I don't really care about what the doctor and I talked about, either. That the feelings I'm havin' for Shi are just symptoms or somethin' like that. Maybe they are, but they sure as shit feel real to me, and as long as they're feelin' real, I don't think I should be hangin' around her too much. I might do something. And that something would be a stupid something.
And I don't want her to know that I'm not right. I mean, she knows that, she even talked to me a little bit about it on Sunday, you know, suggesting, maybe, that I go see the doctor about the meds. She didn't know that I was ahead of her, for once, and had already made a call. But she doesn't know that I'm hung up on her. She doesn't know about that part of it and I don't want her to. 'Cause, who knows, maybe it's all a part of the drugs and my fucked up way of lookin' at things.
So I'm gonna go to Florida, and I might not be back and forth as much as I thought I would. I've got these two new prescriptions to take, and I get to cut out one of the ones I'm on now, and cut back on another. And maybe by the time I get back here I won't be so, so intense about Shi. The doctor said it might clear up some of my thoughts, too, 'cause he said that I sounded, like, disoriented and disconnected. Not just my thinking, even when I talk. I think that freaked me out some, too, 'cause I don't sense a difference. I mean, I think I just sound like me bein' me. But maybe I'm not.
It doesn't matter. If these new meds help, great. If they don't, then I'm back for somethin' different.
So I'll leave in a coupla days, and I won't be back for a while. Juliette'll have to fly out a few times, but that's the way it is when you're a PA. She'd haveta do it anyway, and if I was on the road she'd have to be with me twenty-four seven, so she's kinda lucky that I'm not, and that she'll have more time to do other things.
Like find me a gig.
It's time.
It all sort of came to me durin' this session. I can't sit around anymore. The doc's got me convinced about somethin'; basically that the more I sit around the more time I have to think about the things that I don't want to think about. More time to obsess, I think he said. That part is probably right, 'cause I do tend to obsess over things. Like Shi. And that's not what I want to do, it's not how I wanna come off to her like. I want her to see who I am and that's the hardest thing right now, 'cause I don't know who I am a lot of the time.
It was easier when I was workin'. Then I knew who I was, even if I had a nose full of coke and a three day hangover. I was a Backstreet Boy. I knew it, everyone else knew it, and there was none of this fuckin' confusion. But since all that stopped, and it's years now, really a long, long time, I can't say 'I'm a Backstreet Boy' anymore. I have to say 'I WAS a Backstreet Boy'. And when this happened in the doctor's office, when I realized it, I kinda knew that it sounded real lame. It's what I was, not what I am. After that, though, it got me thinkin' about who the hell I am now, and that's not amounting to much. I'm basically just this random guy with problems.
And that's not me, either.
I've never been a 'random guy'. Never. I've always been different, I've always felt different, I've always stood out. Even when I was a kid. I never was really shy or anything when it came to gettin' out there and doin' my thing. The only thing that changed was me getting' control of my voice. It took years and years. When I was a kid, the lisp I had was kinda cute, but I had to get rid of it, along with the stutter. To this day they both come out at times, usually when I'm upset. Slurred speech. Wasn't bad enough to get teased for bein' a skinny runt who liked to sing and dance.
Singing helped with the stutter and lisp. Singing's always been there for me, even when what I thought I was gonna do was dance. I loved to dance. Loved to move, but I didn't like sports, so dance was a way to do it. But all the time I was dancin' and doin' plays and shit, doin' TV, I sang.
I miss it.
I miss my voice. And I guess, you know, that's who I am, too. I'm a singer. It's a little late to be pickin' up the tap shoes now. I'm twenty-five and I'm not in the best shape to be out there tryin' to choreograph. There are a lot of young guys comin' up. Not that I'm over the hill, there are people way older than me doin' it, but I'm old to be startin'.
So I'm a singer. But I don't sing.
I DO see the problem there.
So that's what Juliette can be doin' for me. I have a month to get my shit together. I'll be back in Florida, where it started, and maybe some of that old feeling, that old magic, will kinda come back to me. I'm gonna try. And when I come back to Cali, I want at least one gig set up. Nothin' formal, anything really. Just somethin'.
And I figure, in a month, in a month away, I can maybe figure out all this shit with Shi. Figure out if it's the meds makin' me feel this way or if it's my heart. If it's just some obsession, or if it's real.
I want it to be real.
There's another thing that I gotta do, too. Seems like everyone is kinda in agreement on this but me. I gotta go see Sarah. I gotta.
That was a good hour's worth of talkin' today. One of the few times that the shrink actually made a point blank 'suggestion'. They always 'suggest', never tell you, 'hey, go do this', it's always like leavin' you a hint and hopin' that you'll pick up on the clue. Only sometimes, for me, it's like years before I even see that there's any clue at all.
So I gotta go see her. Before I leave for Florida. Clean slate sorta thing. Almost. It's never gonna be really wiped clean. Not ever. I see that now. I didn't want to, but I do. Then the shrink said just about what Shi said. I gotta make it civil between Sarah and me, or the tension's gonna just eat me up. I think, some days, that it's already takin' a coupla bites outta me.
I get it, though. I need to make things okay between us. Not good, not the same, not better, just okay, so that I'm not thinkin' that she's hatin' me, which she may be, and there's nothin' I can do about that. It's what I need to have in my head every day about it that matters. I have to find some peace with it, or there won't be any peace at all.
They're right. There's been no peace, 'cause there's been no end. The relationship, if you can call it that, is just out there, doin' nothin', but it's out there like some big ass THING that keeps pressin' into every corner of my life. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Sarah, that she's not in my head either pissin' me off or makin' me feel bad about myself.
I know I did something terrible.
I know now that maybe, maybe for her, it was unforgivable. That there's not gonna be that forgiveness that I've been waitin' for. That there's never gonna be enough time to have it be 'right'. And I have to live with that. I have to live with that fact, 'cause it's a fact. There's never gonna be a point in time when Sarah and I can go back to the way things were, it's my fault, and I have to let go and move on. I have to let go. One of my biggest flaws, faults, whatever you wanna call it. Lettin' go. And now I have to, 'cause if I don't, there's no future for me.
I get it. I finally get it. And I want a future. I want to go on and do things, what things I don't know just yet, but things. And I can't with all this hangin' on my neck.
What I have to remember from all this is that I can never behave like that again. Not if I want a solid relationship with anyone. There may be people out there who wouldn't mind as much if I wasn't faithful and loyal to them, but they're not people who, who would honestly love me. They're the kinda people I've been warned about all my life, since I can remember. The people who'll hang on for all the wrong reasons. The people who're always there for the good parts of my life, with their hands out, but who bail on me when the world goes to shit.
And when I think about that, and where my life is right at this very minute as I'm drivin' through the friggin' hills up here, I realize how many people like that I've had in my life. And how many people are in my life right now, in a solid way.
And how alone I really am.
And how the good people HAD to leave me 'cause I drove them away and the 'bad' people just moved on to someone else they could suck up to.
I have to start all over again. ALL over. No doubt about it. And I don't get to start fresh. I gotta go back, first, and make things good and right with the people I let down. I gotta go back and smooth over as many rough edges as I can. Then, THEN, I have to move ahead. See what I can do on my own. See where I'm at, so that I can see where I'm goin'.
I pull into my driveway and listen to the gate close behind me. I get outta my car and let myself into the house. It makes me happy to see the rooms, the orange walls, the new things. I'm happy that the place is under control. That it's clean. That there's the smell of supper bein' cooked; a good smell that hits me as soon as I step inside the door.
I miss the dogs, though, I miss them comin' to see me when I walk in the door. I miss them every day. Maybe that should be enough to get me to Sarah; just to see the dogs.
Instead, I have Shi comin' outta the kitchen, her hair all tied up in a knot, those bits and pieces hangin' on her cheeks and neck. She's got on her pretty smile, that kind smile that wrinkles the corners of her eyes. I want her to walk right up to me and hug me, but she doesn't, and I knew she wouldn't, I just want it.
"How did it go?" she asks me.
"Okay. Long. I have some new meds, and I can stop takin' some of the other's," I tell her.
"So it was the medications?"
"Yeah." I tell her. "Some of it, yeah." And some of it is you, Shi. Some of it is you, the good part and the bad. The good part is now, you, here with me, takin' care of me, concerned. Really concerned enough to meet me at the door and ask me. Hell, to tell me that you think somethin's wrong, there's concern right there, and that's tremendous. And there's the 'bad' part, too, the part where I can't have you. I can't have you, and you can't even know that I want you, and I WANT you so bad I almost can't stand here talkin' to you.
But I will stand here, 'cause even though it's frustrating, it's wonderful, too. It's wonderful that you exist and that you're here and that I can even have this part of you, this little bit. It's wonderful that you make me feel things. Things I thought I couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't feel. It's wonderful that you're wearin' my necklace, yes, MINE, 'cause that's why I gave it to you, so that you would have somethin' of mine that's on you, to remind you of me. That's a piece of me. Alexandrite. Alexander. That's me on your neck. Me, Shi. See ME. I'm here and I want you to know me and see me and like me and love me. Everything.
And I want it to be real. Everything that I'm feeling. I want it all to be real.
"Well, that's good then," she says. "Are you hungry? I made you Swedish meatballs."
One of my favorites. Special. For me. She thinks like that, and it makes me happy, too.
"Yeah, I'm hungry." I follow her into the kitchen and the table's set for three. Tish isn't there yet, Shi is callin' her up on the intercom. I sit and a warm plate gets put in front of me, and Shi dishes up a huge helping of meatballs and mashed potatoes. "You're gonna spoil me," I say, and I can hear my voice almost crack.
"Ah, you're worth it," she says.
And I can't talk, then. I fill my mouth with food to cover that up.
I'm worth it.
I wish.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
