You Belong With Me

Alex’s P.O.V.

Everything about my life pretty much sucked. Nothing was interesting to me anymore and I didn’t really care about anything. So what if I failed a math test or got suspended because my principal somehow found out I was drinking on school property? None of it mattered anymore, not when the rest of my life lay deep in the pits of hell.

Winter break came and went in a blur. Taylor, Jack, Zack, and Rian did their best to take me out and distract me. It worked sometimes, but, every time I closed my eyes, I still saw my brother lying dead in that hospital bed or Katelyn kissing another guy at my party. It was finally time to go back to school and I couldn’t be more relieved. The only thing I could do when I was suspended was sit at home and think of how much my life sucked. Now I could be somewhat distracted for at least six hours of the day instead of none.

I noticed that my friends had become a lot more careful around me; they watched what they said and they always made sure we were doing something I would enjoy. They did not say or do anything that had the slightest possibility of upsetting me. Taylor would look at me with concern in her eyes when she thought I couldn’t see. I knew my behaviour was worrying them, but there was nothing I could do to stop myself or make myself snap out of it. My life was my prison.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Taylor had said to me the day after the party and wondered if a therapist was really what I needed. However, there were two things I was sure of: a) I was hurting her by behaving like this and b) it would make her feel better if I saw someone. I decided that it couldn’t hurt to try it out. If it made her feel better, it was worth it. I would give it a shot.

When I told my dad what I was going to do, he was very supportive and found the best therapist we could afford under our health insurance. However, when I told my mom, she didn’t even blink twice. It was decided that my first session with Dr. Greene would today, January 4th, in the afternoon after my first day back at school.

The day carried on like any other boring day at school. I sat next to Jack in most of my classes, but we were able to say very little to each other because teachers had learned to watch us like hawks. When it came time for lunch, I took the long way to get to my locker so that I wouldn’t have to run into Katelyn; I was afraid of what I might do to her if I did.

Five minutes later, I walked into the cafeteria and joined the lunch line like normal. I gazed around the room trying to find where Taylor and Jack were sitting. When I found them, they were laughing and playfully throwing food at each other. They looked so happy and perfectly content. I stared at them more closely as a thought occurred to me: they were good for each other.

Jack could give Taylor what I couldn’t right now: what she deserved. He was funny, lively, full of life, all of which I wasn’t. He could care for her and love her in a way that I couldn’t. For some reason, that made me sad. I knew they should be together, but I definitely didn’t want them to be. Some may have said that it was because I would have felt like a third wheel if they got together, but that wasn’t the reason. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want Taylor to be with Jack; I didn’t want Taylor to be with anybody. How selfish was I?

The person behind me gave me a little push and I saw that the line had moved up a lot. I paid for my food and sat down next to Jack. They stopped their miniature food fight and directed their attention at me.

“Hey,” said Taylor. “How has your day been?”

“Normal,” I said simply. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Well that’s good. At least nothing bad happened.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said as I began to eat my food. After a few minutes of silence, I realized I was being rude, so I asked, “How were both of your days?”

“Fine,” Taylor said. “It’s hard getting back into the swing of things when we’ve been off for so long.”

“Man, my day fucking sucked!” Jack burst out. “I hate school. I can’t wait until we graduate. I loved not having to wake up early or worry about anything all last week. It fucking sucks to be back. And to top it all off, Taylor was mean to me right before you got here. She told me I look like a monkey!”

“But that was after you called me a poodle!” Taylor defended herself.

Jack ignored her comment. “And then she had the nerve to throw food at me! Can you believe it? How dare she do such a thing?”

“Oh, the blasphemy!” I said sarcastically.

“What’s ‘blasphemy’?” Jack asked. His eyebrows crinkled in confusion.

Taylor and I looked at each other and laughed. Jack really was a special human being.

“What?” he asked. “Stop laughing at me! I always failed those stupid vocabulary tests!”

“’Blasphemy’ is like another word for abuse,” said Taylor through her laughter.

“Oh” was all that Jack said and he sat back in his chair and pouted.

“So, um, Alex,” Taylor said awkwardly, “Your first therapy session is after school today, right?” I nodded, so she asked, “Do you need me to come with you?”

I took a moment to think it over then responded, “No, I don’t think so. I think this is something I need to do on my own. Thank you, though.”

“Ok,” she said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will. Jack, can you give her a ride home?” It was my turn to drive to school today, but I just remembered that I would not have any time to drop Taylor off after school.

“Yeah, of course.”

Did you ever notice that time speeds by when you don’t want it to? The rest of the school day flew by and soon I found myself driving in my car on the way to my appointment. The butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I turned into the parking lot. I had never been put in the position where I had to talk about myself and my problems with someone I did not know. I parked the car and walked inside as slowly as I could.

I went inside, signed in at the front desk, and sat down to look at the room. This practice was different than any other doctor’s office I had been to. For one thing, the waiting room was empty except for the receptionist who sat behind the desk reading a magazine. The walls were all white except for one painting that hung above the ten blue flowery chairs that sat on the blue rug in an ‘L’ shape. A TV hung in the corner of the small room right next to the door that led into the office and a stack of magazines lay right under it. I picked up a random magazine and began to flip through it mindlessly.

Five minutes later, the door opened and closed and an older man walked quietly out of the office. I heard shuffling behind the desk and then the door opened again to reveal a woman in her forties wearing a gray suit with a white blouse underneath. Her light brown hair hung loosely around her shoulders and she put on her black-rimmed glasses as she picked up my file and called my name. I got up and followed her into her private room.

The room immediately reminded me of The Sopranos; there were just two dark gray chairs in the room sitting across from each others. The walls were painted silver and the rug was dark gray. A bookshelf and a desk stood off to the side and there was one small window of light in the back of the room.

As soon as the doors closed, she held out her hand for me to shake and smiled. “Hi, Alex, I’m Dr. Greene.”

“Hi,” I said, shaking her hand.

She motioned over to the chairs, so I sat down. She walked over to her desk and took out a notebook and pen.

“If it’s ok with you, Alex, I would like to take some notes during our session just so that I can keep track of everything,” she said as she walked over and sat down in the chair opposite me. “I keep everything I write down about my patients in a locked filing cabinet that only I have the key to, so no one else will see it.”

I nodded. “That’s fine.”

“Ok, good,” she said smiling warmly at me. “So, tell me about yourself. What brings you here today?”

“Um, well,” I began hesitantly. “Almost everything in my life has changed drastically in the last month. I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“Explain what you mean by that. How has your life changed?”

“In a nutshell, my best friend and big brother committed suicide the day before Thanksgiving. Two weeks later, I found out that the girl I was in love with had never felt the same way and was cheating on me. I haven’t been sleeping the whole night through ever since my brother died.”

“Well, that certainly is a big change. Tell me about your relationship with your brother.”

“He was one of the best people I have ever known. He was one of the only people in my life who literally knew everything about me. Even if I tried to keep a secret from him, I couldn’t because he could always see right through me. Sometimes, he would come home from school if he felt that I needed him or just to see me.”

“Why do you think he committed suicide?”

“He wanted to be a professional soccer player, but then he got notice that he failed a class and got kicked off his school’s soccer team, which crushed his dreams. In his mind, he must have thought that no coach would accept a player who could not pass a college math course. Apparently, he was in a fight with his girlfriend too and he thought they were over, so he decided that it was over for him.”

“This might seem like a rhetorical question, but how does that make you feel?”

“I feel so many different things that I can’t put it all into just one word. At first, I felt extremely angry that he did this to himself. How could he kill himself without even giving a second thought to how it would affect his family? And then of course I felt immense pain at the loss. The thought occurred to me that my brother’s death was probably partly my fault.”
“What makes you say that?” Dr. Greene asked as she scribbled away in her notebook.
“I’m in a band and I have played at a lot of big shows. My parents always showed great pride in my talent and they always came to almost every concert I had. There were times when my mom would ask me to sing for her just out of the blue. When it came to Eric’s soccer talent, they never gave it much thought and, when they did, they pressured him to be better. My parents never gave him the attention he deserved and I was the one that was taking it away.”

“Did Eric ever tell you that he felt overshadowed by you?”

“No, of course not. He would never want to hurt my feelings or admit his weakness.”

“Do you think it’s possible that you could be blaming yourself because you don’t want to blame him?”

I looked down at my hands. “No, I don’t think so.”

“And why is that?”

“My mom told me it was my fault that my brother is dead.”

“What exactly did she say to you?”

“A few weeks ago, I did a Christmas concert with Taylor because it’s something we do every year and I was trying to return back to my normal life. The day after the concert, I came into her room and she was lying in bed, which is all she does ever since Eric died. I tried to tell her about the concert and how I found out my girlfriend cheated on me, but she turned to me with cold, apathetic eyes and told me how she couldn’t understand how I could just forget about my brother like that. She proceeded to say that I was selfish and undeserving of love and that I purposely tried to make my brother’s life a living hell. The following week, I wouldn’t say anything to anybody. My friends thought it was because of what happened with my girlfriend, but it was mostly because I believed what my mother said. Sometimes, I still do.”

“You said that your mother has been staying in bed ever since the death, which is a sure sign that she’s suffering from some form of depression. Do you think she was in her right mind when she was saying all these horrible things to you?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think so.”

“What’s most likely happening is that your mother really blames herself for your brother’s death and she’s taking it out on everyone else.”

I nodded. “That might be true.”

“Now, before you said that you were suffering from insomnia; you haven’t slept one full night since your brother died. Is it because you are having nightmares or you just can’t physically fall asleep?”

“Both, I guess. Every time I close my eyes, I see my brother’s dead body and then that gets me to thinking about him and what happened. All that pain comes right back and hits me again like it just happened yesterday.”

“Hmm and this happens every night?”

“Every night.”

She looked down at my file. “It says here that you were suspended from school last month. What did you do?”

“I was caught drinking on school property. I decided that my life was in hell already and nothing could make it worse than it was, so I brought the beer to school and drank it in class because I failed a math test. I was sent home fifteen minutes later.”

She nodded and took a quick look at her watch.

“It appears we are almost out of time already, but I have one last question for you. Are you allergic to any medications?”

“Not that I know of, why?”

“What do you think of going on antidepressants?”

“Would it help?”

“I think it would. It will help to heighten your mood a little bit, which will hopefully lead to you sleeping better and feeling better all around. Of course, you would have to talk to your parents about it and we would have to talk about which medication to put you on. What do you think?”

“I’m willing to try it.”

“Ok, so then how about you come in the same time on Wednesday and we can discuss it further?”

“All right.”

She stood up and held her hand out to me again. I got up and shook it. “It was nice to meet you, Alex,” she said. “I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday. Don’t forget to talk to your parents.”

“Yeah, I won’t. I’ll see you then,” I said and I walked out of the office and into freedom once more. For some reason, I felt a little bit lighter as I was walking out to my car, as if a heavy burden was slowly being lifted off my back. Maybe this whole therapy thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.