Secrets 13

13: Perception

“Sean, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

I heard his voice, but it sounded so far away. And then I felt his hands on my shoulder, shaking me. I opened my eyes. The first thing
I saw outside of my dream was darkness. I thought I was dead until I heard his voice.

“You can wake up now,” he said.

Isn’t that what Rose White had said? Had I dreamed that part of was that real? I didn’t know the difference anymore.

Joe turned on the lamp next to the bed, filling the bedroom with light. I was in bed—in me and Joe’s bed. We were in bed together. I struggled to breathe. My forehead was sweating.

“Same nightmare again?” Joe asked.

I wanted to tell him that it was so much more than just a nightmare. He knew the basics, but he didn’t know everything about me, about all the things that I had done and what happened to me four years ago. He only knew what I shared with him, which really hadn’t been that much. I looked at his handsome face, the deep, beautiful brown eyes, the sexy-full lips, the neatly trimmed beard, and the hard jaw line, and wondered if he could ever love me—really love me, if he really knew me—as well as the other me.

“I’m okay,” I told him.

“You don’t look okay,” Joe said.

I sighed. It was too hard to explain. It would be too hard for him to believe. Sometimes, I wish I never met him, even though he had been the best thing that had happened to me in years. But I know I’ve been a burden to him. Sometimes I wondered how he could still have patience with me and all my secrets. Joe knows that I haven’t been one hundred percent honest with him and he hasn’t run away from me yet. I wouldn’t be surprised though, if one day he just upped and left. I would leave, if I knew all the things I knew about me.

“I just need to go to the bathroom,” I responded.
Getting out of bed was a bit difficult. My body felt weird, like it wasn’t mine. I was naked and I could feel Joe’s eyes on me as I walked out of the bedroom and toward the bathroom. He wanted to say something else, I could tell, but he didn’t.

After I took a piss, I went to the sink to wash my hands. I purposely kept my head down so that I wouldn’t see my reflection.

“Hey.”

At first I thought it was Joe’s voice coming from the doorway, behind me. But this voice didn’t sound like Joe’s. It was heavier, deeper, and it was coming from in front of me.
Slowly, I looked up at my reflection, and instead of seeing my face,

I saw someone else’s. It was the same face that had been haunting me for years.

“How long you think you’re gonna ignore me?” Kevin asked.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him, but I was. It was the first time I had seen him in months. He was staring at me, with that cocky grin and those devilishly cunning eyes. He was naked, too. When I raised my hand, Kevin raised his hand. I balled my hand into a fist and so did he. We were inseparable.

“Sean, you okay?” Joe called from the bedroom.

“Yeah, Sean, are you okay?” Kevin questioned with a laugh. I wondered if Joe could hear him, although I knew he couldn’t. I wanted to break the mirror into pieces, although I knew that would not be enough to get Kevin away from me.

“I’ll be there in a second,” I said to Joe.

“After we talk,” Kevin said.

“I don’t have shit to say to you,” I whispered to my reflection.

“Maybe…but there’s a lot you need to listen to,” Kevin said.

“No.” I turned away from the mirror and walked toward the doorway, about to turn off the light and head back to bed.
As I was about to do so, Kevin told. “If you walk away from me, I’ll kill him.”

My heart almost stopped when he said that. “Fuck you,” I said. I shut the lights off and closed the bedroom door. Even though I left, I knew Kevin’s reflection remained in the mirror, glaring at me.
Joe was still waiting for me in bed when I returned. I crawled into the bed right beside me. He brought me close to him, holding me tightly with his big, strong masculine arms. I inhaled his sweet, but slightly musky body scent. I felt somewhat safe.

“You feel better now?” Joe asked.

I closed my eyes, even though I knew it would be a long time before I was able to sleep. “A little bit.”

** *

“So, Sean, how’s things been in the last month for you?”

That was such a difficult question to answer. How ‘had’ things been? I fidgeted around in the comfortable leather seat a little bit and glanced at the cup of green tea on the little table beside me.

“Alright, I guess,” I finally answered.

Dr. Adams raised his eyebrows a little. He knew I was lying. “Just alright?”

I shrugged. He wanted me to go more into detail. That was the whole purpose of these monthly visits. But there was too much that needed to be explained, and I really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Yeah, things are okay,” I said.

Dr. Adams jotted some notes down on his notepad. I was tempted to ask him what he was writing, but I stayed silent.

“Any episodes, lately?” Dr. Adams questioned.

Episodes… He was really asking if I had gone crazy at all since I had last seen him. I thought back to last night, about my encounter with Kevin. That was something that Dr. Adams needed to know about.

“Things have been good.”

“Have you been taking your medication regularly?” Dr. Adams continued.

“Yeah.” I know I sounded really unconvincing.

Dr. Adams just stared at me for a while. He was a handsome older man, probably in mid forties. His hair was just starting to turn a little gray, but it was still full and neatly styled. He had smooth skin with mesmerizing dark eyes and a seductive mouth. When he wasn’t hearing his clients complain about their lives, he probably spent a lot of time at the gym working out, because he seemed to be really in shape, or at least the way his slacks and dress shirt fit him, made it seem so.

“Are you sure about that, Sean?”

“…There may’ve been a few times where I’ve forgotten to take them.”

“Forgotten?” he asked quizzically.

I felt a bit stupid and embarrassed. “Yeah.”

He wrote down more notes.

“But I take them most of the time—“

“Have you seen Kevin recently?” Dr. Adams asked.

My heart skipped. It was almost as if he had reached into my mind and tugged out my secrets. The room we were in started to feel very small, as if it was closing in on me.

“Yeah, I have,” I admitted.

Dr. Adams stared at me for what seemed like more than five minutes. “What happened?”

I explained to him everything that happened the night before in the bathroom, including Kevin’s threat.

“I don’t know what I should do,” I said. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve last seen him.”

“Does your boyfriend know about this?” Dr. Adams asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “He doesn’t know about any of this.”

“You’ve kept all of this a secret from him?”

I felt really guilty. “Yeah, I have.”

“You’ve been with him for a year. Don’t you think that he deserves to know about your past?”

“I think what Joe ‘deserves’ to know and ‘should’ know are two separate things,” I said.

“If you want this relationship to continue…if you want to get better, Sean, you’re going to have to tell him some of your secrets. If you don’t, it’s just going to make things worse for the both of you.”

He was right, but it wasn’t easy for me to do what he suggested.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him

I glanced at my watch. We had reached the end of our hour session. I stood. “See you next month,” I said to Dr. Adams.

“Yes, hopefully you will be doing better.”

He was definitely implying that I wasn’t doing good now. Maybe he was right. I headed toward his office door.

“Take care of yourself, Sean,” he said as I headed out the door.
It almost sounded like he said, “Take care of ‘yourselves’, Sean.”

***

“Who am I talking to right now?” The handsome doctor with the green eyes asked. He looked serious, concerned, and almost a little scared.

I laughed. “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to doc?” I asked.

“The tone of your voice has changed dramatically. Your body language is different too. I would say that I’m not talking to Sean anymore…but to Kevin.”

Smiling I said, “Maybe you’re right. So what am I doin’ here, doc?”

“I want to ask you some questions.”

I looked down at the fucked up clothes I was wearing, a big ass
loose white shirt and white cotton pants that were barely hanging onto my ass. “What the fuck is all of this for? Where the fuck am I?”

“You’re in a mental rehabilitation hospital,” the doctor said. He wrote down something in a notepad that he had.

“Is that you’re fuckin’ nice way of sayin’ I’m in a fuckin’ crazy house?” I asked.

“Nobody’s calling you crazy, Kevin.” The doctor tried to look calm and reserved, but I could tell that I was making him a bit nervous. I picked up the handheld mirror on the bed beside me and examined my face. It was my face all right. Nothing that looked like ‘him’ was anywhere in that looking glass.

Putting the mirror back down I said to him, “Maybe I am crazy, doc.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” the doctor said. He paused for a moment. “But I do think you’re dangerous. And that’s why you…that’s why Sean is here, because he’s dangerous.”
That made me laugh again. What he said sounded so fuckin’ stupid. “You had it right the first time, Doc. I’m the dangerous one.” I hopped off the bed and peeled off my shirt. The cold air in the room clung to my chest and made my nipples harden. I looked down at my chest and saw all my tattoos there, especially my favorite one of the dragon going down my pecs, over my abs and around my back. “That feels a lot better.” I looked up and saw the doc eyeing me, part fascinated, part surprised…and even what seemed like a little turned on.

“That wasn’t there before,” the doc said.

“There’s a few things you need to know about Sean and me,” I told him.

* * *

I woke up to see Joe watching me.

I was in bed, covered in sweat and my heart was racing. Joe was staring at me with a mixture of fascinating and partly fear on his handsome face.

“I was dreaming,” I whispered to him.

“Were you?” Joe asked. He placed his hand on my forehead. His palm felt cool against my warm skin. “Sounded like more of a nightmare.”
I checked my watch. It was almost two o’ clock in the morning. Where had the time gone? I had come from Dr. Adams’ office more than twelve hours ago, but I couldn’t remember anything since that, certainly not falling asleep.

“Sean, are you okay?” Joe asked. I hated seeing that look of panic on Joe’s face. I hated that there was a good reason why he should’ve been afraid of me. Of anyone, I wanted him to feel most comfortable around me, even though I knew that was nearly impossible.

“Like you said, I had a nightmare.”

“You were talking in your sleep,” Joe said. He sat up in bed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He never wore a shirt to bed. I took a few moments to admire his expansive, muscular, and slightly hairy chest and wondered how and why he would be attracted to me. Yeah, I considered myself good-looking, but I was too damaged to be in a relationship with anyone. What was it about me that he really liked?

“What did I say?” I asked, even though I had a feeling I already knew.

Joe just stared at me for a few moments. I wished I was able to know what he was thinking, although I could tell by the look in his eyes that it wasn’t good.

“There’s a few things you need to know about Sean and me,” Joe ultimately said.

Those words sounded familiar.

“Sorry I woke you up,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve heard you talk in your sleep before,” Joe said. “But this time it was different.”

My blood chilled a little bit. “Why do you say that?”

“…`Cause it didn’t sound like you at all. It sounded like a whole different person.”

I rolled over in bed so that Joe couldn’t see my face. I felt tears sting the corners of my eyes. Had Kevin come when I was asleep? Was he still here, waiting for the right moment?

“Sean, look at me.”

That wasn’t Joe’s voice speaking to me. That was someone else’s voice, a voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to turn around and look at him, because I knew he wouldn’t be real. Or would he be?

“Sean,” he said touching my shoulder. His hand on my shoulder felt real. Still, it couldn’t have been HIS hand. It had to be Joe’s hand touching me. But I didn’t have the courage to turn around and look at him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Sean?” he asked.

I hopped out of bed and turned around, expecting to see Patrick laying in the bed right beside me, but it was Joe. I felt a heavy mixture of embarrassment and panic that wouldn’t go away.

“Patrick, I’m sorry, I thought—”

Joe stepped out of the bed, dressed only in his underwear briefs. I never noticed before until now how much he resembled a slightly older version of Patrick: the same tall height, the same athletic body build, the dark hair and romantic eyes, the same demeanor. I knew they were two different people, but they almost seemed like the same person.

“Who’s Patrick?” Joe asked. He looked angry now.

I really had nothing to say. I felt trapped and confused. Nothing seemed real. But to be honest, I really couldn’t remember a time when things were real for me. Here I was, 23 years old, such a weird, odd age to be, and the last five years of my life had all been a blur. I remembered my life like one remembered their dreams: only in fragments. And usually those fragments happened out of order and were so exaggerated that it was impossible to tell whether they were really happening or not.

I had lost so many people in my life: My parents, Danny, Patrick’s father, Patrick—myself. Where had I been these last five years? What happened to Sean Brown, that cute boy next door who had fallen in love with his jock best friend? Where had he disappeared to, and why couldn’t I find him?

Joe was talking to me. I saw his mouth moving, so I know he was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. He must’ve been thinking all kind of crazy thoughts about me. Where did I meet him? Had we really been together for a whole year? Why was he in the same room as me?

When I was younger, I wrote in journals. I wrote about everything, about my life, about dreams and goals, about Patrick…but those journals were gone. Burned. Vanished. Erased. Those memories were gone...weren't they? I didn’t want to think about Patrick anymore, even though Joe reminded me so much of him.

Joe walked up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. He was still talking to me. His voice sounded so far away. Or maybe I was just so far away. I closed my eyes and wondered if it was a dream. If it was, I wasn’t waking up.

"SEAN!!”

I opened my eyes. I inhaled deeply. There was Joe standing in front of me. Not Patrick. Patrick was gone. I hadn’t seen him in five years.

“Yeah,” I said.

Joe let go of me. He stepped back as if he were seeing me for the first time. Maybe he was. I didn’t know what to do or what to say.

“I’m gonna go,” Joe said after a few minutes of silence.

I wanted to say something, but there was nothing I could say. I thought back to Dr. Adams’ advice, about telling my secrets to Joe. But at this point I think it was too late. I watched Joe put on his clothes and grab his car keys from my clothes dresser. Joe had spent so much time with me at my apartment that I forgot that he we didn’t actually live together. He lived on the other side of town.

“Are you coming back?” I asked him.

He was really hesitant to respond, and I didn’t blame him. “We can talk when you’re finally ready to tell me the truth.”

The truth was such a simple, but ugly word. I wanted to say ‘How can I tell you the truth, when I don’t even know what the truth is myself?’. That was my goal, to try to try to figure out the truth, to figure out where all this madness stemmed from.

“I don’t know how to say what I need to tell you,” I said to him. “But I don’t want you to leave me. You’re all I have.”
I know I sounded desperate, because I was desperate. If Joe left, all I had was me and my insanity—and Kevin. Perhaps my insanity and Kevin were the same. Or me and my insanity was the same. Either way I was in trouble without Joe.

Joe stepped up to me and kissed my forehead. I felt warm with his lips on me. “Tell me when you’re ready for me to help you. Tell me when you’re ready to tell me your secrets.”

He walked out of my bedroom and out of my apartment. I was left there alone, by myself, in a room filled with echoing thoughts and a bed that had been warm minutes before and was now ice cold. I wondered if Kevin was in the mirror, waiting for me to come talk to him.

To be continued...