at her son, Aaron’s mother relented and turned to go. Only when they were in the car and safely out of the Thomas’s subdivision did Aaron pull out his cell phone and send a text to Spencer.

AARON:
I’m sorry I didn’t tell my mom about therapy. My parents picked all of my therapists, and none of them helped me a bit. It was the first decision I’d made on my own since that night. I didn’t want anything to ruin it
.

SPENCER:
It is okay. My dad is not angry
.

AARON:
Are you angry
?

SPENCER:
Me? Of course not. I just wish I would have gotten to spend some time with you today
.

AARON:
Me too
.

“Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Dr. Thomas,” Aaron said, breaking the awful silence that filled the car. She glanced over as she stopped for a red light, and he continued. “I… I heard you and dad talking a couple of months ago about… an… an institution, and—”

“Oh, Aaron….” She pulled over to the side of the road and into the parking lot of their local grocery store. God, he’d been there a million times when he was a kid, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d set foot in it. It was just one more part of his old life that seemed a million miles away. His mother turned completely in her seat so she faced him, and one tear slipped down her cheek. “That night, your father was upset about Allen. He feels so helpless because he wants to make things better for you and he can’t. I’m so sorry that you heard it, because he didn’t mean it. We never wanted you away from us.”

“Allen heard it too. He had come in to apologize for yelling at me, and he stood in the hall and listened with me. Anyway, Dr. Thomas is helping me, Mom. I even…,” he started, but couldn’t quite finish. He wasn’t sure that kissing was something guys talked about with their moms. But then, Aaron didn’t have the same kind of relationship with his mom that most guys did. Theirs was closer.

“You even what, sweetheart?”

“A couple of days ago, I saw a chat message from Spencer’s dad to him by accident. He was talking about how Spencer liked me. So I told him I liked him too.” Nerves and embarrassment making his voice higher and faster, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down before he continued. He couldn’t tell her about the kiss. He didn’t want to make things worse. “It felt… normal, and right.”

Aaron’s mother watched him for a long time, until the silence became uncomfortable.

“We don’t know if a relationship would work between us, but I just… I wanted to try. I really like him, Mom. He makes me feel almost… safe.”

“Honey, when you get into a relationship like that, when anyone does, you never know if it’s going to work out until it does. You just have to have faith in the other person and a little patience. Yes, you guys have a few obstacles in your way, but most couples do—they’re just different ones.”

“You really think we could make it work?” Aaron could hear the hope in his voice and did little to contain it. He wanted his mother’s assurance that everything would be okay; the same assurance he’d gotten from her for as long as he could remember. If his mother told him they had a chance, he would believe her.

“I think that you can do anything you put your mind to, Aaron. But I don’t want you with a therapist who is going to do more damage than good.”

The family decided to put off Allen’s dinner for another night. Aaron sat at the breakfast bar after dinner while his mother loaded the dishwasher. She soaked the enchilada pan for far longer than she would normally take. She took the burners off the stove and scrubbed them down. He sighed when she went into the cabinet and pulled out oven cleaner.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked quietly, trying to sound casual. His mother had mentioned to his father that they needed to talk about something later, something about Aaron. Allen and Anthony had glanced up from their dinners as their father hesitated and then nodded. No talk about Aaron ever went well in their house. Allen shot a nervous glance at Aaron, who mouthed to his brother that it was okay. The entire family walked on eggshells where Aaron was concerned, and for the first time in a long time, Aaron wanted it to stop.

“Honey, I just…. I don’t know what the right answer is for this one. I’m hoping your father does.”

“A right answer about what?” John Downing asked as he came into the kitchen, probably looking to see what was taking Michelle so long to initiate their conversation. He picked up a dish towel from the counter and started to dry the burners from the stove.

“Aaron, you should go up to your room so your father and I can talk,” his mother sighed as she pulled the drain on the kitchen sink. He watched as she wiped her hands on a towel hanging on the handle of the oven door, and tried to figure out how to frame what he wanted to say. For most of his life, his mother had done everything for him, and he didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but he needed to start taking ownership of his life, just like he took ownership of his therapy.

“Mom, this is really important to me. I think I need to be a part of the conversation,” Aaron told her. He turned to look at his father, who stared at him. It had been a very long time since he’d had an opinion on anything that happened in the house. Usually, he simply took his medication and tried very hard to be something resembling human. He hadn’t completely worked out what it meant that his therapist was an alcoholic, but he wouldn’t stop seeing Dr. Thomas. It was the first time in two very long years that he had any hope. No one would take that from him.

“Okay, Aaron,” his mother said, and it looked like she didn’t think it would be worth the battle. She held a hand out in the direction of the kitchen table. Aaron led the way, followed by his parents, and sat, not at his usual seat in the back, but at the head of the table nearest the door leading to the deck, where his father normally sat. His parents sat next to each other on the front side of the table nearest the kitchen. He liked that they held hands.

“Could someone tell me what’s happening, please?” John Downing asked, and to Aaron it looked as if he wasn’t entirely comfortable not knowing what the conversation would be about. It was clear from their kitchen talk that he was the only one who didn’t know what they’d be discussing.

Aaron’s mother squeezed her husband’s hand and began. “This afternoon, when I picked Aaron up from Spencer’s house, I found out that Aaron has been seeing a therapist and kept it from us.”

It was probably the nicest way she could have said it.

His father frowned. “I don’t understand. You haven’t talked to any of the therapists we’ve met with. Why would you try to find one on your own? Why meet him in secret? Why Spencer’s house? Did you think we wouldn’t understand?”

His father’s voice, hurt and confused, made Aaron’s throat constrict painfully. He’d never meant to hurt his parents. He’d never meant to hurt anyone.

“John, he heard us talking the night of Allen’s date. He thought we were going to send him to an institution,” she told her husband with a flash of anger across her delicate features. His father blanched as his eyes, so like Aaron’s, widened with shock and remorse.

“Oh, Aaron, I was upset, and I… we… it never… I’m so sorry.” It was the first time in his life he’d ever seen his father stammer or search for the right words. Always so perfectly articulate and poised, he never fumbled.