Crazy (BoyxBoy)

A Little Better

The doctor's office wasn't that small, it just felt cramped with my parents on either side of me, the silence between them deafening. I was nervous and anxious, ringing my hands in my lap and biting my lips ferociously. This was just like a nightmare, but worse because I couldn't wake up from it and feel relieved that this wasn't my real life. This was real life and it was uncomfortable and awkwardly tense and insanely quiet with only a radio turned down on a very low setting to keep the perpetual silence at bay. It seems like we as a species spend a lot of time trying to fill this impending silence. The silence always won out, always. 

Mom and dad were being weird, their argument from last night still unresolved. Dad said I had to choose a drug from the approved list so the co-pay was less, even though I overheard them last night and I knew he wasn't paying for it. Grandpa was rich, he didn't care about the cost as long as it helped me. If there was anyone who hated this illness more than me, it was grandpa. I didn't see why dad cared if it wasn't his money apparently going to waste. 

It made me wish I had enough money to pay for my own things. It made me wish mom and dad let me, instead of forcing me to put my paychecks, week after week, into savings. I hated that I had only a year until I got my trust fund and my brain chose now to want to act up when I'd been fine, for years. Lets just say it had been a rough morning. Mom found out I sneaked out with Vaughn and lectured me about not telling her where I was, to which I argued I was a 20 year old man and then dad yelled at me for disrespecting mom and not being able to take my medications in the first place and spending too much time with that damn boy instead of making something of my life. Mom then proceeded to yell at dad for digging into me because he was a ball of stress, and then Farrah started having a tantrum because she dropped her beaded necklace down the drain while washing her hands. We dropped her off at grandpas and dad didn't say hello back to grandpa and grandpa looked like he wanted to say something, but I got out of the car and smiled at him, hugging him and thanking him. Dad had sighed loudly and yelled that we had to go and mom hadn't smiled yet, at me or dad.

I bit my cheeks to keep from crying, hoping this went by quickly so I could retreat back into my room and cry myself back to sleep. Mom set her hand on my knee to steady my bouncing leg. I hadn't noticed I was even moving until then, and wanted to shrink in on myself. 

"Sorry," I whispered but she wasn't listening anymore, the doctor's assistant had come out into the waiting room and called my name. I hesitated but stood up after dad did. We walked silently back into an exam room that was even more familiar to me than my own bedroom. I sunk down onto the bed, the white paper crinkling as I did. Dad sat in the one chair provided in the corner and despite her not wanting to, she was tugged down on his lap as he hugged her close from behind.

He was trying, and that made me feel a little better. He didn't like the fighting anymore than I did. Mom could be stubborn too. They were more alike than maybe they thought they were. For instance, they both made me want to blow my brains out. It felt like forever until the doctor came in. He pulled up his rolling seat and squatted down.

"What's going on?" He asked. "I, Uh, I stopped taking my meds." I told him, wishing dad wasn't here. I could feel his eyes on the side of my face, I sensed the mood shift as I spoke, my voice sounding weak in my own ears. I wondered how much I was disappointing him right now.

"Why? You know it's dangerous to stop them without contacting me first." I nodded swatting at my arm. When I pulled my hand away, a flattened horse fly lay still on my arm. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn't real. When I opened them again, the fly was gone, replaced by scratches in my skin spelling out the word 'disappointment', blood leaking from the fresh cuts. I shut my eyes again, pinching the back of my thigh. None of it was real. Except the doctor. "Camden?" I tried to focus in, opening my eyes and looking at him.