I Was Ripped Apart But Held By Glue

NINE

“There’s no need to be so nervous,” Brendon tells me, quickly kissing the tip of my nose. It’s Wednesday afternoon and we’re waiting for the psychiatrist to arrive at my house. She should have gotten here five minutes ago, but I guess she must be stuck in traffic or so. “Everything is going to be fine. Even more: things will get better from now on, with her help,” he adds and I hope from the bottom of my heart that he’s right. I really don’t see how I will ever be able to talk to a woman I have never met before. It I don’t even want to talk to my best friends about my fucked up life and how I killed my mother, how will I be able to tell a strange woman? It’s impossible. “And I’ll be here the entire time, so you have nothing to be scared about,” he says when he sees my still worried expression.

The room goes silent again, until the door bell rings, nearly making me jump up in the air. The moment of truth is approaching. Brendon gets up and goes to the little hallway, to open the door. When he gets back, there’s a middle-aged woman walking right behind him.
“Good afternoon, I’m Konstantine Andrews,” she introduces herself. Konstantine. Just like the song. She stretches her arm, holding her hand in front of me. I look at it for a few seconds and then I shake it.

“Ryan Ross,” I mumble and let go of her hand. For some reason, her name puts me at ease. It can’t be a coincidence that her name is Konstantine.

“Nice to meet you, Ryan.” She smiles, showing her white teeth.

“Sit down,” Brendon says, motioning his hand to the armchair. He sits down next to me again, in the larger sofa, and takes my hand in his, giving it a soft, assuring squeeze. Konstantine sits down in the armchair and for about a minute, there’s a silence.

“So, Ryan, is there something, anything, you’d like to tell me about yourself?” Konstantine asks, still smiling. “It doesn’t matter what. You can talk about your favourite food, your band, your boyfriend, just whatever you feel like talking about,” she says, keeping her gaze fixated on me.

“I don’t know,” I answer and try to pull Brendon closer to me, the only problem is that he is already pressed as close to me as possible.

“Just take your time, there’s no need to rush things,” Konstantine tells me. What the fuck am I supposed to say? This is stupid; I haven’t got anything to tell her. But then, I have to think about the song again, it seems that I can’t escape from the fact that her name is the same as the title of the song.

“Your name,” I start, staring at her. “It’s the same as the title of my favourite song,” I tell her and then everything goes silent again for a few seconds.

“Oh really?” she wonders out loud. “Tell me something about the song.”

“Well, it’s a nine minute and a half piano song by a band called Something Corporate,” I tell her and this feels fine. I can talk to her about music, not me, but music. I can live with this.

“But I like it more when Brendon sings it for me,” I add, remembering the night when Brendon sang the entire song for me. I let out a long sigh and lean my head against Brendon’s.

“Does he do that a lot?” she questions, quickly glancing at Brendon and then looking back at me.

“No,” I answer, shaking my head. “He sang it just once. But I really liked that,” I add, shrugging my shoulders. “I just like everything he sings, I guess. He’s got a really beautiful voice, so when he sings my favourite song it’s only normal that I really love it, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Konstantine replies, tapping her knee a few times with her index finger. “Why did he sing it that one time? You told me it was a song of nine minutes and a half, that’s quite long, so I guess it was a special occasion, or am I wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I say, fiddling a bit with the hem of my shirt. “I had just woken up because I had to pee and when I came back from the toilet, Brendon and I were lying in the bed together and he just sang it.”

“And how did that make you feel?”
I stay quiet for a little while, not really knowing whether I should answer that question or not. She hasn’t got any business with what I am feeling. But then again, it’s just about the song, right?

“It made me feel relaxed,” I eventually tell her, not wanting to let her know that I felt like I had escaped into a different world where I was happy for once. She’ll think I’m a nutcase.

“Does Brendon always make you feel like that?”
I don’t have to think twice about that. Of course he does. He’s the only one that can make me feel relaxed.

“Yeah, he always does.” I smile and turn to Brendon, looking into his dark brown eyes for a few seconds.

“How long have you been together?” she asks. Heh. We’ve only been together for a week, but it seems so much longer, because of all the things that have happened. I think that our relationship is at a really high emotional level. He has seen me at my worse and still seems to love me. I think that is pretty special.

“A week,” I simply answer and at this, she cocks an eyebrow.

“Only a week? I thought you were together for a lot longer because you just seem really close, closer than most couples that have been together for just a week,” she says, obviously surprised. “Why do you think that is?” she questions. I sigh deeply and avert my eyes from her. I don’t want to talk to her about this, it’s too personal. Instead of giving her an answer, I just shrug my shoulders and keep my lips pressed together. “Is it because he looks after you when you’re not feeling good about yourself?” she then asks. I roll my eyes. I knew there would be questions like this; questions I don’t want to give her an answer to. I stay silent and just look at a spot behind her so I don’t have to meet her gaze.

“Are you uncomfortable when I ask things that have to do with your depression?”

“Yeah, so please don’t,” I immediately reply, still not looking at her.

“Brendon told me that you don’t like to talk about your feelings with anyone but him. Maybe you’re more comfortable when you’re looking at him. Just lay your head down in his lap and look up at him. Imagine that I’m not here. Talk to Brendon, it’ll make you feel more at ease,” she suggests, nodding her head at Brendon. But she’ll still be here. It’s no difference, it’s not because I can’t see her that she can’t hear me, I’m not dumb. When I don’t make a move, Brendon gently pokes me in the side.

“Come here,” he mutters and pulls me into a lying position. I sigh, swing my legs on the sofa and rest my head on his lap. “Just try to do this, please,” he whispers, letting his fingers flow through my hair. “Just don’t think about her, think it’s me you’re talking to. It’s just us now,” he adds, resting his left hand on my chest, close to my heart. I bet he can feel it beating like mad.

“Tell Brendon why you feel so bad about yourself,” Konstantine starts and the way she says those words, it feels as if she’s giving me an order, almost forcing me to talk. But I can’t. She’s still in the room and she can still hear me, so I won’t say a thing.

“Come on Ryan, you can tell me,” Brendon says after a minute of silence. His right hand is still stroking my hair, but then he stops and brings his other hand to my head as well and starts massaging my scalp. I shake my head, small tears pricking at the back of my eyes.

“Not when she can hear me,” I mutter, sniffing once. “I don’t want that.”

“Maybe another question then,” Konstantine speaks. “Maybe you can tell something about your youth. Where did you grow up?”

“I didn’t have a youth,” I mumble quietly, closing my eyes and already regretting I had said something, but I couldn’t help it. The words had escaped my mouth before I even knew I had been thinking them.

“Why do think you didn’t have a youth?”
I keep my mouth shut and just think of Brendon. Brendon’s body heat. Brendon’s hands in my hair, massaging my scalp. My head resting in Brendon’s lap. Brendon’s chest that is calmly rising and falling as he breathes. Brendon’s soft voice. Brendon’s love for me. And then, suddenly, it really is just me and Brendon in this room. I keep my eyes closed and fixate on feeling Brendon.

“My dad took my youth away,” I whisper and for a few seconds, the movements of Brendon’s hands stop. He doesn’t know any of this. No one does.

“How?” Brendon asks, his voice low and sounding sad. “What did he do to you, Ry?”

“He-he hit me,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “And sometimes, he’d lock me up in a closet and then he’d do things with my mom,” I continue and I blindly search Brendon’s hand. I lay my own on top of it and the he entangles our fingers, softly squeezing my hand to let me know it’s okay. “O-one time, my mom had unlocked the closet, but my dad saw it and he pushed her on the floor. Then he pissed on me,” I bring out and burst out into tears at the horrifying memory.

“Sssht,” Brendon shushes me and pulls me up a bit. He wraps both his arms around me and hugs me tightly as I keep on crying. “That’s over now,” he whispers, rubbing my back. “You’re here with me now, I won’t let anything bad like that ever happen to you again,” he tells me and then he slips me off his lap. He stands up, bends down and picks me up. “You should get some sleep now,” he mutters in my ear. He brings me up the stairs and into my bedroom. I’m still clutching to my mother’s blanket.

“I’ll be right back,” Brendon assures me, kisses my cheek and then he leaves the room again. I knew this therapy thing would be a bad idea. It only got me more depressed. I don’t want to think of my father and everything he did to me and my mom. Because then I also have to think of how I killed my mom. My entire life, I have tried to push it away, but it always has kept on haunting me. I can still remember my dad’s face right after mom had opened the closet door to let me out. He looked as if he had been bitten by a rabid dog. When he unzipped his pants, I thought he was going to rape me, just like he did with my mom but I was ‘lucky’ because he just pissed on me, telling me it was the only thing I was good for. A piss-pot. Mom was lying on the floor, still bleeding and whimpering. She begged him to stop, but that had only earned her a kick in the stomach.

“Are you alright?” Brendon asks, lying down next to me. I shake my head, tears still richly flowing down my cheeks. “I didn’t know about those things, I’m so sorry, Ry,” he whispers, pressing my head against his chest. “You don’t deserve all this misery,” he adds and even though I keep my eyes closed, I’m sure he’s crying as well. I can hear it in his voice. The room goes silent, except for my sniffs and sobs, but after a few minutes, Brendon starts singing. This time, it’s a song I don’t know. I try to listen to the words, but all I can really hear is how beautiful Brendon’s voice sounds. When he’s done singing this song, he starts another one, one that I do know. Round Here. Somewhere halfway through the song, I start to drift off into sleep and even before he gets to finish singing the song, I am sleeping.

***

“What’s this?” I ask, picking up a little piece of paper from the kitchen counter and suspiciously eye it. It looks like a doctor’s prescription.

“It’s a prescription for anti-depressants,” Brendon answers, walking over to me. “Konstantine gave it to me yesterday, before she left. She said it really helps,” he explains, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I bite my lip. Pills.

“I don’t want pills,” I tell Brendon, throwing the prescription back on the counter. “I’ll get addicted to them,” I add, leaning my head backwards, against his shoulder. “And besides, they probably have horrible side effects.”

“You won’t get addicted if you follow prescribed doses and I’m sure the side effects are limited,” he replies, picking the prescription back up. “You should give it a try. If they don’t have any positive effect after a week, you can stop with them and continue with just therapy,” he says, holding the prescription in front of our faces. I look at it for a while, thinking. A week won’t do any harm, will it? I sigh and take the piece of paper from him.