Straight Boys - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

Corbett's POV
"You know. . .you don't have to go today. You seemed really worked up yesterday when I picked you up from school. We can go home, snuggle up on the couch and drink some of my homemade hot chocolate. What do you say, honey? It is cold enough for hot chocolate." I didn't look my mother in the face as she tried to baby me. I kept my glare away from her and looked out the clear glass of the car's window. She wasn't making me feel better. She tried, but it never worked. Then again, nothing ever worked when it came to me somehow. It only seemed to work at making herself feel better as her cold, dainty hand tried to rest a comforting feel on my shoulder.
I clenched my neck and snapped it to my right, popping the stress off my spine like a pop-a-top bottle. "I'm fine, mom." I unlocked my door and stepped out of her car, allowing myself to break free of her maternal issues, but turned to give her my best sonny smile as I said, "See you at six," and then I slammed shut our routine conversation like I slammed her car door. Sighing to myself - at myself because when it comes to the area of expertise in dealing with feelings, I was a neophyte - I turned away from the vintage BMW my mom had insisted made her feel like a teenager again, and stalked towards the entrance of the recreational center that was used for more than just recreation.
Maybe therapy is recreation for some people?
Shoving my calloused hands deep into the pockets of my sweat pants, I shoved my way through the doors, took a left before I hit the receptions desk, then a right, and went through another set of doors to find myself in a large room that probably used to be a daycare center for children by the way the walls were painted in fading blues, pinks, greens, yellows that were in shapes of plants and animals. I was early, only by a few minutes, but I wasn't the first person to arrive at the den of "Acceptance and absolutely no judgement."
Jack Dresden was there, mulling next to the large punch bowl that had a spot in the corner of the room on a wooden table sprinkled with a few dry sweets and stale candies on its surface. He had clinical depression because his bitch of an ex-wife had an affair with his boss. Everybody knew that that wasn't the real reason he was always so sad.
Then there was Annie O'Phanny: a hardcore Lesbian that had issues with liking herself. She was nice, very charming, and very intuitive. She had a mouth on her that never stopped yapping during our sessions, always with jokes and shit-washed facts that nobody knew how she knew.
Polly Pocket - nobody knew her real name because she was a real nutcase - was already sitting in one of the thirteen chairs that lined up to form a circle in the middle of the room. She was a pathological liar, and she had said her mom had signed her up for group therapy because she wanted her to shut up about the nonsense she spewed about her other therapists trying to make her really crazy. Nobody knew if she had told the truth or not.
Shawn Pierce sat a few chairs away from Polly, shoulders hunched and his signature trenchcoat dangling from the metal chair. He had a knack for self destructing and impulsive stealing. His dad came in one day yelling his head off at him, at Shawn, because he had gotten a call from a colleague at work asking him if he had seen his thousand dollar flat screen anywhere. Shawn's sixteen and better with his hands than most quarterbacks.
Then there was me. An eighteen year old, shit-eating-grinner with a fuck ton of bullshit stuck with me for forever.
Letting the door slam behind me, I made my way over to Jack, not even bothering to pay my respects like the gentleman my mother tried to raise me to be, and went straight for the too sweet punch to drown my sorrows in, much like he was doing.
Although, I guess I didn't need to say anything to get the guy to talk. "Corbett! Hey, man, I haven't seen you since... since well the last session... I... guess." I downed the last gulp and raised my eyebrows up at the weird conversation starter. "Nice to see you, too, Jacky. How's Leslie?" My biting comment, even though I wasn't meaning to sound like such an asshole, made him look away and purse his lips.
"Somebody's a little pissy, I see. God, you musta had a real dandy time this past week."
"Now, now, boys," the sharp voice of Polly raised both our ears in her direction, "calm down. The party hasn't even started yet, and you're already trying to pick at each other's brains. Our guidance counselor would love to hear about that." Next to her, Shawn laughed.
Polly, I guess, had a point. Even though this space was supposed to be safe, I always found myself lacking the seriousness needed to be apart of something like this. Well, could you blame me? You put a bunch of messed up people in one room, like one who can't get enough of making people feel bad about themselves, another who can't seem to stop making themselves feel about themselves, and one who loves not to necessarily make people feel bad, but to make other people make people feel bad - egg them on - then, well, I just couldn't help myself. I had learned from the best. I guess, since I was one of the rejects, apart of the few who couldn't get a real doctor, only some half priced, wanna be musician who also seemed to be a reject, I was just a little bit salty at the shitty hand life had dealt me.
Besides, I honestly never cared for this shit. I only went because my mother wanted me to go. I only went because deep down I knew I needed help, even though - again - I was bad at helping and trying to get help and fixing whatever the hell had happened to me. I was just bad at being and doing things.
Although, even if I would never admit it out loud, I had somehow grown to like these people. Only marginally because in someway, them and I were the same, and maybe they felt the same.
That still didn't stop me from being me. I just didn't know any other life. Manipulation, anger, pessimism were just leaves forever green as they dangled from the branches of my personality.
That's because it was good to make other people feel bad because then I wouldn't feel so alone anymore.
You could say our counselor sucked ass at trying to help us - no, he sucked ass just at trying to help me, but, I don't know, he was trying and I had to give him that. And again, I would never admit that he was helping me in some weird way. He wasn't a total reject, but it wasn't like he really knew what he was doing.
"You know, Polly," Annie suddenly started talking, "Mr. Bright is just as good at pissing people off as we are. He told us so. He isn't perfect. He should understand that we - I mean Corbett especially - can't help it. That's why you're here, of course. It's why I'm here. To help ourselves, right Corbett?" She turned her green eyes onto mine.
I filled my paper cup with more punch and downed it in one gulp before crushing the cup between my fingers, thinking it was the skull of the root of all my messed up problems, and then replied with a, "Whatever."
And then a stuffy quiet enveloped us once more as we waited for the rest of the messes to arrive. Soon, they did, and we were all seated in our little circle waiting for the last arrival: our knight in Cashmere sweaters.
I was sitting almost at the Crest of the circle, Shawn to the right of me and Annie to my left. Jack was three chairs down, in between a mother with postpartum depression and a fifty-two year old whackjob that had an affinity for obsessing over cleanliness: OCD. And Polly sat next to an empty chair that would be for our counselor and a thirty-two-year-old man with an anxiety disorder that would turn him into an oxygen machine with the way he would lose control of his breathing.
I guess you could say we were a real bunch of burnouts.
Suddenly, the door creaking open brought a bit of sound to our silence, and in walked our stupidly annoying guidance counselor. Our therapist.
He wore a blue - what do we have here - Cashmere sweater, khaki slacks and brown loafers. His brown hair was neatly styled, and dare I say this, made him look like a teenager trying to be an adult. Of course, he was a young guy, so maybe he was going for that, or maybe he was unfortunate enough to look like that. I bet he got carded a lot.
He sat down, next to Polly and a sort of unfamiliar - yet slightly familiar like he was here last time but I hadn't remembered if he was or not - face. He looked like a pyromaniac from the burn scars lining his fidgeting fingers and black dust staining his red shirt.
"Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Willow Creak Hall for your sessions. As you know - or not, I wouldn't blame you - I'm Owen."
"Hi, Owen." We chorused, partly in exhaustion, partly in routine. I crossed my arms and hunched down in my chair, almost mimicking Shawn, slightly pissed off at how boring my life had somehow become. Boring and full of routines.
"If," the twenty-two-year old drop out of medical school smiled his judgement-less smile and looked around at our oh so diverse group, "you all remember how this goes, I mean, it has been two weeks since there was a problem last week with my family, then please," he looked down at the small girl next to him, Polly, "Polly start us off with how you are doing. You know, warm up." Polly sighed indignantly.
"Hi. I'm Polly -"
"- Hi, Polly -"
"- Oh please, you all sound like we're at an AA meeting and I'm going to tell you that I've been sober for fifteen years not counting Sunday when I had a few sips of Chardonnay because it was my daughter's birthday and she just turned twenty-one! I had to, for her."
"Polly," Owen made an 'are you kidding me' face at her and held his hands up in defeat. "We've barely started. Please, enough with the over dramatic stories and get on with it. You've been seeing me for four months now. You should know how this works by now." She just rolled her eyes but was failing at hiding her triumphant smile; triumphant because she had gotten the attention she always craved.
Attention seeking whore.
"Right... over the past couple of days I've been doing... fine. I didn't lie to get people to give me money because I told them my mom was sick and I could barely afford her treatment or anything. I did what you," Polly mocking pointed her thumb at Owen, "told me to do. I thought about the Hell I'd raise if I got found out. I didn't really want the police showing up at my house because I stole from the elderly, now did I?"
Owen nodded. "That's good, Polly. You're actually changing. Spectacular. I'd thought you'd always be the little liar you are. That's progress. Honestly, I'm amazed." Polly smiled, genuinely too, and gave us all a mocking thumbs up.
"Well, my mother wouldn't pay you to fix me if you were a fuck up." Her comment earned her a laugh around the circle, including a small chuckle from me.
Owen just shook his head, but didn't say anything, finding his philosophy of swearing a good deed.
"Okay, well, who's next? Shawn? How about you?" The man spread his hand out and ushered Shawn to mention how his week went, like he would do to all of us. Shawn, making a grave face, stood up and started talking away.
"Well, uh... I'm Shawn for those of you who don't know me. I'm a kleptomaniac if that's important, and I'm damn good at being one too -" he paused, trying to suppress what I knew was a twitch at mentioning his disorder - a twitch because he liked showing people he was good at stealing. "My past week or two or whatever went by fine. I didn't steal anything because my dad, after making me return his friend's TV, literally locked me up like Mother Gothel locked Repunzel up in her tower. So, you know, fuck that dick head." And then he sat back down, another twitch breaking his hard features.
Owen inhaled slowly, crossing his arms in thought. I stared at him, watching him as thoughts and actions formulated scenarios and replies behind his puzzled eyes. He was thinking of something to teach Shawn a new coping mechanism for when his dad treated him like he was a criminal - even though, he obviously, most definitely was a criminal. A minor, but still a stealing little bastard.
"You know," he started, pushing his eyes to look at each of his twelve patients, "my parents were real strict, too. They were so strict, that they made me want to act up -" oh geez, he was about to start some long speech about his own life to make us feel better about ourselves. That one thing never worked on me because nothing that ever happened to him could ever compare to me. Not ever.
"- I hated being told what to do. I was always thinking I was the boss, not them. I controlled myself and what I did, not them. They had no right, right?" I glanced at Shawn, and then Polly, watching them both nod like vagrants. "Well, that way of thinking really screwed me over in the end. I did shit so fucked up, you guys would probably never look at me the same; and all because I wanted to show my parents that they couldn't control me, that I was my own person. I ended up," Owen pursed his lips, looked down, "I ended up hurting some kid real bad, worse than killing them." He looked back up at us, maybe straight at me as he kept speaking.
"It also didn't help that I was exploring some new theory I had. Anyway, don't do the shit I do. It will haunt you for the rest of your life," and he kept staring at me! I probably had a guilty conscious and thought he was looking at me, directing his words at me because the memory of beating the living shit out of Andrew Parsley came to mind, pummeling him as he laughed like a maniac trying to push me over the fucking line, trying to get me to hurt him more.
I looked down at my tense arms that were still crossed.
"What did you do that was so bad, Mr. Bright?"
Annie's question echoed throughout the room, stopping even my breath, probably because I was just a little curious, too.
Owen wasn't an open book like he made all of us be. If I had to be honest, I barely knew him, and I had been seeing him for my condition for not quite a year.
"I. . ." He paused, running his big fingers through his hair and giving us all skeptical looks. "I was a manipulator. I manipulated people for the hell of it, like my parents manipulated me, to be honest. I manipulated this boy into. . . Well let's just say I killed his child-like innocence." I clenched my jaw, finding his confession similar to how my life seemed to turn out.
I was a manipulator. I would admit that. I manipulated people to get what I wanted, though, not to prove some idiotic point to my parents. I manipulated people because I could, because I had the power to. It made me feel like I was someone, like it was some superpower to be able to manipulate people. But, no matter how much I could manipulate people, I never could manipulate my own self, my parents, Andrew Parsley.
He was immune to me, to my mind games. But... he wasn't immune to blackmail, to evidence.
"Anway," Owen waved his hand as if to wave us onto another subject, "How about you, Corbett?" Everyone's eyes landed on me, causing me to straighten up. "How are you dealing with your IED?"
I sighed shakily, uncrossing my arms to clench my hands around the metal seat I sat in. "I. . .have been worse, lately. Last Thursday, I destroyed my mom's China case because my cousin wanted me to help her hook up with. . . She wanted me to help her hook up with this guy in my grade, a guy she knows I have certain feelings for."
Annie's voice made my back bristle. "Oh yeah, you're like, gay, aren't you? You said that once, right? That you like boys? You aren't out of the closet, yet?" I glared at her, clenching the seat harder.
"Shut the Hell up, Annie. The whole world doesn't need to know my sexuality."
"Annie, it isn't your turn to speak. Wait until Corbett is done, then it can be your turn."
I glared at the blabber mouth, finding her jokes tasteless, but nonetheless, I ignored her - or tried to at least - and kept going with my little spiel, "Well, anyway, my mom was pissed and I had to pack up the broken glass into heavy duty trash bags before the next day because she - my damn homophobic bitch of a cousin - was having a party. My mom thinks that if she let's her in our house that she will go back to being my best friend. My mom thinks that her and I will go back to the way things were, but it's impossible for someone like her to ever be close to someone like me ever again. She likes to ignore me and pretend I'm not gay when I do try to go back to the way things were before. I think -" I suddenly stopped.
I was talking way too much.
I glanced over at Jack to see him giving me one of those rare, haughty smirks he seemed to get himself to make when he found that he was right about something other than his ever life-ruining depression.
Why was I so emotional all of the a sudden? I guessed it was because too much was going on in my life in that moment and my cup of endurance was over flowing. I didn't know how much more I'd be able to take with the way things were going.
Why had life dealt me a shitty hand?
Maybe life hadn't, but I sure knew how to make it into a shitty hand because this game I was playing, I didn't really know how to play it, what the rules were and who was winning at it!
I looked away from Jack and stared across the circle at Owen. "Enough about my shit week. How was yours? Your family? Where do they live, again? Michigan?"
I was deflecting. I was good at deflecting. The best defence was more defence.
Owen gave me one his signature looks, one that said see me after we finish, but didn't press me. He actually ignored me and went to ask Annie how her week went, finally leaving me alone.
The rest of the session went on smooth sailing, or as smooth sailing as it could with the stability that we all lacked. After we have divulged Owen on how our weeks went, he made us play a game of reflection where we all sat and reflected on why we thought our weeks went so well or not so well for us few. And then he gave us some advice - advice that not all of us would follow - to try and help us cope with our issues.
When everything was said and done, Owen Bright dismissed us and most of us, Annie, Shawn and Polly, all high tailed it out of there. The mother took a handful of sweets to medicate herself, then dashed away. A few of us straggled, but left after realizing they literally had better things to be doing. I was about to follow them, knowing that I had better things to be doing, but Owen had grabbed me by the tail of my shirt and sat me back down. I groaned in obvious pain.
"I don't need a one-on-one with you, doc," I spat. He chuckled, nodding.
"Yes you do, son," he mocked.
I fisted my hands at my sides, trying to keep myself from getting angry like I tried to do when I was talking about my week. I didn't look into Owen's eyes, rather at the little bunny-rabbit chipping from the wall across the room.
"Corbett, look at me." I bit my cheek, feeling my nose flare in anger. I reluctantly did what I was told, but I made a big scene out of it, using my blue eyes to drill holes into his eyes.
With Owen Bright, I didn't have to use my manipulation skills because he was one of the few who saw right through me. So those skills wouldn't help me in getting out up his weird way of therapy if I tried.
"Could you finish what you were saying during our session? Nobody else is around. It's just me. This is an "Absolutely no judgement" kind of space, understand?" My fingers lightened up on their skin tearing.
I hesitantly licked my lips, think, what fucking ever. I had nothing to lose. I had done this before. Owen knew me, too. Somehow, in some fucking way the guy knew me like nobody else and that's why he was kind of helping me.
Shakily breathing out, I let myself go and allowed my emotions to roam free. I was never good with my emotions, never good at talking about them, but every once in a while even a cactus needs water. "I'm. . .tired of being like this. Im tired of always getting angry and not knowing how to control my own fucking emotions. Why did I turn out like this? Why did I have to go through such fuckery to become like this? Why not anybody else? Really. I didn't ask for him to do that to me. I can't change who I am. Ha! I wish! But he just fucking had to remind me every day of my life that I was a faggot. Why did she even love him in the first place? She could have tried to get back with my dad, but then again why did he have to fall in love with some slutty yoga instructor?" My breathing had become labored as I progressed through my outburst, my voice louder, but I didn't care. I hadn't talked about my past in a while. I wanted to talk about it, especially since its anniversary was coming up.
You see, when I was fifteen, my mom fell in love with some real man. It was during my parents' divorce because my dad had just lost interest. She fell in love with this guy and allowed him to move into our house - the house my dad let us keep only because he still in some sick, twisted way cared about us. So this guy - God I couldn't even mention his name - he moved in, and he wanted us to be one big happy family.
That would never happen.
I came out to my mom a few months after they got together. I was going to come out to the rest of the school, but that never happened.
That bastard, on the outside so accepting, so caring in front of my mother, really fucking hated my guts. He hated that I was gay because being gay is apparently disgusting. He found me repulsive. He found me to be a great punching bag when he was angry at his boss, his gay boss.
Maybe that was the reason he hated me being gay because it reminded him of how shitty his own life was made by his incompetent boss. Maybe there was some other underlying cause as to why he hated gay people, but I never found out that cause, that reason, and I never wanted to.
He would beat me, behind my own mother's back, too, just so he could keep up this honeymoon phase they were entrapped in. He would threaten me - basically teaching me how to threaten people in the future - that if I ever told my own mother about what he would do to me, he would show me how fucking terrible it is to be a faggot.
He was a real physchopath.
"I think I blame my own parents for what happened to me - I mean, it isnt far from the truth - but then that's so fucked up, isn't it? I guess what I'm trying to say is, because of what happened to me, I became this broken piece of glass that cuts people I try to get close to because I have no idea how to get close to them without this constant fear that they'll find out, that they will know I'm a walking piece of shit. I act higher than what I really am to show people that I'm not some lowly freak. I've forgotten who I was and how I used to be, and so have all my friends because I've changed. I've changed for the worse, but they don'tsee that. They see some kid who tries to act like he's better than everyone else. They love it, at least they laugh like they love it, when I pretend. Because pretending I'm not a freak is so much easier than just being me."
"You're not a freak, Corbett," Owen tried to tell me. Oh he tried, he really did, but I didn't losten. I can't take it when people lie, and that makes me the biggest hypocrite to ever walk this earth.
Faster than lightning striking Benjamin's key, I stood up and kicked the circle of chairs out of order, raising my voice to heights, "How can you say that, when you know I'm such a freak? Even my cousin - even Mandy thinks I'm some freak!" I kicked the chairs again, harder. "Something happened to me and instead of becoming this shell, I became this atomic bomb and I dont understand why. Why me?" And then I had picked up a chair and threw it against one of the walls, giving it a hole.
My rage was creeping higher inside of me, urging me to do the things I was doing, urging me to keep talking because I could. I could talk freely like Owen had said and boy, was I going to fucking talk.
"Why am I such a fucking messed up person? Instead of getting sad, I get angry. I get so unbelievably angry at the littlest of things! Like instead of getting sad that the first person I liked - the first boy I liked - was straight, I went ballistic! I got so mad because I thought that he'd never like me like I liked him! And I went crazy!" I picked up another chair and threw it in a random direction, just barely missing the snacks table. "I hated that he would never like me, and I took that hatred out on him! I made myself look like I hated him just so he would at least look at me, notice me, but God, oh God! I made myself into this terrible person because I thought it would be better than being who I really was in front of him. I am always a mess around him, so I tried to make myself look tougher so he wouldn't think I was weak like that bastard did. I wanted to be bigger than that, yet I somehow degraded myself to this! Me!" By now I was just pace, bitching, pointing at myself with the palms of my hands.
"I liked him so much, but I lost control of my anger at how much he would never like me and how much worse I was making myself look. And you know what? You know what?" I looked over at Owen, who was quiet the whole time, letting me get this off my chest, allowing me to pour some of the endurance that was overflowing out of my cup to make room for more.
"That stupid party Mandy wanted? It turned out better than I thought because that boy I liked? He seemed to like boys too? And I'm fucking kicking myself because I did all that, I got so angry, for no fucking reason! But you know how I tried to confront him about it? You wanna know how I ended up dealing with this new information?" I walked back to my seat and plopped down, trying not to suddenly cry.
"I waved the video of him kissing another boy in front of his face, blackmailed him, and told him to basically break up with his new boyfriend, or I'd tell the whole school he was gay. I just couldn't control myself because I didn'tknow what else to do. Hurting other people is all I know because how else can I deal with my own pain? How could only I suffer and nobody else suffer?" And that was the whole truth.
"I'm so messed up," my yell was suddenly gone, and I was mumbling in almost desperation, "please... please, fix me?"
I wanted to be fixed now. I wanted to suddenly be put back together, all better, not such a fucking mess. I knew that that wasn't how it worked, but I wanted to not be... me.
Owen had this grave look on his face, this look of "this kid has had to deal with so much shit" written all over his features. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together as he started talking.
"Do you really want to get better?" He asked. I, through angry tears, weakly nodded. The boy I liked was making me actually want to be somebody else; the prospect of him maybe liking me back was making me want to put forth the effort now that I thought about it.
For him, I thought.
"Okay," Owen nodded back, pulling out a notepad from his back pocket and a pen. He opened the flap to a clean sheet and started writing, "I'm going to refer you to a real good therapist. A psychiatrist that does some work upstate. A bit of a drive but you'll only have to see her once a week. Give her a call and tell her Owen sent you. She's real good, Corbett. She's way better than me by a thousand times. I mean, she helped me out when I was... when I did those very bad things." He tore the sheet from his notepad and grabbed my wrist, slapping the paper into my palms. By now I was calm enough to really listen to him and do as he said.
When he stood up, I stood up, too. He put a warm arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the hall. "Come on, now. Your mom's probably been waiting for a while."
I looked at a hanging wall clock and saw that it was almost seven. We walked by the class, by the hole in the wall I had created during my fit of rage, and passed the lady behind the receptionist's desk who was looking at me all sorry-like, like she had been the one to hurt me. "See you next week, Corbett?" I nodded at her in silent contempt, and then I walked out of that center and towards my mom's car. There I gave her the paper Doc Bright signed and in that car, we just sat, staring at the paper, at nothing, as I silently wept.
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I'm-
5439 words in total, the longest chapter to date.
Also early update why the hell not!
If there are a few mistakes I'm sorry. I tried editing this one too because that's my New Year's resolution, to make my story more enjoyably and readable.
Also, if nobody noticed, this was in Corbett's POV. I hope I made him just a little more distinguishable writing wise. I feel like I write all my boys the same way, in the same style like I cant give them their own personalities. Anyway, I hope it was very Corbett-esque.
And I also hope you liked it enough to LIKE and COMMENT!
If you have any questions about Corbett, feel free to ask. If anything confused you, ask me here. I will explain what I tried to in this chapter to you guys that ask.
Speaking of asking, questions:
Did you think Corbett had IED? (Intermittent Explosive Disorder?) I dont know much about this disorder, tbh, and I hope I didn't fuck it up, but I tried hinting at it in previous chapter that he had it from the anger issues and explosive violence in the cafeteria. Like hitting Andrew was very weird even for all the testosterone and insults.
Owen was in this chapter. What did you think? Theories about why he is in the same town as Zach?
What did you think about when you read that Corbett was beaten when he was younger, but not by his own father, rather his mother's boyfriend?
And, thoughts on the whole Mandy situation?
So yeah... idk... I gave you guys Corbett's POV because you wanted it and I hope I didn't disappoint. (:
I hope also that you like these sudden updates! I'm on a roll! Idk how long this will last, so make the most of it!
Till next time, lovelies!