I wanted my eyes to stay shut but they disobediently opened and looked around the room. I willed them to close so I could at least pretend I was somewhere else but they denied me even that indulgence. I knew part of me was to blame because I was deliberately torturing myself. I controlled my eyes and I should have squeezed them shut, instead I found myself being forced to look around the hospital room.
As I stared at the dry erase board with my nurse's name and my bed number I was filled with the feeling of a strange sadness blowing my heart up like an over-inflated balloon. It was the kind of sadness that couldn't be released by tears and wouldn't be suppressed by burning or deflated by cutting. The sadness wasn't painful and it wasn't based on any particular event but the sadness was all consuming; I felt it in my bones as if it had always been there and I sensed it rampaging through my veins as if it were seeking new places to claim. The feeling was overwhelming so I lied perfectly still on my hospital bed, paralyzed by an unseen enemy and powerless to stop the onslaught.
I stared at the small television bolted to the corner of the room and I thought about watching television with Tom but all that served to do was convert what was once a warm memory into something almost ugly. The twinge of happiness I was mentally pursuing seemed to move out of my grasp but it remained ahead of me at just the right distance to give me the false impression that I could reach it if I worked a little harder. I wasn't trying to make myself happy; I was just trying to be a little less depressed because I didn't want Tom to think I wasn't even stable enough to handle one stupid night in a hospital.
I thought about how I felt when Tom kissed me in my room. The actual memory was vivid and I could see the joy on Tom's face and I knew I had enjoyed the moment as much as Tom if not more, but my sadness prevented me from feeling the ecstasy of the moment. Chasing the memory around in my mind seemed the mental equivalent of a rabbit on a treadmill with a carrot dangling in front of it on a string. What I was doing or at least trying to do was pointless so I gave in to the sadness.
After lying in the bed for almost an hour, I realized I had no reason to be happy about any aspect of my life. No one really cared about me. I was alone in the world. I was born alone and I would die alone. Who could love me? I was beyond pathetic and I lacked the attractiveness necessary to combat my lameness and overshadow my other flaws. I was screwed in the personality department and I couldn't deny that my life sucked.
Just when I thought I was staring down the barrel of sadness, Tom appeared like an angel, standing at the foot of my bed with the rays of the sun cutting through the blinds and shining only on him. His smile alone was enough to poke a hole in my heavy heart and let the horrible feeling bleed out quickly.
"What are you doing here so early?" I asked.
"I called in a few favors," he responded. He winked at me and then nodded at someone who was hidden by the curtain that partitioned the room in to two halves. I assumed he was nodding at my roommate, whom I had not met yet.
I realized I was wrong when his mother and father walked in to view. His mother came over to me and hugged me as she said, "We were so worried about you last night. I had to come see you before I started working."
His father surprised me when he hugged me too. "I hope you're feeling better," he said.
"Much better," I replied.
His mother first asked me what happened to my face and then she informed me that I needed some new gauze because my wound had bled through the covering. Tom gave me a strange look and I wondered what he was thinking because he knew my bruise had stopped bleeding long before I arrived at the hospital. His mother went on a tirade about the nurses and then she disappeared as she went to find someone to fix my gauze.
She returned a few minutes later with a woman named Liz. Liz took one look at the bandage on my face and rolled her eyes. I could tell she wanted to be there about as much as I did. She went to get tape and gauze and then she fixed me up. She left the room with a stern warning for me, "Don't pick at that bruise anymore. Let it heal."
I was tempted to ask her how she knew but I was too busy trying to gauge Tom's reaction. There was a small trace of a smile on his face but his eyes conveyed his disappointment. I bowed my head and hoped they would all go away. A few minutes later, Tom's parents left and it was just me and Tom and the anonymous stranger in the other bed.
Tom stood at the foot of my bed and brooded and I stared at him until I couldn't take it anymore. "Say it," I ordered.
"Why couldn't you go one night without hurting yourself?"
"I tried but," I wasn't sure if I should tell him that I was alone and overwhelmed and confused and angry and in a strange bed and haunted by thoughts of him.
"But what?"
"I was here and," my voice trailed off, "I don't know."
"You weren't able to deal with being here." I looked down at the white blanket on my bed and I didn't look back up until I felt Tom's hand pushing my hair back and tucking it behind my left ear. "It's my fault. I should have stayed."
"They wouldn't let you."
"I should have been more forceful. I should have told them who my mother was and demanded to spend the night here with you."
"Your mother isn't Chief of Staff, she's just a doctor who has an office in the medical building attached to the hospital."
"She works in this hospital sometimes."
I knew he wasn't going to give up so I decided to stop him. "Tom, it's okay. I know you couldn't be here and I know you wanted to. It's not your fault."
He kissed my forehead and said, "I wish I could always be there for you."
I sighed. "Don't start the day out being mushy. You're there for me when I need you and that's all that matters."
"You needed me last night and where was I? I was at home lying awake in my bed because I couldn't get to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I thought about you. I knew I should have been here."
"Tom"
He stopped talking and started playing with my hair. Then his face dropped. "I'm sorry." He kissed me on my forehead again.
"Why don't you try kissing a little lower," I teased.
He gave me a quick peck and moved to pull away but I took both of my hands and pulled him back in place. My right hand felt strange because of the IV but I wanted to keep Tom's lips on mine. I opened my mouth and traced his lips with my tongue. He pulled away and reminded me, "We're in the hospital."
"I know." I tightened my grip on the back of his head and tried to initiate a real kiss.
"I don't think your roommate wants to hear us making out," he whispered.
"Yes I do," said a strange voice.
Tom laughed and I blushed. I had assumed my roommate was still asleep. I took my hands off of Tom and sat there while Tom pulled the curtain back. My roommate was sitting on the side of his bed facing us. He looked like he was around our age. He had about an inch of blonde hair on his head. His eyes were green and he had a long scar on the left side of his face that stretched from his ear to his bottom lip.
"Hello," Tom said.
The guy extended his left hand, "The name's Richie."
Tom shook his hand. "I'm Tom."
"So I take it you're gay," Richie stated.
Tom giggled nervously and then said, "Yeah."
I couldn't see Tom's face, but Tom must have had a tortured look because Richie quickly blurted out, "That's cool."
"Oh, are you"
Richie cut Tom off, "I'm well, I'm different." Richie smiled then nodded towards me. "So who's the cutie in the bed?"
Tom let Richie's hand go and he walked over and put his hand on my shoulder, "This is my best friend Sam."
Richie waved. "Nice to meet you Sam. I take it you're gay too." I was speechless. Richie looked at Tom. "So is he your best friend and your boyfriend or is he your best friend with benefits?"
Tom put his arm around me. "He's my," he cleared his throat, "my boyfriend."
"First time you said it to someone, huh?" Tom didn't answer. "I was nervous when I told my parents about my first girlfriend. Of course I was a girl and she was a girl but,"
I was incredulous, "You're a girl?" I asked.
Richie looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights and then Richie's eyes found a spot on the floor, "Um, I was born a girl,"
I interrupted him or her, "So you're a lesbian?" I asked.
"No, it's not like that. I'm not a lesbian. I'm a boy."
"But you just said,"
Richie looked up. "I said I was born a girl, but look at me. Do I look like a girl?"
I found myself completely confused. I was looking at a boy. At least I thought I was looking at a boy but I suddenly started to see traces of feminine features. "So you're transgendered?" Tom questioned.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I am."
"How long have you been living as a boy?"
"Three years."
Tom seemed intrigued. "How old are you?"
"I'm seventeen."
"Your parents let you do this?" Tom asked.
"I told them I wanted to be a boy from the moment I started talking but they didn't listen until I tried to kill myself when I was thirteen. I guess they figured they would rather have me live as a freak than have me not live at all."
My first thought was that the doctor had committed me to the psych ward and no one was telling me. Luckily I didn't blurt out my first thought, but I did blurt out the second, "Do you share this with everyone you meet?"
Richie looked away from Tom and focused on me. "No."
"So why are you sharing with us?"
"I never met two openly gay people before. If you guys can be open about it then I should be open about who I am too."
I quickly corrected him, "We're not openly gay."
He looked confused, "But you were in here kissing and the door was still open and I was over here and you didn't seem to care."
"That doesn't mean we're ready to broadcast our relationship to the entire world."
Richie contemplated what I said. "Oh."
"So what are you doing here?" I asked.
I was waiting for Richie to say something about needing some psychological test but that was not the response I received. "My new girlfriend found out I was really a girl and she stabbed me."
"Who told her?" Tom asked. I wondered why the fuck Tom cared.
"My ex-girlfriend. She's one bitter lesbian. I had to break up with her because she wanted me to be a girl all the time and I'm not a girl."
I felt slow because I was unable to comprehend what Richie was saying. Richie was still a girl so how could she or he say otherwise. Richie had to have mental problems because that was the only explanation I could think of. I wanted to be a lot of things throughout my life but never at any point did I even consider being a girl. I was born a boy and I was content to live a depressing life as a boy and then die.
"But you are a girl," I told him.
"I am whatever I say I am," he responded.
"And what are you this morning," Liz asked as she walked in to the room.
"I am a boy trapped in a girl's body and"
"Matthew, how do you come up with these stories?"
"Too much free time and too much television."
She smiled and laughed at him then she handed him a little cup with some pills in it and poured him some water. He took the pills and handed the cup back to Liz. Liz rubbed his head and said, "I wish my son had just a fraction of your creativity."
"I wish I was your son," he replied. She didn't respond. She turned and glanced at me and then she left the room.
Tom spoke first, "Matthew, huh?" Matthew laughed. "It's not funny. Why would you pretend to be transgendered if you're not?"
"Because you guys took gay already."
"So you're gay?"
"No."
"Then why"
"Because saying I'm seventeen and I've spent most of my life in foster care doesn't sound as interesting."
"So that's the truth?" Tom asked.
Matthew winked, "Maybe."
"You're certifiable," I said out loud. The comment was a genuine slip of the tongue. Tom and Matthew both looked at me.
Matthew's entire demeanor changed, "Yeah, well at least I don't hurt myself."
"No, you just eavesdrop on other people's conversations and then make up lies about who you are because your real life sucks."
"Your life must suck too if you had to pick at a scab and force yourself to bleed just so you could feel a little better and I know you still felt like shit after the bleeding stopped."
He spoke with the certainty of someone who completely understood the dynamics of hurting yourself to feel better. He got it that no matter how much physical pain you inflicted on yourself, the pain was never enough to get rid of the real problem. Physical pain was a way to exert control over mental injuries but the pain could not make the injuries go away. The real problem was like snake venom flowing through your veins. Hurting yourself was the equivalent of sucking out the venom but never managing to get all of it; you felt better for a few minutes because you thought you got it and then you realized there was more but you were too weak to fight it so you laid back and tried to be one with the venom in your body because being one with it and embracing it was somehow soothing.
Matthew's expression softened and he turned his arm over and I saw tiny brownish lines. "I know all about the wounds that don't heal," he confessed. He pointed to a line on his wrist then he rubbed it. "This one was an accident," he said. "It happened when they took me away from my mother for the last time. I was eight and I fought the social worker because I knew what it meant to leave with him. I scratched my wrist on the door and started bleeding and then I didn't miss my mother as much." He sighed. "The first time was an accident but," he traced his finger up his arm, "since then, well, you know."
Tom looked at me and I knew what he was thinking, `Why would they put two of you in the same room?'
"So you, um, did that to your face?" I asked.
"No that's a gift from someone else."
"Oh."
His fingers kept tracing over his arm. "I don't cut anymore. I stopped last year. These are the scars that won't go away. I must have cut too deep or something." He laughed and I almost cringed because his laugh reminded me of my own.
"Why are you laughing?"
"My therapist sees symbolism in these scars, these tiny reminders of when life was too much and I felt too small to deal with it. He says each mark reflects a little piece of me crying out for help. I don't see them that way though. I see them as extensions of my mother's illness. She hurt me and when I was free of her, I hurt myself because someone had to do it. The pain reminded me of home and no matter where I was I always wished I was there. Every time I did it I felt at peace with the world. Like nothing else that hurt me mattered because I dictated what I could take."
I knew he was telling the truth because there was a look in his eyes that I had occasionally seen when I looked in the mirror. He hurt himself for different reasons than the ones I had, but the result was the same. He wanted to control what he felt and in some ways regulate his emotions and in the end, that was what I got from it as well.
He turned his arm back over. "I don't need to do it anymore. I have Jacqueline now."
"Who's Jacqueline?" I asked.
"Jackie is my sister."
"How old is she?"
"She's 1."
"Oh. Did your mother have her, too?"
He laughed like a hyena and then he stopped and looked at me. "Jackie is my hamster. My therapist told my old foster mother to get me a pet so when I moved I wouldn't have to be alone all the time. I guess he knew she wasn't going to keep me either. They never want to keep me, but its okay because I have Jackie now and Jackie wouldn't leave me. She's all the family I need." His gaze fell to the floor. "In three months I'm going to age out of the system and then it will just be me and her."
I felt horrible because I felt unwanted most of the time, but at least I had a family that sometimes showed signs of caring about me. Matthew had a hamster. No one wanted him. No one cared about him. No one missed him. He was literally alone in the world. I understood why he invented lies about his life and I wondered how he could find the strength to smile and laugh.
"I have to move to a new home once I'm discharged from here. They said Jackie is already there. She's probably worried about me because I haven't seen her in a few days." He stood up. "You want to see my other scars?" He didn't wait for us to say anything. I watched as he pulled up his hospital gown. He was wearing red briefs which made me smile and as I followed the gown up his body I found myself tingling with excitement until I saw MAMA'S BOY written in what looked like cigarette burns beneath his chest and then gauze over his right nipple area. "One of my foster brothers stabbed me because I told him I molested my little brother." Matthew dropped his gown and smirked, "How the hell was I supposed to know that his father had molested him? And even if his father did, that was no reason for him to stab me. I mean come on, he's not the only person in the world who has experienced the `bad touch.' I spent the first eleven years of my life thinking a person didn't love me if they didn't touch me like that." His face dropped and he glanced down for a second then he looked back up and he was smiling again. "I didn't do the burns. My mother did that when I was six. I told the social workers her boyfriend did it, but he didn't do it; he just held me down." Matthew looked over at us. "You want me to shut up, don't you? I'm talking too much. I always talk too much." He sat down on the bed and was eerily quiet.
Tom looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I was certain I had to be in the psych ward because Matthew was behaving oddly. Whatever pills he took seemed to be taking effect.
After an uncomfortable silence, Tom said, "You weren't talking too much."
"I know I was. I'm not good at pacing conversations when I'm being myself. I act more normal when I try to be someone else but I'm supposed to try to be myself more often. It's my unofficial homework from my therapist. I'm also supposed to try to make at least one friend besides Jackie." He stood again. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to use the restroom."
His comments made me smile on the inside because there were brief seconds when he seemed almost normal but he quickly marred those seconds with the insertion of details of his life that I thought were inappropriate to share with strangers. I didn't think he could help it.
Matthew walked in the bathroom and closed the door. I tapped Tom on his arm and whispered, "Tom, tell me the truth, is this the psych ward?"
He grinned. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Matthew seems a little"
Tom finished my sentence, "Disturbed?"
"Yeah. Is that how I act?"
"No."
I knew Tom was lying but I didn't want to push the issue. "I feel so sorry for him."
"Me too."
Matthew came out of the bathroom wiping his eyes. He sat down on the side of his bed and his face cracked in to a smile. The insincerity of his smile was written all over him, from the hopeless look in his eyes, to the way he sat slightly hunched forward with his head stuck in a position somewhere between bowing and confronting us head on. "I know you were talking about me," he stated. "You probably think I'm crazy."
"I can't call anyone crazy," I said.
He sat there watching us watching him until a skinny man with olive skin and short black hair walked in. "Hey Matt how's it going?"
"I can't complain."
"That's good to hear man. I heard yesterday was a bad day."
Matt squirmed slightly. "Yeah, it was."
"What happened?"
"I uh," Matt looked directly at me, "I'll tell you later." I almost thought he was talking to me.
"Alright, I'm here on business anyway." The guy looked at the clipboard in his hand and then he looked over at me. "I need to take you down for your tests. You can walk, can't you?"
"Yeah."
He walked over and put his hand on the pole that had my IV machine on it. "Okay I have the gurney in the hallway." The guy looked at Tom. "He should be back in about an hour."
Tom nodded, "Okay."
I couldn't tell if it was the ride on the gurney or being away from Tom that made me feel queasy. While riding down in the elevator, the guy asked, "So how do you like your roommate?"
"He seems okay," I lied, "but he talks a lot."
"He does that when he's nervous."
"Oh."
We got off on a floor and the guy wheeled me in to a room with a big machine. He told me someone would be in soon and then he left me there, alone. The sadness that had gone away when I saw Tom quickly returned and enveloped me. I started to feel paranoid like everyone including Tom was lying to me. They all thought I was crazy. Even Matthew looked at me as if I was just like him but I wasn't like him. I couldn't be.
My heart started beating extremely fast and I could tell by the tightening in my chest that whatever was wrong with me was happening again. I closed my eyes and tried to wade my way through the sensations. Someone touched my arm. I opened my eyes and there was a nurse standing over me. Her lips moved in slow motion, "Are you okay?"
All I could manage to do was shake my head `no.' I closed my eyes again and attempted to slow down my breathing. The woman kept talking to me and I responded the best I could until the tension subsided and I began to feel normal again. When I opened my eyes, I realized that she was not the only person in the room with me. There were a few nurses and Dr. Cunningham. The doctor asked me to describe the feelings I had and he noted everything and then he asked the nurse a few questions.
The doctor cancelled the tests and I was taken back to my hospital room. When I entered the room, I saw Matthew talking to a man and a woman. His eyes sparkled as he spoke with them. I noticed the curtain had been pulled to separate the two halves of the room. The guy transferred me from the gurney to my regular bed while Tom stood and stared at me then the guy left without saying anything to either of us.
Tom sat in the chair beside my bed and I whispered, "Who's over there with Matthew?"
"Those are his new foster parents," he replied. "So how were the tests?"
"They didn't do any."
"Why not?"
I couldn't look at him as I said, "I had another episode."
"Oh." Tom sat back in his seat, "Charlie stopped by."
Tom said it as if it was no big deal. "He did?"
"Yeah, he had a long break between his classes and he wanted to see how you were doing. He said he'll be back this evening."
Surprise washed over me and for the briefest of moments I thought maybe, just maybe, my brother cared about me. Then I remembered that he didn't and I wondered why he came to see me. About a minute later I felt awful for not being grateful that my brother stopped by and I was angry at myself for not being able to think the best of people. Matthew would probably give anything so he could be in my position. He wouldn't care that his family didn't really love him. He wouldn't care that his family ignored him. He wouldn't care that he was an outsider in his own home. He wouldn't care that everyone thought he was a loser. All that would matter to him would be having his own family and a place to call home. I had both things and I wished I could be happy with what I had, but what I had wasn't enough for me; even though for the first time in my life, I finally realized that it could be worse.
c Lustyville 2007 Please send comments to lustyville@yahoo.com and check out more of this story and my other stories at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lustyville