November 6, 2015
"Are you sure you don't want me to go in with you?" Kyle leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. He looked at Stan.
"I'm sure. Maybe in the future, you could. But I think I should be alone this time."
Kyle sighed and looked down at his feet. "I don't want you to feel abandoned."
"Abandoned? How?"
"I just don't want you to feel like I'm not there for you."
"Let me worry about how I feel." He tucked an auburn curl behind Kyle's ear, and added a little quietly, "I know that you love me."
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Kyle smiled, cupping Stan's hand around his own ear now.
Stan smiled back, then looked down at his lap. He said, a touch louder: "I know you love me."
Kyle squeezed his hand. "I do. I hope you keep remembering that." He watched Stan continue to smile at his lap. "Hey," he pulled his sleeve so Stan would look at him, "A lot of people love you."
Stan leaned back and the chair creaked. He regarded Kyle with warm, placid eyes. He let the sentence sit in his ears. A lot of people love you.
"But you're the one who matters the most," Stan said. "Thanks for bringing me here."
A door clicked open next to them, and a woman popped her head out. "Marsh?"
Both Stan and Kyle stood up suddenly.
"Yes, hi." Stan started walking toward her.
"Hi Stan, I'm Dr. Kathy," she extended a tan, manicured hand to him. He shook it gingerly, then turned back to look at Kyle.
"I'll be here when you get out," Kyle said, answering a question Stan didn't need to ask.
"Thank you," Stan mouthed before turning to follow Dr. Kathy behind a large wooden door and into a beige hallway.
Kyle sat back down and crossed one leg over the other, arms stretched out over the metal arms of the chair. It was a small waiting room - dimly lit and playing music that Kyle swore was played during their pre-school nap time. The front desk assistant hummed along to the soft saxophone while stapling papers.
They found this clinic in a withered plaza next to a coffee shop and a building that used to be a dance studio but was now overtaken by an Italian-American retirement club. The old men in there spent all day sitting around a plastic table, playing cards, smoking, and complaining about their wives. After Stan's first few sessions with Dr. Kathy, Kyle felt comfortable enough to leave, and he would often smoke with them until Stan was done. Their anecdotes made no sense, but Kyle found it to be good company. They often tried to give him life advice - some good, some weird, and it always ended with "don't ever get a wife."
I don't intend to get a wife, sir.
Atta boy, with a shoulder clap. Also, you should quit smoking - you don't want to end up looking like us.
Oh horse feathers, Kyle would say, You're the most beautiful men I've ever played cards with.
A big laugh and another shoulder clap.
It wasn't the most ideal system, but using the cheap clinic was a better alternative than having to go to Sharon and Randy for help. According to Stan, if his parents got involved, Randy would surely find a way to make it all about himself. If this idea went south, then they would have to go to their parents for help. He made Stan promise.
Kyle focused in on the posters pinned to the cork across from him, clinging to each word, hoping that the slower he read, the faster the next 45 minutes would go by. He was worried about what Stan might say. He feared that Dr. Kathy wouldn't like Kyle. She might hypothesize that he's not good enough for Stan, that Stan should leave him.
Kyle sunk lower into the chair, shoulders squared up to his cheeks like a turtle. He read a purple poster about STDs.
(thats stupid)
The more he thought about it, the less sense that assumption made. His fear of losing Stan in anyway possible was piercing his logical side like a fire stoker, antagonizing his brain already on fire.
(stan is here for stan)
(its got nothing to do with me)
...
"My office is way in the back, so we have a bit of a walk," Dr. Kathy walked ahead of Stan at first, then slowed her steps to walk beside him when she realized he wasn't a fast walker. He fixated on the large, watercolor paintings, the cardboard box filled with stress balls, and finally, a long, oak shelf stuffed with hardcover reference books. He resisted the urge to press his fingers into the spines.
"How are you?" Stan asked her when she noticed that she was watching how he walked. Already, he felt like a specimen being observed.
"Doing well," she answered brightly, "And how are you?"
"Good."
"That's great!"
"Well, I guess the session is already over then."
She laughed politely, then opened the door to her office. There was a low hum of air conditioning. The lights were colored soft rose. By the window, a coffee table was placed on an area rug. Two reading chairs with decorative black and white pillows stood on each side. He took the chair furthest from the door and held the pillow across his lap.
"Comfortable?" she sat across from him with a legal pad and rainbow pen.
"Yes."
"Do you mind if I take notes?"
"No, I don't mind."
"Thank you."
Stan leaned back into the chair and watched as she scrawled the date across the top of the paper. She pulled out a thin packet from behind the paper. It was the forms he filled out prior to the appointment.
"I like the paintings," said Stan, looking around at the framed swaths of color hanging on the mauve walls.
"Thanks, some of them are mine. Some of them are students."
"What, like art students?"
"Art therapy students."
"They just gave you their paintings? I find that a little hard to believe."
"Yes, they do. Sometimes they want to let go of it for personal reasons. Or burn it. So I keep it instead."
"That's cool, I guess."
"Do you do any painting or drawing, Stan?"
"Not really. I'll journal sometimes if I feel up to it."
"Maybe sometime you could bring those pages in?"
"Maybe..." He felt the need to say more, but the words formed a ball in his throat and swelled there, too stubborn for his lips and too pulpy to make sense.
She pressed her thin lips into a tight smile. "Before we move forward, I need to do a 'pulse check' with you."
"A pulse check?"
"It's just a few questions to get a gauge on where you are mentally based on what you wrote on these forms."
"Oh, okay..."
"You checked 'yes' that you feel suicidal. How often do you think about killing yourself?"
"Nearly every day."
"How serious does it get?"
Stan became squeamish. If only she could have been a fly on the wall all these years. "What do you mean?"
"Well," she adjusted herself, "a lot of people have thoughts like 'I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up,' but they don't mean it."
"I guess I feel that way sometimes... but other times..." he thought back to the day Kyle had found him passed out on the bathroom floor. Passing out in English class. Burning himself with Kyle's cigarettes when he wasn't in the room. "I've had close encounters."
"Do you have a plan for how you would kill yourself?"
"Not in a detailed way, no... but I guess... I guess I would cut... myself."
She scribbled something down. "And you wrote that you've self-harmed here."
"Yeah..."
"How often do you self-harm, Stan?"
"It's been a long time because my boyfriend threw out all the sharp stuff in my room. I don't even have scissors."
"That's great. That's a good start."
"It's good until I need to cut open a package," he said, adding in a small, nervous laugh. She didn't respond the way he wanted her to. He'd hoped she would drop it.
"So before then, how often?"
"Maybe once a week. Or two weeks. It's a bit difficult to remember now."
More scribbling. "Do you feel like you want to hurt or kill yourself right now, in this moment?"
Stan hesitated. He thought back on that morning, how he woke up with Sparky nuzzling his stomach with a cold nose. When he opened the curtains, fresh snow was falling in sweet drifts, and the chill from the windowpane raised goosebumps on his arm. Snowflakes floated onto Kyle's face and melted on his cheeks. Their boots crunched on salted sidewalks. Mr. Malkinson stopped shoveling his driveway to wave and say hello. Hot coffee touched his lips and warmed his throat. They watched two rabbits leap together from snowbank to snowbank. Kyle's keychains, hanging from the ignition, clashed together when they hit a pothole. He drew a heart in the frosted window.
"No. I don't."
...
Kyle tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling panels. The one right above him had swelled, a water stain expanding across the gypsum. It looked old and too benign to say something about it.
He glanced out the window. More snow was falling.
...
"I was worried about the cut getting infected," Stan said. "But it was an afterthought. I felt stupid after I did it. I could have died."
"Do you remember the last thing you thought before you cut?"
Stan swallowed. He locked his fingers together. His hands were sweating. "There's no way I can pinpoint a specific thought. After awhile they all melt together into one, giant ugly thought. I just wanted the pain to end. I don't think I thought about if I actually wanted to die. I don't want to die... I... none of this makes sense. I'm not making any sense."
Dr. Kathy placed the pen down thoughtfully. "Sometimes, when we're overwhelmed - when the depression hangs so heavy - it's hard to differentiate between wanting the pain to end and actually wanting to die. Those lines blur."
Stan hugged the pillow tighter to his chest. "I feel like I'm saying all the wrong things right now. I don't know how I'm supposed to get better if I can't even describe how I feel without getting flustered."
"No, you're describing everything beautifully. As long as you keep being honest with me, we'll make progress."
Stan nodded but said nothing. He could feel his throat tightening.
"Just imagine we're in a very dark cave, and I'm letting you lead the way. And you're pointing things out and I'm shining a flashlight on them. When you tell me to point somewhere else, that's where I'll point. I've got you. I've got a hand on your elbow."
His eyes stung. "...thank you."
...
Transfer students from North Park, two boys from English, watched and whispered in the back, lips pulled back like grinning dogs as Stan passed out after yelling about Sylvia Plath. Now they were following Stan and Kyle down the street, dodging dog-walkers and people on scooters.
"Sylvia! Hey, Syl-vi-ah!" Their cackles cracked like pistol shots in the cold air.
Transfer students from North Park, two boys from English, watched and whispered in the back, lips pulled back like grinning dogs as Stan passed out after yelling about Sylvia Plath. Now they were following Stan and Kyle down the street, dodging dog-walkers and people of scooters.
Stan knew he had yelled for himself. Once again, he took something ordinary to anyone else, and made it personal. Made it about himself. Inklings of his father surfaced in his mannerisms and he hated it. Maybe he should have told Dr. Kathy about that too, but they ran out of time.
"Sylllviaaahhh..."
Stan shook his head when he felt Kyle look at him.
"Just keep walking," he said, huddling closer onto his coat sleeve. Kyle smelled like an evergreen.
"Sylvia... Syl-vi-ah!"
A sound from Kyle's throat: groaning. Or growling? Stan couldn't tell. He squeezed his hand.
"Why are you passing out in class, Sylvia? Shit, we thought you were dead."
Kyle couldn't stop himself. He glared over his shoulder. "Leave us alone."
"Fuck off, Broflovski," the taller one said.
Jeremy, Stan told their parents later. The guy who started it was Jeremy Phillips. Jeremy had a pinched pink nose and beady eyes. Kyle thought he looked like a rat. Thought he acted like one too.
"No, you fuck off," Kyle stopped and turned to face them. The people in the laundromat next to them peered out of the windows curiously. Stan tried to pull him away.
The shorter one, in an Izod polo and wire-framed glasses, began to laugh. "You know what people say about you guys, right?"
"No, and we don't care," Stan snapped. "Don't you guys have anything better to do?"
"Ouch," Jeremy mockingly placed a hand over his chest. "That hurts, Sylvia. It really does."
The short one laughed again. "Well, I think Kyle here is a vampire, and Stan just needs to keep him fed."
"You do sparkle, Broflovski."
"You really do."
"You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about," Stan said. He was shaking - half with rage, and half pity. I hope you never have to go through what I've gone through, he wanted to say. I hope you never know what it's like to feel your brain on fire, to want to hurt yourself because you're so numb with pain that you need more pain to feel alive again, to cry so harshly and so long that you can't speak, and it doesn't even matter because everything you say is wrong, wrong, wrong...
But he knew - he could see it in their grins with all their teeth - they weren't an audience to empathy, incapable of placing themselves in situations where they were, in their opinion, underdogs.
Kyle took a step forward. "Leave us alone, or I'm calling the police."
Jeremy scoffed, "Sure you will. My dad's a lawyer."
"Mine is too," Kyle laughed a laugh almost as cruel as their offenders' cackles. "And a skeevy one too. You'll be fucked."
"Figures," Jeremy huffed. "There's one in every family for your kind."
Kyle rolled his eyes. "That's a cheap shot, dude. I'm guessing originality isn't your strong point. You just fall to the waves like every other person in this asshole town."
"So? You have nothing else going on for you besides being a Jew and a fag."
Stan's mouth popped open. Why wasn't anyone intervening? They could all clearly hear, yet they walked around the boys, pulling up their coat collars up to their ears like meek, ignorant vampires.
Kyle seemed to shut down for a moment. No one had called him that since Cartman. Temporarily, he was ten years old again, thrown back on the horizon of time. Then older Kyle returned just as quickly as he'd been lost, a serene expression waxed over his face.
"That's a playground insult," he said with a smile. "Like I said: cheap shot. Your insults are boring. You're boring. And we're going to leave now. C'mon, Stan."
Izod Shirt walked in front of Stan, eyeing him up and down. "You crying, Marsh?"
"Let him be," Kyle warned.
"Why? What's he gonna do?" Jeremy chuckled. "Bleed on us?"
In Stan's eyes, Kyle became a forest fire, tearing across space between them. He headbutted Jeremy, sending him to the sidewalk. All Kyle remembered was seeing red, his heart flaring and his blood buzzing. Then Stan followed, beating down the other kid until bystanders were forced to separate them.