Aaron (29 page)

“
W
HYdo you think the grounding didn’t work?” Dr. Thomas asked him as he sat curled in a tight ball in the supple overstuffed armchair in the rec room. The chocolate leather almost swallowed his tiny frame, but it made him comfortable. He couldn’t say he felt safe, exactly, but usually he felt content. He couldn’t quite muster contentment right then, because Spencer had been extraordinarily quiet throughout class, on the ride to his house, and as he sat on the floor in Aaron’s therapy session. He couldn’t help but feel that Spencer was angry with him for some reason, or maybe he just didn’t want to hang around with the freak anymore. Aaron could certainly understand that. It had taken every ounce of self-determination to overcome the humiliation of what happened on Friday and walk back into the classroom. He hated facing Spencer and facing Dr. Mayer feeling so fucking weak, so inferior to every other person on the planet.

“I don’t know,” Aaron said automatically, shrugging and pulling his arms closer around his body. If he pulled in on himself tight enough, maybe he would disappear. He wanted to disappear—especially if it meant he could be away from Spencer’s gaze. He lived in a huge spotlight, and the bright intensity of it highlighted his every flaw.

“Today I want to work on identifying some of your triggers. If you can learn to avoid those triggers or at least control your reaction to them, you’ll have less of these debilitating episodes,” Spencer’s father said as he sat back on the couch and wrote something down in his little notebook. The tape recorder, ever present, sat in the middle of the table in front of Aaron. It pointed at him accusingly. “Now, walk me through what happened just before the event.”

Aaron sighed. He’d tried so hard all weekend not to fucking think about it, and now Dr. Thomas wanted a play-by-play. Every time he thought about what happened, he only saw Spencer’s frightened face.

“Dr. Mayer had just told me he wanted me to TA for him.” He couldn’t look up at them, the shame of his setback burning in his stomach. “He kept hounding me about it. The room got really small, and I had to get out of there. I didn’t know what else to do. When I turned around to leave, I ran into someone. I felt the pain as we collided. A pain shot through my head, and it started. All of a sudden the classroom kind of melted away and I was back in the garage. Juliette was screaming. The men were there.” Aaron closed his eyes, trying to block out the images he saw in his head.

“Okay, stop there. What do you think triggered the flashback? Was it the pain, or running into the person? What are some other factors? Were you tired or stressed at all?” Dr. Thomas asked as he scribbled furiously on his little pad.

Aaron tried to think back to that moment and remember with perfect clarity the classroom where he and Spencer showed Dr. Mayer their project. Things had been going so well until Dr. Mayer brought up the subject of being a TA.

“I think it started with the stress and humiliation of the conversation,” Aaron reasoned. “A normal person could have talked to their professor about working for him, but all I could think about was how horribly I would fail. I couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be counted on. Rainy days leave me incapacitated in bed, and then what would he do?”

“So, it started with a fear of failure.”

 

“It started with me being a coward,” Aaron argued and sunk deeper into the chair, trying to get lost in its depths.

“You. Are. Not. A Coward.!” Spencer cried, and Aaron looked over at him, startled. He noticed that Dr. Thomas was also watching his son. “You. Are. So. Brave. Just. For. Living.. I. Do. Not. Know. If. I. Could..”

“That isn’t bravery, Spencer. I don’t have any other choice,” Aaron clarified. Spencer rocked back and forth slightly in his position on the floor but didn’t make any move to get up or move closer to Aaron.

Aaron

 

“Have you had thoughts of suicide?” Dr. Thomas asked, and Aaron hesitated. He had—many of them, but he didn’t trust the good doctor enough to voice these episodes aloud. He knew that if Dr. Thomas thought him a danger to himself, he’d have no choice but to lock Aaron up somewhere. He’d be in a cell away from his family, away from Spencer. His throat constricted around the answer, but he couldn’t lie.

“Doesn’t everyone from time to time?” Aaron answered evasively.

“That. Is. Not. An. Answer.,” Spencer said quietly, and Aaron saw the desperate sadness in his friend’s face. Aaron traced the creases in the arm of the leather chair with his fingers, staring intently at his progress. He didn’t have an answer they wanted to hear, so he decided on the truth.

“Sometimes,” he whispered. A long line in the leather near the edge of the chair took an inordinately long time to draw with his finger while silence stretched in the rec room. All Aaron heard was the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room. He counted along with the seconds, trying to distract his mind from the dark thoughts that threatened to invade it.

1… 2… 3… 4….
“Have you ever tried?” Dr. Thomas asked.
8… 9… 10… 11….
“No.”
“Do you have a plan of how you would do it? A time? A place?”
15… 16… 17… 18….

“I’ve thought about hanging myself in the garage, but I can’t stand the thought of one of my little brothers finding me, or my mom, or really anyone in my family. I’ve put them through so fucking much. They don’t need that in their heads forever. I have enough in my head for all of us.” Aaron’s voice cracked with the weight of just exactly what was in his head.

24… 25… 26… 27….

“Aaron, while I don’t think it’s healthy for you to have these thoughts, it’s not unreasonable given what you’ve been through. You don’t have a concrete plan. You don’t have a history of suicide attempts. You’re starting to form a support network. You’re working through your

emotions in therapy. I’m concerned, but not to the point where I would have any legal basis to admit you for observation. That scares you, doesn’t it?”

Dr. Thomas dropped his notepad on the couch and sat forward with his elbows on his knees. His hazel eyes, so like his son’s, were intent on Aaron’s. Aaron nodded. Glancing over, he saw the concern and fear in Spencer’s eyes and for a moment forgot about counting the seconds with the clock to distract him. An overpowering need to hug Spencer took hold of Aaron’s heart. He couldn’t think of anything else.

In the next second, it was gone.

“Let’s get back to your triggers. Your flashback at the school appeared to be caused by a combination of stress and bumping into the other student,” Dr. Thomas said as he picked up his notebook again and began writing. “What about a flashback you’ve had before that. Do you remember your last one?”

Aaron thought back. The subject made his skin crawl with unpleasant anxiety. He remembered seeing Allen standing in the living room with his date. He remembered with horrifying accuracy the look of rage on his brother’s face as he lost control. God, he hated ruining Allen’s first date, one of his first real chances at normalcy since Aaron had fucked up his life.

“What is it?” Dr. Thomas asked, no doubt having read the flickering emotions on his face.

 

Aaron took a deep breath.

 

“Whatever it is, you’re safe from it here. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

He snorted. The good doctor didn’t understand that Aaron wasn’t safe anywhere, not from the men who had stolen his life because they were still roaming free, not from the screaming in his head, and certainly not from the crash he’d experience if Spencer decided Aaron wasn’t worth the effort. Aaron blinked, unsure where the last thought came from. Trying not to revisit that idea, he answered Dr. Thomas.

“I’d taken a nap in the afternoon and experienced a really bad nightmare. As I woke, I heard someone knocking on the door or ringing the bell—I don’t remember exactly.” Aaron closed his eyes, concentrating on the memory so he could relay it accurately. “I went downstairs because I thought the men had come back for me. I didn’t want them to hurt my family. Allen was standing at the door with a date. He wore his letterman’s jacket, just like the one I’d been wearing. I freaked out and had a complete meltdown in the living room. I’m pretty sure the poor girl hasn’t spoken to Allen since.”

“So you’d woken from a dream and were already vulnerable and stressed. You saw someone that looked like you had the night you were attacked. So stress was a factor, just like in the flashback in the classroom, and there was also a visual reminder.” Dr. Thomas’s voice was thoughtful as he wrote. “That’s enough to work with for today. We’re coming up on an hour, and I don’t want to take on too much at a time. Tonight, I want you to find a safe place in your house and try to think of other triggers. You can write them on a piece of paper or put them on the blog, but make sure you’re not alone when you work. Tomorrow, I want to work on a few stress reducing exercises, because that is usually a common trigger for individuals suffering with PTSD.”

“I can do that. My mom will love it if I do some homework at the kitchen table. I haven’t done that since we worked through my homeschool stuff together. I think she feels like what I’m doing now is out of her league.”

“Do. You. Want. To. Play. A. Game.?” Spencer asked as his father gathered up his stuff and wandered out of the room. Aaron wasn’t sure if he wanted to give them some time to talk or if he had something else to do.