6. Acclimation

Aaron is unsure where he stands as reality becomes clearer.

***

2009 

               “I can’t do it.”

                “Yes, you can. Why not?”

                “I can’t.”

                “Thanks. Nice answer.”

                Cory stared at a fixed point on the ground, bent over with his hand tightly gripping his knee. “I can’t do any of it.”

                “What?” June focused on her already melting ice cream cone, sitting aside him on the short brick wall and kicking one leg back and forth.

                “I can’t.”

                Agitation grew in her tone. “You said that.”

                His grip on his knee was tight enough that his knuckles were turning white and his arm was beginning to tremble, though his friend hadn’t noticed. “June.”

                “Look, don’t worry. Everyone else’s practicing looks like s**t compared to what you’ve been doing. I bet nobody else worked as hard as we did. They’re just throwing their arms around out there, Cory. You know how to understand and communicate the music, and that’s what it’s about.”

                “No,” he choked out, and June looked back over at him to see almost his entire body shaking, his face as white as his knuckles. “June, it’s too much, I can’t. With the grades, a-and the music checks, my dad is… my dad’s gonna…” He was breathing quickly and shallowly, and his face was strained as though he were in pain.

                “S**t,” June breathed, and she jumped down onto her feet and tossed the remainder of her cone away. “Cory, calm down. It’s gonna be fine.” She stood in front of him, but he seemed not to be able to see her as his breathing became more erratic and he tried to continue speaking, but could form no proper words. He started to tug on his sleeves repetitively and quickly, at the same time biting his lip almost hard enough to draw blood. His eyes stayed fixed unblinking on the ground in front of him.

                “No, no, no…” He started to repeat himself, mumbling in a pained and panicked voice.

                “Hey!” She barked, breaking his loop. She grabbed his hands and pulled them away from each other, pinning them down on either side of him. “Listen to me. It’s alright. You’re manic. You’re having a panic attack. Stressing out like this isn’t going to help anything. You’ve been doing fine on your music checks, and you’re going to kill this audition. You’re the next drum major, I can feel it. It comes so naturally to you.”

                “M-my dad, June-“

                “Is a dick. Doesn’t matter. It’ll be the same as always. He’ll have something else to do and he’ll forget to care enough to f**k with your life about it.”

                Cory groaned nervously, pulling against her hold on his hands, fighting the overwhelming urge to scratch at his arms, rub his hands together, anything. “I’m not going to be able to handle it, J. If I make it, it’s performing my own written routine in front of thousands of people almost twice a week, probably slipping in the rain and falling off the stand and breaking my neck at some point. It’s commanding all those people, being their leader and teaching them, and I don’t know if I know how to do that part. If I don’t make it, I have to watch someone else go through all of it and know I could have been up there. I’ll hate myself.”

                “Damn. Well, that’s a good reason to win, isn’t it? And you’ll be a good leader because you know what you’re doing better than a lot of them, and you know how to show them how to do it better.”

                He let out a sharp breath and trembled, close to tears as his head felt like it was being ripped in two down the center. His thoughts raced around in his head, and nothing stayed in his focus for more than a few seconds. Every sound around him was ear-splitting, from the voices of the other students scattered around the grounds after school to the wind rushing by his ears and the pounding of his heart. Someone knocked over a trash can across the yard, and Cory jumped so high he nearly fell off the wall. He turned to June and looked her in the eye pleadingly. “I need to get out of here.”

                She nodded and picked up his bag. “I’ve got it. Where are your keys?”

                He slid to the ground shakily, his legs almost buckling under him as his feet hit the ground. “S-side pocket,” he stammered.

                June looked sideways at him as they walked to his car. It was odd to see him at such a loss of control both physically and emotionally. More often than not he operated at a low level instead, expressing little other than irritation, disinterest and self-loathing. He normally tended to over-control his behavior, especially socially. During bouts like these, however, anything that crossed his mind was likely to come out of his mouth if someone got him talking, and he made himself known for doing and offering things without thinking.

                Cory slid into the passenger’s seat, closed the door and his eyes, and took deep, slow breaths as June threw both their bags in the back and took the driver’s seat, adjusting the mirrors for her only slightly lower view. He pried his long-clenched hands open and rubbed the bridge of his nose where his glasses sat. “I shouldn’t have set this goal, J. It’s delusion of grandeur.”

                “Not if you go through with it.”

                “I went through with blowing all my savings when I was manic and thought I was poker God. Does that make it not a delusion?” His mouth twisted with sarcasm and the twinkle returned to his eye. “You’re telling me I’m actually an unbeatable deity of gambling?”

                She grinned. “Shut up. That’s different.”

                ***

                “Hey, Sam?”

                “Hmm?” She looked up from her book, which appeared to be in a language unidentifiable to Aaron and containing roughly scribbled outlines of odd, distorted creatures. Since Aaron had refused to leave June’s side, they both sat awkwardly in the small room she had claimed as her own before her kidnapping while she lay unconscious on her mattress on the floor. Tapestries adorned with mandalas formed canopies from the ceiling, catching the natural moonlight from the single small window and outlining the room in a gentle glow.

                “I’ve been thinking about it, and I really appreciate the offer and everything you’re all prepared to do for me, but I don’t think I can come with you. I probably shouldn’t have stayed as long as I have.”

                She closed the book and tilted her head with a sorrowful smile. “You don’t believe you deserve the help.”

                “Of course I don’t,” he replied before he could think about it. “But why would it be on you? I’ve already been such a burden on all of you, and none of it should have happened to any of you because you didn’t deserve it.” He looked down at June with a pained expression, and his voice lowered almost to a whisper and cracked as he said, “Especially not her.” He swallowed and looked back up at the dryad. “None of you need to do anything for me. I’m indebted to you, Sam, for saving me, but I can’t accept any more help. You don’t owe me that, and she doesn’t deserve to have me in the way of her recovery.”

                She clicked her tongue. “Aye, and what, you’ll turn yourself in? Confess and get lifetime in max until you get shanked by someone whose relative you disemboweled and hung from the roof of a building?”

                He flinched and his eyes squeezed shut as the contents of his stomach rose to his throat. “You saw that?”

                “I kept tabs on a few cases that turned out to be you during that time. I couldn’t tell if it was just the work of an ordinary psychopath for some time.” She leaned back. “Look, I’m not trying to be such a gobshite. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. I can’t imagine it. My point is that there’s only one smart option here. I’d tell you that you deserve all the help you can get after what you’ve been through, but you wouldn’t believe me with the state you’re in. You’ll come to see it in your own time, and in the meantime you have people here who know how to help you, and we’re on our way to where you want to go with or without you.”

                “But what about June?”

                She sighed and pulled her hair to the side, briefly exposing under her bandana the short horns that reminded Aaron of a young goat. “To be honest with you, I don’t think the dynamic between you two is as toxic as you expect it to be, when I look at you. Perhaps she doesn’t see you as the one who abused her like you do because of your guilt. Maybe instead you both went through something together and connecting with her is helping her get a grip on what happened.”

                “I didn’t think of it that way,” he said softly, looking down at June’s bruise-covered face.

                “Aye, well, she called you here, didn’t she? And you came, and you’re still here. You fancied each other before it all happened, and-“

                “Each other?” He interrupted, looking up quickly. “She told you she liked me?”

                “Shortly after we found the two of you, she told me about the ‘gorgeous thing’ watching her sing and that the first night was lovely.”

                A hint of resentment flashed through the hope in his eyes. “He got into my head and lured her in with my interests and my life. He used the things we actually have in common against her.”

                “Don’t worry about it. You know better than anyone that he could have and would have taken her without all that just like he took the rest of those people.”

                Aaron’s jaw clenched and his eyes fell to his hands. “Yeah, but that’s because he was using me.”

                She looked sideways at him and grinned slightly. “You’ll give yourself an aneurysm with all this self-loathing.”

                “What?”

                “Nobody lives very long who spends too much time around someone they hate, so you can’t spend your whole life hating yourself.”

                His mouth opened and he was trying to register a reply in his mind when the front door opened. Cory swept to the bedroom in a heartbeat and immediately crouched next to June. “How is she?” He asked sharply, feeling her pulse and listening to her breathing.

                Sam was standing now. “She’s fine. She’s stable.” More quietly, she said to Aaron, “I texted him from her phone.”

                Cory leaned over June and placed two of his knuckles in the middle of her chest, pushing down in a circular motion with as much strength as he could. Her eyes fluttered and she coughed and groaned. Aaron felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Sternum rub,” Cory said to the side. “Had a nurse for a mom. Could you leave us alone?”

Reluctantly, Aaron walked out of the room behind Sam and closed the door. June groaned and squirmed slightly on the mattress, her eyes fluttering open and her senses slowly beginning to return.

“Hey, it’s alright. You’re safe,” he said softly. “It’s me. You’re home. You’re okay.”

Her mouth formed a swear, but her throat was too dry and her voice too weak for anything intelligible to come out. Cory grabbed a water bottle from aside the mattress and helped her take a drink, holding her head up and tilting the bottle. She took a few deep breaths and finally managed to focus her vision on him. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she choked out breathlessly, “It’s exhausting.”

He squeezed her hand. “I know, J. I’m sorry.”

“I think I’d like a little while alone to rest,” she said quietly. “Is that okay?”

He was taken aback slightly. The timid nature she had adopted since he found her was very uncharacteristic of her, and more familiar to him. It had been his own drawback, once debilitating years ago, that her bold nature had helped him to overcome. “Of course it’s okay. Just yell if you need anything, alright?”

Aaron rolled his shoulders around in the living room, amazed at how tense he hadn’t noticed being the whole time. When Cory emerged, their eyes instantly locked. “She’s okay?” Aaron asked softly.

The redhead nodded and moved to peer out the window, moving the blinds aside just an inch. “I know what you did, and I would thank you,” he said, still watching out the window. “I would also warn you not to take advantage of that.”

“You have nothing to worry about from me,” Aaron replied steadily.

“Good,” said Cory, letting the blinds fall back over the window. “Let’s keep it that way.” Shooting Aaron one last look, he opened a closet in the hallway and pulled out a Gibson guitar (Aaron recognized it as the same one he had played at the live music bar where he and June had been performing the night he was possessed), moving to the room across from June’s and closing the door behind him.

Author's Note

Do I still have readers?