the futile! the futile!

[star studded]

"You suffer from panic attacks, Lincoln?" Dr. Larson scanned over her notepad and sat up straight. Rather than sit behind her desk this time, she and Lincoln sat across from one another. He stretched out idly on her couch-chair, and she had rolled the swivel chair from behind her desk to set it across from him. It was the first time he had ever really seen her stand up, her trousers extending to lap over the edges of her shoes, her jacket fit across slim shoulders.

"Yeah, sometimes."

"Do you remember the first time you experienced one of these attacks?"

Instead of the drawstrings of his sweatshirt hood, Lincoln had a metal coiled slinky between his hands, and he jostled it back and forth in a hiss of sound. "Yeah. I was in uh.. in French class when I was sixteen. I dunno, my sister remembers more of it than I do."

"I'd actually like to hear your account of what happened." She replied casually, uncapping her pen and flipping to a new page on her legal pad. Instead of jotting anything down, she clasped hands together and waited patiently.

"I don't know. I don't really... I just couldn't breathe. And I got really hot, and everything started sounding like.. like when you're underwater and you can hear people talking but you don't know what they're saying? It sounded like that. Like everyone was far away. And I wanted to get up and get out of the room, but I knew I'd get in trouble, and I was already in enough trouble at school already.."

"I thought you were a good student?"

"Well, I was. I mean, I did all my work, and like.. whatever, I was a good student. I just like.. got into fights a lot and I had been having like.. a lot of trouble outside of school and stuff, I guess. Maybe that's why, maybe that's why I had the panic attack." The slinky's hiss picked up in pace and Lincoln tossed it between hands again. Dr. Larson seemed unfazed.

"Explain to me a little more. I don't think I understand what you mean by outside trouble, what sort of outside trouble?"

"That was around the time that I like.. stole the car. And I had gotten into like.. some trouble before, throwing rocks at this kids house and breaking his windows. Just stupid teen kid stuff, y'know, the shit you do when you just want to act out and be stupid. Get attention."

"Did you do it to get attention?"

Lincoln's shoulders shrugged. "I don't know. Attention for what? I didn't really need anyone to pay attention to me, I liked being left alone."

"But you just said it was the stuff that some kids do to get attention. What kind of attention did you want?"

Assaulted with questions he couldn't answer, Lincoln flattened the slinky between hands and searched for an explanation. "I don't know! I mean.. I don't.. I.. what does this have to do with anything?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out, Lincoln. But, if you don't want to talk about that, we can talk about something else." A line was drawn on the notepad, breaking apart the two discussions before his very eyes. It was a motion, a slice that made him want to sink into himself and disappear. For a brief moment, he wanted to pull out a skinny cellular phone and call Jake. He'd come if Lincoln asked. He'd rescue him.

"I want to talk about something else, then."

"How about stealing the car."

"What's there to talk about there?"

"Well, you can tell me how you got the idea, what made you want to do it, what you did when you stole it.."

Sucking in a deep breath, he tried to steady insides and bit down on the inside of his lip. "We were all drinking at Nick's place. In his basement, and like.. listening to music and stuff. We did that a lot, we like.. hung around and got drunk with a bunch of guys. And then we'd watch movies and pass out, but I guess like.. at some point, someone said something about how this guy up the street had just bought this new Mercedes and left it in his driveway every night. And we just were like.. laughing at how stupid this fucking idiot was to leave his new car out. And Nick, I think, said something about.. I dunno, like.. that the guy had pulled a fit a few months ago about Nick's dog not having a leash. So he hated the guy anyway and it'd be really cool if someone just took his car and drove it around, just to make him piss his pants for a little while. And yeah, everyone thought it was a fucking cool idea, but no one wanted to man up and actually do it. So I thought, fuck it, I'll do it. And I grabbed a coat hanger and left."

"A coat hanger?"

"To pick the lock."

"So, what happened next?"

"I went over to his house, and all the lights were out, so I just walked up and popped the door open. Got in the car. I had to crack open the like.. bottom panel thing to hotwire it, but.. I was like.. plastered. So it took me a few minutes. By the time I pulled out of the driveway with it, I guess he had called the cops. I got all the way to Tremont street before they caught up with me, though. Started like.. throwing the lights on and shit. So I pulled over."

With a few scratches of her pen on the paper, Dr. Larson blinked dark eyes up at him and cleared her throat. "How did you feel when you were behind the wheel of that car?"

"I don't know. Good, I guess. Drunk. Good. Like, it was funny, I guess. That somewhere, some guy who was stupid enough to leave his car out, got it snatched, and now all these cops were out after me. Me, of all people. They were probably talking about what I looked like, and what my name was, and where I lived. It was fucking absurd."

"What was absurd?"

"That someone gave a shit what I looked like and what my name was."

[star studded]

The sessions with Dr. Larson never really changed. Lincoln had come to that conclusion. He was to go in, sit down, answer questions, talk, and eventually a cure would find its way into one of their conversations. An answer, or a dismissal, it would come in one of those forms. You have this. You can do this to fix it. Or maybe That is all. You've come a long way. You are fine. Either way, he waited and passed the time with humoring and small bits of truth that threaded into his usually evasive dialogue. The silence between them today was unusual. It edged under his skin and threatened to lift up and pry him open. It was like a face-off. Who would crack first.

"So like. Are you going to ask me something, or.." Lincoln dug hands into the pocket of his zip-up sweatshirt and twisted his mouth into a cocky grin.

"I actually want to know what you want to talk about today, Lincoln."

"I don't.. really want to talk about anything. I'm here because like.. if I don't, I have to start seeing my probation officer again, and that's fucking retarded."

"The stipulations of being let off of probation were that you would seek supervised psychological assistance in an attempt to rehabilitate yourself. Do you think coming in here and not wanting to talk about anything is fulfilling that stipulation?"

"Why do you always talk like that? You sound like a fucking robot, or whatever. Why don't you just talk like a normal person, maybe I'll want to talk to you more if you do that instead of talking to someone who just like.. wants to be fucking condescending and almighty."

Dr. Larson paused and stared down at her yellow notepad for a moment. Opening her mouth again, she leaned back in her swivel chair and tapped fingers against the arm. "Let's try again. Do you think you have problems?"

"Fucking.. obviously yeah."

"Why don't you tell me what they are?"

"Because that's your job, you're supposed to tell me what my problems are." He countered easily. Lincoln liked this game. He was winning.

"What is it that you're having trouble with lately? That's what I want to know. Do you see any specific rough spots?"

The tables turned easily and Lincoln shrank back into his seat, a gulp of breath swallowed down and sighed out with a heavy sag of broad shoulders. Round, blue eyes searched around the room for an escape, some way out, something he could focus on rather than this conversation.

"Well. Yeah, I guess, I mean.."

"What are you having the most trouble with right now?"

"Jake." He nearly blurted it out without thought, a nervous reaction. An obvious cry for help. In a surprised reaction, he contorted his face in shock and sank further down on the couch, stretching one knee out and keeping the other crooked. She was going to make him elaborate. And the kicker was, she wasn't going to ask anymore questions. The very act of having to speak candidly sent a knot to twist in his stomach and he just remained silent.

"This is the same Jake you told me about before, correct? The one you met when you were out dancing."

"Yeah, him."

"Are the two of you in a relationship?"

"I guess."

"Are you seeing other people? What kind of a relationship is it?"

Maybe he had been wrong about her not asking any other questions. "No. We're not. Well, I'm not. He could be, but.. I don't think he is. I think.. we're not supposed to. I think we said we're not going to, that we're just.. y'know, going to just.. see each other."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Okay, I guess. I mean. I don't want him to see other people. Like. That would just be stupid, it would defeat the whole purpose, I guess. To whatever it is we're doing. I don't mind it, y'know? I don't.. really want to see anyone else, I guess. It's less work that way. There's no.. there's nothing appealing about going out and fucking everyone you meet, it's just.. stressful, I think, I mean. You'd have to put yourself out there all the time, and with Jake, it's just.. it's easier. I only have to like.. really try with just him and everyone else can fuck off."

"So.." She trailed off, adjusting herself in her seat and leaning against the arm of her chair. "What's the problem with Jake?"

"There's.. no problem with Jake. There's a problem with me."

"And what's that?"

"I don't know. I just.. like, every time we're having like a nice day, or a nice conversation, I always say something stupid. Or I get offended by something that I'm not even supposed to be offended by. I mean, it's never anything big, like.. no one ever marches out and slams doors and leaves, but like... when I get over it, I'm still pissed. I'm still pissed off at myself for like.. wasting however long the fight took. I hate fighting. I hate it, and I do it all the time, I'm the one that like.. gets in the fights and picks them and says things that I know will piss him off. I called him a fucking.. I called him a raging queen like, a week ago. I don't think that. I don't think he's a raging queen, so why did I say I did? Why did I.. y'know, that's what it is. I'm just fucking mean. I'm a mean person to him. He shouldn't even be with me, he shouldn't even be bothering, like.. he should find some nice guy who wants to go out dancing, who doesn't have to get drunk to feel okay in public with him, who doesn't yell at him and push his buttons and make him feel like shit."

Pausing, Lincoln felt like all the air had been sucked out of him. He felt like he had just run a terrifically long marathon and had collapsed at the finish line. Dr. Larson scribbled down a few notes and cleared her throat.

"Don't you think you're good enough for Jake? If he's with you?"

"People don't always date people who they're good enough for. It like.. runs in our family. We try to match ourselves with people we think are better than us so we don't get disappointed."

"Do you think you're good enough for Jake, though. That's my question."

"I don't know. No. I don't think so. I think he could do better. I think he could do a lot better than me, I don't know.. why he sticks around. He says it's because of who I am when I'm not.. beating him down or whatever, or .. freaking out, but those two don't add up. I mean, I wouldn't suffer through my shit just to get to the good points, because there aren't enough good points."

"What do you think people expect from you, Lincoln?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when people who know you approach you, what do you think they expect you to do? What is it that they expect when they think of you?"

"I don't know. For me to fuck something up. For me to get pissed off and throw fits and whatever. To get angry."

"Do you think that maybe.. since you think that this is what people expect, that's why you find yourself doing it over and over again? Even if you don't want to? Because you don't want to, am I correct? You don't like the way you feel after getting in a fight with Jake?"

"No, I don't like it, why would I like it?"

"Well, that's the question. We usually do things that give us results that we like, desirable outcomes. Not negative ones. Do you love Jake?"

Lincoln felt frozen like prey caught by a vicous, snarling beast. "I don't know. I don't know what that means."

"What love means?"

"It's.. not a good word, I mean. It covers too much. It should be categorized."

"I'll rephrase. Do you care about Jake, in a way that means that things that happen to him affect you also?"

"Yeah. I don't want to hurt him, if that's what you're like. Digging at. I don't want him to be disappointed in me."

"Maybe you should find out what Jake really expects from you. I think the two of you should sit down and discuss that. In fact.." She reached behind her to snag her planner off of the desk. Flipping through, she pointed down at a date. "I'd like you to bring Jake with you next time so that we can all talk together."

"No. No way. So you can tell him how fucking crazy I am? No."

"Lincoln, anything that I say to Jake, you will be in the room to hear. I'm not going to expose you for something you aren't, or make you discuss anything you aren't comfortable discussing."

There was no use arguing. Lincoln knew that with her Ph.D, she could out rationalize him. She could talk him into submission, but he'd go kicking and screaming.

"Whatever. What the fuck ever.. I'll ask him, but he might not be able to come. He works, and shit."

"I'm sure Jake will make time for you."

[star studded]

<center>I used to think if I could realize I'd died
Then I would be a lot nicer
Used to believe in a lot more
Now I just see straight ahead
That's not to say I don't have good times
But as for my days, I spend them waiting

Crash sites keep me up at night
Impact, division, it splits in two
Directly underneath you

As for those things that act as markers in your life
But in between you can't remember
And so it seems that you've grown up and over me
And these silly things I like to dwell on

Test sites keep me up at night
Chainlink and meters, I talk to you
It's cold out there, but I'm telling you
I'm lonely too

Facts versus romance
You go and call yourself the boss
But we're not robots inside a grid

Text versus romance
You go and add it all you want
Still we're not robots inside a grid

Zeros and ones</center>


Rilo Kiley, Science vs. Romance

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ May 25, 2005 06:07 AM: Message edited by: science vs. romance ]</font>

[star studded]

I wake up and everything's light. This is due to the fact that, in the haze and high of the night before, I didn't even bother to draw the blinds before we went to bed. So now, this morning, I'm being blinded by sun that's decided to stream in after a few useless days of rainy spring weather. Fuck.

The shock that usually accompanies discovering someone else is in my bed, goes away. I don't even feel it anymore, I think I've gotten over it. Instead, there's just an arm flung over me and wrapped so tight that my only concern is being able to breathe properly, and without my face stuffed into the pillow. The great thing about a futon is that it isn't huge and space consuming, but it works for two quite well. Open for company, close for lack thereof. It's handy. I guess.

All my joints are aching and stuck in place, so I sprawl out and the arm removes itself in turn. I twist onto my side, fumble a hand through the clothes that are piled up on the floor, waiting for me to take them to the laundry, and drag a shirt over my head. I don't function well in the mornings. All of my senses are blurry and my motor skills are probably reduced to that of a very well-developed four year old. I stomp feet as quietly as I can to the shower and manage to get in without killing myself. It'd be very typical of me to take a banana-peel fall on a wet patch in the shower and crack my head on the faucet. While Jake is allowed to sleep, shower, dress myself in something resembling clean clothes according to a highly accurate and error-proof sniff test and pace around the kitchen in search of something to fix for breakfast. I'm too simple. I'd settle for toast, or a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Something, however, makes me feel like maybe I should attempt eggs, or something more presentable. In the middle of my great debate, the phone rings, and in a leap akin to Superman scaling a building, I'm nearly knocking over a table in an attempt to get to it before it rings twice.

"Hello?"

"You're awake?" My sister asks incredulously on the other end.

"Got shit to do, what's your excuse?"

"Fittings and measurements downtown with costume people. What do you have to do today? You don't do anything."

"Eat my shorts. I do plenty. We're getting a dog."

"We? Who is this we you speak of?"

"I. I'm getting a dog. Jake's just coming with." I substitute. This seems to suit her, and she fumbles a quick clearing of her throat.

"But you can't even keep a goldfish alive. You even managed to kill my Giga Pet."

"Whatever, you left it lying around, I just sat on it."

"And it broke. And died."

"Doesn't count. Hey, how do you like. Make scrambled eggs?"

"You don't. You let someone else make them for you. Is Prince Jake there?" Her tone of voice makes me want to reach through the phone and pull her hair in one of my displays of outstanding sibling maturity. I am the older one, of course. By a minute or so.

"Eat it, Adler. Poptarts it is. Go get your ass fondled by a gay man at your little.. fitting or whatever. How's David the Gnome?"

"I don't know of whom you speak. Hey, what're you gonna name your dog?"

"I dunno. Haven't gotten that far."

"Name it The Swayz."

"I'm not naming my dog after Patrick Swayze. Get your own dog to torture."

"I'll call you later. Kiss Jake for me. Full on the lips. With tongue."

"I hate you." With that, I jab the talk button on the phone with my thumb and sever the line. It gets settled on the counter rather than back on its charger, and I don't really think about it anymore.

Everything feels out of place. Togther and holding, but not quite stable. Mixed up, even. A jumbled mess of stuff that seems to work for now, but feels like if I just twitch the wrong way, it'll all come tumbling down. As long as everything stays the same. As long as nothing really changes, I'll be fine. I should be, at least. That's my best case scenario, to keep everything still long enough for it all to flatten and steady itself. And then I'll be okay, but for now, I'm biding time. I feel like I'm rebuilding the same old deck of cards, and every time I get to the top, it all falls down again, and I start from scratch. It's not the rebuilding process that bothers me, I don't think. It's the monotony of it all. I've seen these cards before, and I know what comes next, and I know where the weak spots are, but there isn't any other possible way for the house to be built.

This is a good time for me. A good time to get a dog. To make breakfast. To wake up in beds with another person. I want to do it all now, before the house crashes down around me and I'm stuck at the bottom again.

I'm balancing a heated strawberry poptart and a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. So much for a breakfast cuisine.

Shouldering my way into the bedroom again, I can't really nudge Jake with anything other than the flat of my foot. My hands are full. In an awkward, jumpy move, I kick lightly at his leg and clear my throat.

"Rise and shine. Your poptart's gonna get cold."

This fits. For now.

[star studded]

Dr. Larson's office feels like a second home. I hate that shit. I hate that everything here is so familiar, especially when I'm feeling really good. Life can be going great, I can be feeling fine and I'm always dragged back here for more. I go in, sit down, take a sound thrashing and have to work my way back up to feeling okay again, because great is like, a once a year thing.

"I want to talk about your family and friends today, Lincoln." She sighs, tapping her pencil on the edge of her notebook. I've gotten used to her code. Family and friends is psychiatrist talk for relationships.

"Okay." I submit. It's useless to fight her anymore, I'm too far in. Therapy is like quicksand. After a certain point, if you keep kicking, you just get dragged further in. It's best just to stay still and move with it as it pulls you. It's a slower death that way. "Who do you want to talk about?"

"Who do you feel closest to? If there's one person you know you can turn to for help, or for a favor, who do you think that would be?"

I run the list of people through my head. My mother is out of the question, because I stopped asking her for favors when I was kicked out of the house. My father is out of the question as well considering the fact that we haven't had a decent conversation in years. There's Jake, but I couldn't ask him for anything. I mean, I could, but I wouldn't want to. I ask too much from him already.

"I guess my sister. I mean. I dunno if she's the person closest to me, but.. I mean, those are two different things. Like. You can be close to someone and not ask favors from them, but you can ask favors from people that you're not really close to.. I mean, I'm close to my sister, but.. it's different, it's complicated." Everything is complicated. One day I want to get my hands on Dr. Larson's notes and read them, just to how often I say that.

"Your twin sister, Althea."

"Yeah. I mean, she's always like.. if I need something, she's always been there. Like, I can pick up the phone and call her and she'll come over. Well, like. Except for when she was seeing this guy, but I mean.. she got over that. They like. Broke up, or whatever."

"But you don't consider yourself close to her? Why is that?"

"I dunno, I mean. We fought a lot. Fight. We fight a lot. Well, not lately, but.. before. We just fought about stuff. Like, her ditching me for her new boyfriend, and all of that shit." Dr. Larson scratches down a few notes on her legal pad and does that inhale thing she always does before she's going to ask me a dangerous question. I brace myself.

"Do you think that she feels the same way now that you're exclusively seeing Jake?"

I shrug my shoulders. I've never really thought about it. I've never really cared. "I don't know. She hasn't said she does, so I guess not."

"Alright." Another scratch of pencil on paper. She's hit a dead end. I'm proud of myself for holding out on her. "How about Jake. You don't think you can turn to Jake for the same things that you turn to your sister for? Or your parents, you don't think you can count on them either?"

"So what if I don't?"

"I'm just asking a question, Lincoln. I'm trying to figure out where the split between you and your family came from."

"I told you. Just.. stupid stuff I did when I was a kid, they lost all their trust in me and I can't really blame them. I mean, if my kid burned down houses and stole cars and did all the shit that I did, I wouldn't want him coming to me asking for money, or for help. We just don't get along, me and my family. I mean. Would you?"

"Do you want to get along with them?"

"What does it matter? I can put forth all the effort in the world to get them back on my side and it won't make a difference. I mean, my mom's an okay lady, but she's stopped calling me. And my dad never has. Whatever, y'know, I can deal with that. I can manage on my own, I'm twenty-two years old, I can get through by myself."

"But you're not by yourself. You have your sister, you said so. And Jake, and your other friends. You have people who love and care about you.."

"I hate that." I interject, a finger pointing at her. "I hate that word."

"What word?"

"Love. It's so fucking general, it's like.. the most overused word in the English language. You can't group feelings like that into a category, and then spread it all around. You can't... it just doesn't work! You can't say you love a song, and you love your mom, and you love your boyfriend or girlfriend, because those are three different feelings for three completely different things. It doesn't work out that way, there's got to be a better description, different words, something."

"You don't believe in love?"

"I didn't say that, I did not say that. I said, you have to separate it, you can't love a bunch of different things in the same way, it's more complex, there's more to take into account. Like.. your relationship with that person, or that thing, or how long you've known them, or what you've done together, or--"

"You mean like sex?"

"No. No, I don't mean.. no. I.. that's different, that's totally different, that's unrelated to this entire conversation?"

"Sex and love aren't related." She echoes, and I falter.

"Of course not. I mean.. it's.. they come from two totally different places, like, two different parts of your brain. I mean. You can have sex with someone you quote-unquote love, but you don't.. it doesn't necessitate that. You don't need to love someone to have sex with them, and you don't need to have sex with someone you love. They're unrelated, they don't connect, they can't, and anyone who tells you that they do is fucking lying. I don't want to talk about this, didn't.. didn't I say that sex was off limits, that it was one of the things we weren't going to talk about?"

"That was when Jake was here and I asked you what you felt comfortable discussing in front of him. Not in general. I like to think that in our sessions we're free to talk about anything that we deem necessary. If we say that something, or a certain topic is off limits, then we might be missing something very important in our dialogues together." Dr. Larson has that cocky therapist tone to her voice again and I want to get out. I feel trapped, a deer in headlights. She's just waiting to drop some heavy shit on me, I know it, and I want to be out before she does. Instead of replying, I'm silent. I'm chewing on my nails or something. Fiddling with my shoelaces.

"Do you have a healthy sex-life, Lincoln?"

"I don't want to talk about this."

"How about in the past, did you have partners before Jake and Brian?"

"I don't want to talk about this." Louder.

"Is sex uncomfortable for you? Painful? Disturbing? Do you have trouble with it?"

"I said I don't want to fucking talk about this!" My voice fills the small office and Dr. Larson unclicks her pencil. It retracts into its mechanical shell and she folds her notepad over her lap.

"Very well. I'll see you next week Lincoln."

This should be a victory. It should feel like a point for me.

It doesn't.

[star studded]

Now that I've said something, I feel like I can't get away from it. I've always felt that way about secrets, I think. Once I tell them, it's all I can think about. I've perfected not thinking about this. I've perfected not talking about things, or explaining them or feeling like I have to. My sister is here, however, and there's some feeling in my stomach that I can't really make out. It's just rolling over and over in there, waiting to get out.

"I can't believe you called mom and told her you were gay," she pauses, leaning in, her mouth gaping open in that way she has when she's heard something absolutely shocking. "And then hung up. I mean, she called me totally freaking out. Not in a bad way, but in a 'what the fuck' way, like.. totally confused."

I shrug, because I don't want to talk. I have nothing to say. Instead, I'm being dangerous, and thinking about things. Part of me is struggling to remember little details. The way the house looked. The echo of a hallway, the scratchy carpet beneath my feet.

Althea doesn't speak either. She's waiting for me. So I just say the first thing that pops in my head. I don't think about it. I don't realize it's the wrong conversation to start.

"Where did you go?"

"Huh?" Her head snaps up. I have her attention.

"When we used to go to dad's on the weekend. You always disappeared. Where did you go?"

She shrugs dismissively "I dunno. To friends houses. Liz Roberts lived down the street, so I always went over there. Karen hated me, so I didn't like being there. Karen still hates me. To this day."

"Why didn't you ever ask me to come?"

She laughs. I hate this laugh. I hate it because it's at me, like I've asked the dumbest question in the world. "Because you were a boy. Because you chopped off Liz's Barbie's hair and dressed her up like one of your GI Joes. You didn't want to come, anyway."

Because I was a boy. Because I didn't want to come. My stomach churns. I feel sick and angry and ugly. There are two parts of me, I think. There's a part that hates everything and pushes and presses buttons and just likes to wreck things. And then there's the part that I like being, the part of me that always knows the best jokes and can go on and on about movies and television and music. But that part, the good part, the funny part isn't here right now. He's tied up somewhere. Bound and gagged in a closet, or beaten up on the floor of some basement in Jersey. Or maybe he just hides, because the other part of me hits hard. Or yells too loud. The good part of me is easily scared off by the bad, and the bad side always knows how to win.

"You didn't know that. You didn't know because you never asked me."

"What are you talking about, it's not a big deal! I haven't seen Liz in like.. five years. And neither have you. Shit, Lincoln, when's the last time you even talked to any of those people? Besides, you never had a problem with it then. You never asked to come with me."

"I couldn't."

"What're you talking about? You're being weird." I look up and Althea has leaned forward on her chair, squinting at me and trying to examine my expression or something. I think if I had a mirror in front of me, I'd look pretty blank and expressionless. That's how my face feels. Nothing moves, or twists or lifts or falls. I'm just looking.

"I just couldn't."

"Oh God, who cares, it was years ago anyway. Besides. S'not like we can go back there now." She laughs a little and it twists my stomach even more. I know what she means and I know why and it drives me insane to not be able to take her and shake her and say everything I said last night. It's so much easier to just have someone know. It's the telling them that's the hard part.

"God.." She keeps going, pushing up from her seat and pacing towards my kitchen. "I don't know how you stood being in that house with that bitch. She was so fucking mean. She's still mean. She met Ma once and looked at her like she was dirt under her shoe. I hate that woman. I don't know how you did it."

I can barely move. My fist is tight and curled and I've pressed it against my mouth while she shuffles and clinks glasses around. She's getting a drink. I need a drink. A big one. And not the orange juice that she's pouring into a glass.

"Did she ever like, even talk to you? She never talked to me. She couldn't get far enough away from me."

I don't answer. I can't answer. I can barely breathe.

"She liiiiiked you though. She used to always buy you the best fucking birthday presents, and I hated it. I remember one year you got a skateboard, remember that? What'd I get? Some ugly sweater. A black sweater with a big white bow, remember? I hated it. It was so awful, hideous, and I was so pissed off, I was so jealous, but I couldn't say anything because that was rude. Ugh. Whatever."

Stop. I want her to stop here. The good Lincoln is being slowly battered with each word. I see my limbs being sawed off and my body being stuffed in a dumpster. The good Lincoln, with cinderblocks on his feet being tossed over the Tobey Bridge to drown a miserable death in the Charles River. The bad Lincoln cackles madly.

"You were such a suck-up to her too, when we were really little. I hated it. Every time she was around you wanted to sit with her, you made her help you with your homework, she always picked you up from school on Fridays, you guys always had little trips to the ice cream parlor. I mean.. I don't know if you know like.. how that made the rest of us feel." She lingers in the doorway of the kitchen, her shoulder pressed against it, the glass of orange juice in her hand. I don't really care how it made any of them feel. I wasn't protecting anyone. I wasn't playing favorites. "Mom hated it. She'd never say it, but I knew. She hated that Karen got all your attention and got to lavish you with presents while she couldn't buy you a new pair of shoes for track season freshman year. And you always just.. you ignored her. You still ignore mom. You call her, you tell her something and then you hang up the phone? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's good, it's good that you told her and that you want her to meet Jake, but... you've gotta talk to her. You owe her that after everything, after you spent.."

"Shut up." My voice cracks the air like a bark. It shakes even me from my little still, non-moving world, and now I'm up and on my feet and facing off with Althea, a few steps away from where she stands. "Just shut up."

"It's true, though! It's true, you know it's true. You know that's why Mom's always trying to do nice things for you, and make everything okay, it's why she never gets mad at you, or really mad. She didn't kick you out of the house, she sent you to live with Uncle Pat because she knew it would be good for you, she never once screamed at you for the shit you pulled. It was always because she knew that you'd compare her to Karen, you'd just run right back to Karen, because Karen could give you things, and Karen could be there when you snapped your fingers, and Karen could--"

When you punch someone, the sound is never like it is in the movies. Instead of the sick thwack of contact, there's more of a dull thunk. A slap, however, a hit, an open-palmed sweep against a cheek produces the exact sound that you hear on screen. A lightning bolt crack of sound, a stinging snap like something breaking. And something has broken. The good Lincoln is gone, locked in a trunk somewhere, and I am seething with the other half of me. I am livid, boiling. It is all her fault. It has always been Althea's fault, her fault for never coming home early, or for always running away the second we stepped in the door, her fault for never trying to win anyone's attention, it's her fault for leaving me there by myself. And so I hit her. Once. Hard.

Her palm flies up and her head snaps to the side and she presses her hand against the red stain of her cheek and doesn't say a word. It felt good. It felt really good. It was like transferring it, all that rage and anger and hurt, from my chest, down my arm, out of my palm and right into her face so she can see it, and feel it, and shut the fuck up.

I am a freight train, very big, barelling full speed in the wrong direction. I feel sick. Not because I hit my sister. But because it felt good. Because I want to do it again.

I lift my hand to, and my body weight leans forward, but she cowers away and presses her hand to her cheek again, like a buffer, a little squeak of sound coming from her mouth. She doesn't look at me. She focuses her eyes somewhere else, on a corner of the room. I want to scream at her to stop being such a mouse. I want her to hit me back. I want her to get angry and to march out and to tell the world what an asshole I am, and what a terrible brother I've always been, but she doesn't. Her bottom lip presses out and trembles, and she sniffs as quietly as she can so she doesn't give herself away. She looks like our mother after I've just been brought home in handcuffs, by the police, or when she has had to come pick me up from somewhere, drunk and disoriented because Nick has called her because even he doesn't know what to do with me when I'm like that. She looks like everyone I've ever hurt looks right after I swing at them. That's what guts me.

I tighten my jaw and my eyes sting and this endless well that I've tapped into floods out and over again. I don't say anything. I put my hands on my hips and I turn around and away, hooking my thumbs in my pockets and sitting back down again. My sister shuffles around, gets her things together, and leaves in a tornado rush.

And that's it.

My stomach, which has been churning like and ocean since the day before, finally rolls up and over, and when I throw up, it's all over my bathroom sink. It's a thick, ugly mess. It looks like how I feel. Processed, run over, sloshed around and indistinguishable from what it once was.

All I can think is how badly I want to go home. And how I don't know where that is.

[star studded]

<center>

Stress can breed a psychopath
You?re all that calms me down
I forget that I?m a mess when you?re around
Please can you be home tonight
Say its not over yet
My human tranquilizer
My pretty percocet
Stop the worries that keep forming in my head
I?ve got ants in my pants unless its you in them instead

Oh baby, I was a faker before you
Tomorrow brings a busy day
Its overstuffed with time
I need to hear you breathing on the line
And you can be closed minded
If you have open arms
Why can?t I ever work my wily charms on you

And you still weren?t home when I dialed up the phone in the evening
So I?m twiddling thumbs and I?m wondering what?s this I?m feeling
I may be strong below the belt
But not with what I thought and felt
That blissful night I knelt
Between your legs
Between our heads
Between our hearts

I was a faker before you

</center>


Say Anything

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ June 08, 2005 05:53 AM: Message edited by: science vs. romance ]</font>

[star studded]

Sitting with hands folded in Dr. Larson's office, he wasn't sure if the air was heavier or lighter than it was the last time he had set himself there, beside Jake, and burst into everything in an angry flash. Now, the mood was different. He didn't feel tense or angry, but more blank and confused, pushed all the way back to square one with no real idea of where square one was in reference to the end of everything. Tugging at the strings on his hood, he watched one shorten while the other lengthened. Dr. Larson sat across from him again, her expression its same, simple, hopeful one.

"So did you get your dog?"

"Huh?" It took a moment before he realized that he had mentioned something about going hunting for a pet at last week's session. "Oh. Yeah, yeah. We got one. He's living with me, because Jake's roommate probably wouldn't want one around. Hey, can I ask you a question?"

The very act of Lincoln ever actively participating in something so far as to ask a question had Dr. Larson immediately scratching a hurried note. "Sure, ask away." She commented, folding hands and glancing over glasses at him.

"Like. Do you think it's a good idea if I move in with Jake? Or he moves in with me?"

"Good idea, how?"

"Well, like. I mean. I want to know what you think, I mean.. like, Jake brought it up the other day, and I want to. Live with him, I mean. And he wants to live with me, I just.. I mean, I think it would be a good idea, I just... I want to know what you think. Am I going to screw things up with him if we're living together? Do you think we're like. Ready for that?"

Dr. Larson drew in a breath and tipped her head at him. "Well, let's start somewhere else. How do you feel about Jake?"

The questions had never teetered on something so personal. They had delved into territory involving painful memories and tricky familial ties, but his romantic life had remained untouched, vague at best. "You know how I feel about Jake." He reminded. Dr. Larson nodded and tapped her pen at the edge of her notebook.

"I have some idea, but I think it's important that you put those feelings into words. Especially now. You obviously feel that Jake is someone you can trust with everything, am I right?"

"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "But, what does that have to do with him moving in with me?"

"A lot of those things that you're feeling right now, especially after learning what you told me last week, are going to be overwhelming for you. And you're going to go through a lot, and I understand that you want Jake to be there for you. From what I know, he wants very badly to be someone you rely on. But you have to realize that those things are going to be very overwhelming for him as well. He's going to go through a lot of the same things you are. In a different respect, of course, but he's going to be dealing with a lot of overwhelming feelings too. It's important that he have a place where he can get away from that."

"Get away from me, you mean." Something in Lincoln turned dark and indignant, an angry spark and flash behind light eyes that Dr. Larson had come to notice as a warning spark.

"Maybe so. But not because you're the source of some problem, or because he doesn't want to be around you. I told you that you needed to have that network of people you trust, right? Well, Jake needs that too. You can be included in that network, but you two can't be the only things that the other leans on. You can be the main thing, the most important thing, but not the only thing. You can't force him to carry your weight for you. You have to do a lot of this work on your own. Not by yourself, but on your own. Jake can't do it for you."

The truthful, straightforward string of words had Lincoln staring out the window, watching as people the next building over shuffled past windows, their arms stuffed with files and papers. Biting down on his tongue, he nodded. He knew. He wasn't sure the extent of this work, or the process of going through it, but maybe he'd come to understand soon. Instead, he remained silent.

"So, to answer your question. I think if you understand those concepts, and that if Jake understands that he can't carry you through this, then this could be a healthy choice for you in the future. You should have an open discussion about it first, however. Where you talk about more than what moving company you're going to use."

Lincoln's silence remained, hanging heavily over the two of them. Dr. Larson craned her neck a moment, trying to get a glimpse of an expression or a facial tick she could read. Instead, there was nothing. He stared blankly for a long moment out the side window and moved only to lift a hand to press to his cheek. Fingers folded over into a fist and he leaned into it, canting away from her. It took a moment, but she noticed the slick, glimmering streak that he was trying to keep hidden behind his hand until he had everything contained. Carefully, she reached beside her and fisted a tissue or two from the box.

"Lincoln, let's talk about what's going on right now."

"I don't really feel like it."

"Did you have an argument with Jake?"

He laughed at the very idea of the two of them arguing. It was something so common and expected, but lately, so very foreign and pushed out of mind. Shamelessly, he smeared the heel of his palm at his eye and sniffed wetly. "No."

"Are you feeling sad?"

"No." He mumbled again. The handful of tissues were handed out to him and after a decisive pause, he reached for them and smeared them over eyes, dragging in a wet breath. It wasn't the sobbing, wailing cry he desperately needed, but it was a step in the right direction.

"What is it then?"

"It's stupid. It's just stupid."

"If you're upset about something, Lincoln, it doesn't matter how stupid other people are going to think it is. You're only telling me, and I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to see if I can help you in managing these things." She stated matter of factly, as calmly and as accessibly as she could.

"It's just a bunch of things."

"Well, start with the biggest, or the smallest, and let's work in the other direction." Dr. Larson's logic was starting to be less condescending and more easy to deal with. He found himself less apt to snap at her for using that teacher-tone of voice and more willing to either shrug her off or half-heartedly answer her questions.

"I gave Jake a key to my place, and he like.. thinks I'm a saint for it. Maybe even not just for the key thing, but he keeps telling me how wonderful I am, like..like he thinks I need to hear it, or something, and yeah, it's.. it's nice to know someone thinks that about you, but I'm not. I'm not wonderful. And I don't know if it's Jake just like..just being optimistic and hoping that maybe somewhere, someday I'll just turn into this magically wonderful person, or if he's just lying to me to make me feel better, or convince me that I am so I can start acting like it. I'm not wonderful. I'm not. And I'm not going to ever be wonderful. I do stupid things, I do the dumbest things, I hit my sister. I'm awful, I hang up on my mother, or I don't call her back and then I feel like shit when she stops calling me, I just want my fucking phone to ring again, y'know? I feel like shit, I feel like fucking ... roadkill, the lowest of the low."

Dr. Larson watched as he mumbled all words into the heel of his hand, like he needed a buffer between himself and the real words. Scratching notes over her pad of paper, she leaned in on the edge of her chair and took a deep breath. "Well, what is it about Jake's compliments that you don't feel comfortable with? Let's start there."

"Just, that they're not true! They're not true. I'm not wonderful and smart and whatever else. At least, I don't feel like I am. I don't.. feel comfortable. I guess. It's hard to like.. when you know all the shitty things that I've done, for no reason, being called wonderful and smart and great and praised or whatever, it feels so moot. Because that doesn't erase everything."

"Lincoln, when else has someone called you those things and made you uncomfortable?"

A nerve struck. Another ragged breath was sucked into lungs and he refused to let tears roll again. Instead, he held breath until they subsided. Instead of blurting out an obvious answer, he held words and acknowledgements in. After a few deep, nervous breaths, he sighed out a heavier one and sank back on the couch.

"Oh." He grunted. There were tiny flashes and slivers of memory. Excessive compliments and praise for the tiniest of tasks, and then nearly the same ones for the even bigger ones, the scary, uncomfortable assignments that he had mostly converted into blurry, barely discernable realities.

Knowing that this was the best sort of recognition and affirmation that she was going to get out of Lincoln for something in such early stages, she nodded her head and posed another important question. "Do you think that maybe that has some degree to do with why you feel uncomfortable when Jake says those things to you? Not because you aren't really those things, or you don't have the capability to be those things, but because of what kind of behavior you associate those compliments with?"

It made sense. Perfect sense. Too much sense. It was like the first piece of a puzzle uncovered and stuck in place with the frame of its counterparts. "I.. maybe." He offered.

"What do you think you can do to make that situation better for you? Can you think of anything?"

"I.. I don't know.. maybe like.. try to separate it. Like.. whether or not I think he's right.. he means it in a different way, right?" It was a blind stab in the dark and a wholly surprising step in a better direction. Dr. Larson hadn't expected such a clean, healthy answer from him just yet.

"I think that's a very, very good start, Lincoln."

[star studded]

With the clammy plastic of his ancient phone pressed to his ear, Lincoln waited for the pulse to give way to a familiar voice. It had taken a morning of complete deliberation and pacing around his living room to get him to dial numbers in succession. With Jake off at work, there were no encouraging words, no promises that all would be well. He slaughtered the motions of fingers the first three times, barely getting past the area code before he managed to finally thumb off the seven and launch into the next succession of digits. A free hand pressed between knees, the knuckles of his left hand still screaming as they wrapped around the receiver.

When Rosemary picked up, it was with her usual bright voice, slicing through any trace of gray and exposing blue sky and sunshine. "Hello?"

Lincoln's voice was gravel-heavy in the back of his throat, and it took a rough clearing before any syllables could croak through. "Ma?"

"Lincoln?" Her surprise echoed in the loss of breath that fluttered out of lungs. Her son never called. Not ever. Once, but then he hung up, thinking better of it. The silence that lingered on the line signalled a moment of panic that forced her to fill it up. "Honey?"

"Hi, Ma." He managed, smearing a hand over his face.

"Hi.." She offered cheerily, her voice echoing over phone lines. "Is everything alright?" The last time she had spoken to Lincoln, even in shreds, he had confessed some discovery of sexuality and smashed the receiver down again, leading her to believe it was all some strange crank call to settle a bet.

"I guess. I dunno." He mumbled. Only now did he realize he had no idea what it was he wanted to say. He had no script. He was left fumbling.

"Is your sister alright? Is something wrong, sweetheart? Do you need something?"

Her slew of questions stung. He only called home when he needed something. There was no level of casual conversation with his mother, she was just a resource. He treated everyone that way, as a source of providing something he needed. In a moment, he was worn thin as old cloth, threadbare and stretched, stripping away as the final fibers cracked in submission to too much use. Lincoln, for what felt like the millionth time that week, flooded over with inexplicable tears, breath rattling in his chest until he managed to suck in a deep, shuddering gasp and punch out a simple syllable.

"Ma?"

The very sound of it broke Rosemary's oversized heart in two. He could hear her shuffling to grip the phone harder, like it would pull her through wires, over to him. "What is it, sweetheart? What's wrong?"

"Can you come visit?" It was an awful, pitiful crush of words, bled against the plastic shell of the phone as he hunched over and swiped helplessly at eyes.

"Of course! Of course I can come visit, sweetheart. What's wrong? What's the matter, are you alright? Are you sick?"

"Yeah.." He scoffed, choking out a laugh and staring out over the bare stretch of his apartment. "Yeah, Ma, I'm real sick. Everything's just.. all messed up."

"Do you want to tell me what's messed up?"

"Can you come visit tomorrow? Can you take the train? And I'll meet you in.. in the morning?"

Despite the fact that her planner said otherwise, Rosemary shrugged off all work obligations and promises to galleries and artists alike. "Of course. Of course. I'll take the seven-fifteen and be in Grand Central by ten-thirty. Do you think you can meet me then? Do you want me to bring anything?"

"Can you stay for the weekend?"

"Sure. Sure, honey."

"I want you to meet him, you know."

It took her a moment to decipher who Lincoln was talking about, but shreds of conversation with Althea just had her nodding, though he couldn't see it. "I know you do. I know."

"Okay, so you'll come?"

"I'll come. Ten-thirty, right? You won't forget?"

"No no. I'll be there, I don't work until.. Tuesday, I think.." A wet breath sighed out as he forced himself to calm, hissing out a sigh that deflated lungs.

"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow at ten-thirty, then. Relax, sweetheart, everything is going to be fine. When you hang up, go have a glass of water and lay down. Take a nap, you're wound up like mad, I can hear it in your voice. Just breathe, sweetheart, there's no problem we can't solve."

"I know." He croaked again.

"I'm going to go now, so I can go get ready and pack. Are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah."

"Is someone there with you?"

"No, but he's coming back later."

"Okay. Go do what I said, Linc, have a glass of water and lay down and take a nap."

"I will."

"I love you, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye bye."

"Bye."

The phone clicked back into its cradle. And Lincoln took advice to heart, swallowing down a whole glass of bottled water and diving into pillows to drag them overhead until someone consented to crawl in bed with him.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ July 02, 2005 03:20 PM: Message edited by: godawful champagne ]</font>

[star studded]

"So no Jake today?"

"I asked him to come, but I changed my mind. I don't think I want him to come for a little while. I mean. Unless like, he's needed here for something."

"That's perfectly okay. How did your visit with your mother go?"

"Okay, I guess. I told her."

"Told her.."

"You know. About.."

"About your relationship with Jake. How did she take that?"

"I.. fine, I guess. I mean. That wasn't what I was like.. nervous about, I guess. I mean, I knew she'd like Jake, and I knew she wouldn't care that I was.. whatever, I just.. it was the other stuff that I didn't know how to say, or what to do about, and it all came out and it was just.. it was a huge mess, and Jake says that it went fine, that everything was as good as it could get, but I don't believe him. I mean, I think that I could have done better, I just--"

"Did you talk to your mother about anything after you told her what had been happening?"

"I tried to. I mean.. I wanted to. Or maybe I didn't want to, because who wants to talk about that. I thought I should. But everytime we sat down to say something about it, she'd just get so upset, and so angry. Not at me, but just.. about everything, I guess. And I can't do anything about it, obviously. I can't tell her I'm okay, because I don't feel okay, and I can't.. there's nothing I can say to her about it that makes any sense."

"What do you think she was angry about?"

"I.. I dunno. I guess, maybe some of the stuff I'm angry about too, or maybe that like.. she didn't do anything, but she shouldn't be angry about that, because she didn't know. Nobody knew except me and her."

"You mean, Karen?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember what kept you from telling anyone? Even after, when you said you started to feel some sort of apprehension and anxiety? When the panic attacks started?"

Doctor's Notes: Lincoln becomes quiet for a brief pause. This is congruent to his normal apprehension and hesistation to discuss anything dealing with the specifics of the acts themselves, or the resulting feelings that come directly from them, examples: shame, guilt, isolation. When left to a broad topic, it becomes easier for him to avoid personalization of his feelings. The patient does deal better with specific questions, and is more apt to answer them, but can become hostile when he comes upon unsettling realizations.

"Did Karen ever threaten you, physically? To hurt you, or hurt your family?"

"Not me. Sometimes she'd like.. threaten to get me in trouble with my dad. If I like.. told her I didn't want to go somewhere with her, or do something, or.. she'd just say that like.. she'd tell him what we were doing and he'd be really mad at me. But I know that's stupid, I know that now, but that was when I was little. When I was older.."

"..when you were older.."

"Yeah, I.. she used to like, threaten to like.. to hurt herself? If that makes any sense. Like, if we didn't do something, or if I didn't do what she wanted, she'd.. she'd swallow all the aspirin in the medicine cabinet, or something. She acted like, the.. whatever, whatever it was we were doing, she acted like it was the only thing keeping her alive. And I didn't.. I wasn't like.. protecting her. I just didn't want her to do something and have it be my fault, I didn't think I could like.. deal with that on top of everything else. I guess."

"So when you were younger, the threats she made were to turn your family against you, and when you were older, she became more desperate."

"Because she didn't think I'd fall for the stupid kid stuff anymore. And I didn't get along with my dad anyway, so she knew that I wouldn't care if she got me in trouble with him. Even over something like.. big like that. It just makes me so mad, y'know? I get so pissed off because.. what the fuck? Y'know, what the fuck was I thinking, I mean, even when I was little, why didn't I like.. or why didn't anyone see.."

"Lincoln, from a young age, you were programmed by this woman to feel that the only person you could confide in was her. Your feelings of isolation, separation from your family, being the.. the black sheep as people call it, those aren't your own doing. You didn't do any of that by being who you were. You were trained, in a way, to think those things, to become the black sheep, to cut yourself off. For example, if you.. if you tell a very young child every day that he is stupid, unintelligent, incapable of learning, that child will inevitably enter school and do poorly. The same goes for this situation. You had someone telling you every day, albeit maybe not directly, that there was something wrong with you that set you apart from so-called normal people. And then, when you were forced to interact with these normal people, you had no idea how. You set yourself apart. The important thing is that you realize that none of that was your own fault."

"Well then why do I have to fucking clean up the mess now?"

"That's the real tragedy of these situations, Lincoln. There's no possible way to trust the person who has made such a big mess of your life to come back and clean it up. And I don't think that's something you want, either. Do you?"

"No."

"This is something you have to do yourself. With help, of course. Not alone. But the work is yours to do."