✏️ Under One Roof

31. Two Epiphanies

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"I don't want to get better," Ness said. It was a definitive statement; something that defined his identity in his own eyes, and not something that he questioned in the slightest. But it was hard to believe that someone could take loneliness in his stride, and then decide that this was how he wanted to live.

"But you had friends at school?" Tegan said. "You don't miss them?"

"Maybe. But do they remember me now? I doubt it. And that's what matters. Even if I talked to them again, they wouldn't know who I am now. They've moved on, and so have I. And that's better. Because there's nobody to lose."

He'd told the previous part of his story already; skimming over the smallest chips of the truth for a dozen casual passes over the real story. Losing his mother, he'd known that he never wanted to feel that way again. If he lost his best friend, he couldn't bear it. And there was always a best friend. And so, in a way that seemed cold and rational to him, Ness had decided that he didn't need friends. He had weighed the pain of loneliness against the potential distress when someone he really cared about eventually died; and he had decided that he never wanted to be that close to anyone.

That was terrifying to Tegan. She had known that Ness was broken; that he couldn't function in society like a normal person. But she couldn't imagine the pain that would make someone voluntarily cut himself off from humanity. It was like there was a wound in his heart, which he was determined to keep open out of fear that the next time would be worse. And she didn't even know how she could reach him across that chasm.

"I pushed everyone away," he said. "They called it an emotional behavioural issue. But it was the only way I could break my ties to the people I... might have cared about. I thought the only way I could go on was by not interacting with anyone at all. I didn't want to risk that pain again. So I didn't go to school. I told Dad I was scared, or that people didn't understand. He invited people around, and I shut myself in my room. I wouldn't speak to anyone at all. Eventually they gave up trying to talk to me. I had my books, and I had the Internet, so I still learned. But, well... that's not really good enough for the rest of the world. Even if I know things, I have to be able to prove it. So eventually, I started talking to the shrinks he sent me to. Trying to find a way to come out of my box without being so vulnerable."

"You just..." Tegan whispered, not quite sure what to do with all the pieces to this puzzle. Her dad had said mental health, or emotional problems, had stopped him going to school. And the only time she'd heard that before had been with Randy, and some other guys at school. The ones who couldn't stop hurting the people around them, and had to study at home to protect other people. She'd never even considered it could mean that he refused to go to school, or that he just tried to isolate himself. And as much as she tried, she really couldn't understand what it must have been like for him. How broken his mind must have been to start with, that he would handle grief like that.

Tegan found herself trying to imagine how she would have dealt with the death of her mother; knowing that she wasn't going to be there anymore. And she just couldn't imagine it. She'd never lost anyone like that. Some great-uncles had died, but nobody that she was really close to. When someone that she might have seen once or twice a year at family gatherings wasn't there anymore, it made almost no difference to Tegan's life. She'd maybe cried a little when she was old enough to understand, but it had never hit close to home. She wanted to understand what Ness had gone through, but it was a completely alien feeling to her. She was sure that most people didn't react so dramatically, but it was something so far from her own experience that she couldn't even venture an opinion on how Ness should have responded. Cutting himself off from everyone sounded crazy, and she was sure that the pain of losing someone couldn't compare to being alone forever. But she could see the kind of logic in that plan, as twisted as it was.