Chapter Twenty-Eight

I hadn't realized I'd actually dozed off until a voice announced over the PA system that lunch was being served in the cafeteria. I lifted my head from Aideen's shoulder and the six of us made our way down the hall to grab some food before our meeting with Dr. Crimm. It was different than it had been the first time we'd cautiously entered the cafeteria on our first day. We were battle-worn now and bonded by what we'd seen and been through together. I understood then what I hadn't that first day; the thing that had separated Dr. Crimm's kids from the others wasn't just our abbreviated length of treatment, it was the depth at which we followed each other into our dark places.

With our trays full we sat together and I felt like I belonged with the five of them more than I'd ever felt like I belonged anywhere else. Marco tossed a grape in the air and Ken captured it in his mouth, flashing it to us between his teeth before laughing and holding his fist up in victory. I felt something nostalgic in my chest, a warm and light fluttering that I recognized as joy and hope. I closed my eyes to focus on it, not for one second taking it for granted, now that I knew how fleeting it could be.

At two we were once again in the treatment room. Dr. Crimm tucked her worn notebook into a bag at the side of her chair. "How are you feeling, Damien?" she asked as we moved the chairs into a circle again.

"Like I was beat up." He rubbed at his left shoulder.

"Your muscles flex hard when you seize. You'll be sore for a few days. Are you up to talking about this morning?" she asked, her tone compassionate.

"Yes. I'd actually like to talk about it." He laughed and shook his head. "That's not usually my thing, but I want to hear what it was like for everyone else, and—" He paused as he looked at Ken. "—I want to hear more about Ken's experience. I want to know what he thinks about what he saw and felt."

Dr. Crimm smiled. "All right, then. Let's begin." She turned her attention to Ken. "Do you want to get us started?"

Ken adjusted in his chair and cleared his throat. "I knew I was gay when I was eleven years old. I also knew better than to tell anyone about it. My family is a stereotypical Southern Baptist family: we go to church, we watch football, and we worry about what our neighbors will think." Ken's fingers played with the armrest absently. "I don't remember the first time I felt like being gay was wrong, but the message from my father was clear.

"The things you saw were innocent—the toenail painting and shit like that. It had nothing to do with my sexuality, but he was so paranoid about it that he always punished me and shamed me for behavior that wasn't overtly masculine and heterosexual. I had to hide everything from him and the people who knew me. It made it feel wrong, which only fucked with my head worse." Ken dug his fingers through his hair, his frustration clear for us to see.

"It's emotional reasoning again. If it feels wrong, then it is wrong. That's a cognitive distortion. It's not true." Dr. Crimm told him.

"It feels true when you're a boy who likes boys in a town full of people who still want to hurt someone like you. I tried to fight it. I went out with girls—the most popular and the most beautiful. I prayed that God would change me and when that didn't work I stopped believing. Everything I did to try and fix myself so that my dad would accept me, ended up pushing us further apart. I dumped his friends' daughters, I deserted his God, and I couldn't look him in the eye anymore when he talked to me because I had so much shame inside.

"Some days I'd tell myself I was going to be okay. Being gay was not a choice and he could love me for who I was or I'd be fine without him, but then other days the reality of not having my dad's love and acceptance was unbearable." Ken looked up to the ceiling as tears made their way down his face. "I went through a phase where I chose myself over him. I put my happiness first. I met a boy who was like me and we dated in secret. It was the safest way in our town. I told myself one day I'd move and we'd be free to love each other in public. If my dad couldn't love me, this boy would."

My own tears were flowing. I wiped them from my cheeks with the back of my hands. Dr. Crimm pulled a box of tissues from her bag and passed them around the circle. Ken took a minute to pull himself together. Aideen rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm around him. She held him as he cried.

When he was able, Ken cleared his throat and picked up where he'd left off. "People talk in towns as small as mine. Especially if you're the local football star. I thought I was good at hiding things, but not all secrets stay in the dark. I was watching my relationship with my dad fade away and it hurt so bad I couldn't take it. He was more important to me than my happiness so I stopped going out. I shut off that part of my life. I broke things off with the boy I was in love with." Ken's body shook as he cried silently over the loss of his relationship.

Marco was on Ken's other side and he'd been sitting quietly, listening to his story. He pulled a few more tissues from Dr. Crimm's tissue box and handed them to Ken, then patted him on the back. "I think one day some scientist is going to find out that there's a code in our genes that makes us hardwired for needing our fathers' approval."

Ken nodded in agreement. "Then I hope they also figure out how to get that approval."

"Amen," Marco said under his breath.

Ken continued his story. "I was heartsick, but I focused on football and school. I walked the halls and tried not to run into Leo—that's his name." A small smile appeared on his face for a brief moment. "I thought I'd done it. My dad and I were talking more and getting along better. And then I got hit hard again. When I ended up in the ER they did an MRI. I'd given up everything for him and when they delivered the news that I might have MS, he didn't care about the impact it would have on my life. All he cared about was fixing who I fall in love with." Ken's face crumpled.

Dr. Crimm leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. "That must have been terrifying for you. I can't imagine getting news like that and not having someone there to ask the right questions and guide you through the educational stage of your disease."

"It made me not care about any of it," Ken replied. He looked Dr. Crimm in the eye. "I didn't want to learn about what would happen to me or how the disease would progress because I knew I wasn't going to be around long enough to see it happen. It didn't matter. I couldn't live in a world where I'd never be good enough.

"And I had no idea," Ken continued. "He never told me about his friend. All of our fights over the years, all the times he saw me hurting, and he never told me why he couldn't stand the thought of me being gay. Why didn't he just tell me?" He buried his face in his hands.

"I think that's a question you'll have to ask him someday," Dr. Crimm answered. "I don't have any children of my own, but I know if I ever do I'll want to protect them from some of the ugly things in this world. What happened to your father's friend was one of those things, Ken. Your dad felt responsible for leading him out into the parking lot and he's lived with that for many years. Imagine the way that guilt has eaten away at the rational part of his brain—imagine the many times he's picked apart that night and all the pieces that fit together to make up the events that took place. I'm not telling you he's right, and I'm not asking you to understand him or forgive him, I'm just saying from a psychological point of view I can see how someone might latch on to the variables in a trauma and try to control the ones they believe might've changed the outcome."

Ken listened to her, cradling his forehead in his hands. "I just want ten minutes with the man he was in that bathroom with his friend. You have no idea how much I want that guy to be my father."

Dr. Crimm nodded in understanding. "Maybe what your dad went through changed him, or maybe he's still the same person deep inside but his fear hides that from you."

"Maybe," he answered.

"Either way, it was never about his acceptance. It was about what he thought people would do to you if they found out. It's always been about him loving you. He just went about showing it the wrong way." Dr. Crimm's blue eyes looked into Ken's. "Whether you can forgive him for that or not is up to you."

Damien spoke up. "What's Leo up to now? Did he move on?" When Ken's eyes met his and the pain was still clear, he added, "Sorry. Probably not the best question."

"It's fine," Ken assured him. "I don't know. I had to cut him out of my life because it was too painful to see him everywhere. If it wasn't in the halls at school it was on social media. He'd show up in my feeds and be tagged in the same posts. I swear it was like an alcoholic trying to quit drinking while sitting at a bar." He bit his bottom lip and pulled it nervously between his teeth before releasing it. "I still think about him all the time. My sister said he came to the hospital after my attempt but my dad made him leave."

Dr. Crimm pulled her tablet from her bag and powered it on. She slid her finger across the screen and tapped a few of the icons. Within seconds she was scrolling through the data beneath her finger. "There is a record of a Leonardo signing in as a guest."

"Really?" Ken asked. His lips curved up into a smile and relief caused his features to relax for the first time since we entered the room. "I thought maybe she'd just said that to keep me from trying again."

"Sometimes love is more powerful than fear," Dr. Crimm said. She hugged her tablet to her chest and turned her attention to Damien.

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