DanK
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It’s been two years since Sam died and almost a yearr since Adam finished ISWB for him. I pretty well dumped all the communication about it onto Adam, and he’s been nice enough to handle it for me. I never spent a whole lot of time in these online places, and I don’t intend to change that, but some of the same questions come up over and over. I do read through the comments and reviews posted here eventually. I asked Adam to post this someplace that wouldn’t get buried to answer some of them.
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Author Note: I know it's a little non-standard, but I'd like to ask readers to find "Everything" by Lifehouse in a YouTube clip or at Grooveshark and to listen to the music as they read the final words of the story, especially if you're not familiar with the song. Chapter 34 There's not much more to say. Brian selected a psychologist and called him the next week, set up an appointment, and we started seeing him. The help helped. It wasn't easy; not at all. Brian had to work through
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Chapter 33 I'd like to say that after Brian and I got together, we all lived happily ever after. Happily-ever-after, though, doesn't just fall out of the sky. A person's own life teaches him about what's real and what's possible, and shapes the way he lives and the way he loves. I'd needed to get to the point where I just didn't have a choice in the matter before I would finally start letting Brian in. My recent bad flashback got me to take those first tentative steps. The year that foll
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Chapter 32 I finally drifted into a peaceful sleep. When I woke up, I found myself spooned up against Brian, my chest against his back, my body molded to his, and my arm around him. I remembered where I was, and what had happened. And I felt peaceful. Maybe for the first time in my life. I sat up, and watching him sleep, I thought about how we'd loved each other for years. Often when Brian was in my thoughts, those thoughts took the form of reflections on the years I'd spent trying t
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Chapter 31 August faded into September. The school year had started, and a breakdown wasn't an option. The trick was going to be managing that. I had to keep going. I had to claw my way out of the deep hole Duane had thrown me into. I had to manage the careful balancing act between love and friendship that marked my relationship with Brian. I had to keep my sanity in the face of Neal's constant low-grade terror tactics. I had to get through the nightly flashbacks that resulted. And
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Chapter 30 Through all the turmoil of my life during this period, Duane, the online friend I'd made several months back, helped keep me on an even keel. Duane was a different kind of guy from anybody else I'd met before. He seemed utterly incapable of having a conversation without injecting large amounts of goofy, stupid humor. It was kind of annoying. Beyond that, he was a Libertarian who didn't believe in global warming. As a scientist, that sort of ignorant defiance made me roll my ey
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Chapter 29 Chris and Ajax and I liked to spend Saturday mornings in the park. There was a large and elaborate jungle gym, a couple of huge slides, and swings. Chris loved it all. Ajax just liked the open space. While I watched Chris play, I'd toss Ajax a Frisbee, and he was pretty good at snagging it out of midair. One Saturday around noon, we got home after a morning romp in the park, and I found a message on my answering machine. After Chris ran off into his room to play, I decided to lis
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Chapter 28 After Brian's visit, I'd say that life settled down into its usual normal routine, but when did I ever have a usual normal routine? What was usual for me wasn't what other people would call "normal." Neal seemed to be lying low, but he'd raised me to a perpetual level of Orange Alert, so I was always looking nervously around corners and over my shoulder, never completely able to shake the fear that he'd show up out of nowhere to throw a little more mayhem at me. Jonah contin
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Chapter 27 Have you ever had a conversation so confusing that you keep covering the same ground over and over? The remainder of my talk with Brian reminded me of how people sometimes get lost in the woods, and in trying to walk their way out, they keep ending up right where they started. I didn't know it at the time, but by the time the night was over, I'd feel like one of those people. "I went off to college intending to put it all behind me," Brian said, continuing to try to explain his
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Chapter 26 I raced to pack up our lunches and to herd Chris and the dog back down the trail. Chris kept asking where Brian went and I told him he'd started down the mountain ahead of us. I wasn't sure he'd even be there when we got to the bottom. I didn't have a clue what to think; I was stunned. He was waiting for us when we got to the car. He was sitting on the hood of my car, looking lost. He didn't say anything, though, and as we loaded up, he climbed into the car without saying a wor
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Chapter 25 It was liberating to share some of my burdens online with a supportive e-community, and it was incredibly therapeutic to talk to others about my past and to know that because of the "distance" the Internet creates, I didn't have to worry too much about my honesty and openness coming around to cause me trouble. As shy as I am, I nevertheless found it easier and easier--and more important all the time--to disclose things about myself and my past to others, in ways that I simply coul
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Chapter 24 "It hit me too." I think those four words threw me harder than Drew's story had. They didn't say anything clearly. But of all the possible things Brian could have written to me, of all the possible things I feared he'd say--along with the possibility that he wouldn't reply at all--those four words were beyond all my hopes. Still, I didn't know how to respond to his e-mail, so at first I didn't. Of course, the words themselves were ambiguous. Even given that I had somet
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Chapter 23 I'd started reading Rip Current because I needed something to cleanse my emotional palate after Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys had messed with me so badly. If I'd needed to get away from that book's general theme, however, I'd made a wrong choice. Rip Current purported to be the true story of a guy looking back on his relationship with his best friend from high school. That was too close to home; it was the complete antithesis of what I was looking for. The exact thing I wasn'
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Chapter 22 I reported the incident to the police, but I wasn't very helpful in answering their questions. I didn't want to bring Neal into it. I should have; but going to the police and rehashing the ugly history of our relationship was more than I could stomach. All the way home I had to fight the sense of dread and hopelessness that had gripped me when I saw what had been done to my car. By the time I pulled into my drive I was practically catatonic. I forced myself out of the car and o
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Chapter 21 My personal life settled into a warm and comfortable routine, for the most part. Jonah was a kind and loving man, and he and Chris got along great; I could tell they genuinely loved each other. It was nice to have someone to walk through life with, and it was good for Chris to have two adults in the house to love. About a year after our commitment ceremony, Jonah decided to go to graduate school to pursue a Master's degree in astronomy. I was happy to support his goals; I'd done
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Chapter 20 We got serious pretty quickly after that. My lease was coming up at the end of May, and at the end of April, Jonah asked me to move in with him. I didn't have a lot of experience with intimacy, to say nothing of success at it. So by ordinary standards I suppose things progressed quickly. Some people might say things were progressing tooquickly. I wasn't the casual-dating type, though. I'm just wasn't wired that way. I'd always felt that if I were involved with someone,
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To Dan's readers: As most of you know, Dan died in late October of cancer. He was in his early 30s. Months ago, Dan agreed to my offer to finish his story from his notes. I wish with all my heart I'd have been able to finish it in time for him to see the whole thing. But he understood, and was glad there was someone to get the story told. It was important to him because, as I'll go ahead and reveal now, this is not a fictional tale; it was autobiographical for Dan. I miss you so much, Dan,
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Chapter 18 When I'd gone back to school to work on a Bachelor's in biology, Walt was one of the first members of the biology faculty I met. He was the professor of the very first class I attended when I went back to school. Walt was one of the most amazing people I have ever known. He was flatly intimidating. Physically, he was tall and imposing; academically, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of his field. His expectations of his students were sky-high, but I soon learned that his expect
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Chapter 17 Erica went into labor two weeks early. I was worried; with all the things that had gone on since we found out she was pregnant, we hadn't managed to get to any birthing classes, and I didn't have a clue what to do. She was in labor for 36 hours. She was such a trooper. She refused to take any painkillers. It was awful to see her struggling and not be able to do anything to help. The most I could do was hold her hand and try to say supportive things, but I don't think squashing m
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Chapter 16 Erica and work helped me return to the land of the living. There were a couple of paradoxes here. First of all, Erica had come into my life because she was a friend of the man who nearly killed me. That doesn't sound like a reasonable description of someone who'd help me heal. For all that, though, she was the one person who didn't seem to attach any pressure to my recovery. I should explain that a little. It wasn't that other people were pressuring me; it's just that I knew
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Chapter 15 They say if you put a lobster in a pot of cold water and set him on a hot burner to cook him, things heat up to life-threatening so gradually that the lobster doesn't even register any awareness...and before you know it, he's done. I'm here to tell you that I totally get that. Neal was from my hometown. Brian had known him back in our high school days, but I hadn't. After summer was over, he moved back to town and got an apartment. I was spending most of my free time with
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Chapter 14 For someone whose life hasn't been dominated by fear, my reactions to the problems I faced in high school and college may be hard to understand. Fear as an everyday companion is not easy to comprehend from the outside. It's hard to relate to how paralyzing it can be. To compensate--even to survive--a person who fears around the clock has to deflect off into other states. All my life I'd lived with fear as a constant. When the fear became too great, I'd get angry. That would get
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Chapter 13 The two jobs I’d taken that fall—the AIDS internship and the waiter job—were a huge part of an incredible burden I’d taken on that first year of college, but they were necessary, and they helped keep money from being too much of a worry. I’d become involved with the AIDS organization in high school because we had to do 90 hours a semester of volunteer work, and it was just down the street, so it was easy to get the hours in; at least, that’s what I told myself. I think somewhere
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Chapter 12 I woke hours later still wrapped around Mary. As much as I had dreaded having to face her now that she knew, having her home for the summer and being here for me felt so good. Thin morning light was filtering in through the curtains over the windows. Brian was gone. I wasn't sure if I had dreamed him being there the night before, and part of me wondered if the entire previous day had just been some horrible nightmare. I wanted it to be a dream. Of course, it wasn't. I heard t
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Chapter 11 It's amazing how much you can hide from yourself. I had spent so much time and energy hiding my feelings for Brian from everyone, including myself. Now that they were unmasked, I couldn't hide from them anymore. The memory of his touch, his body against mine as he held me, his scent, the sound of his voice, every sensation of those moments in the snow in my back yard was burned into me like a brand. Brian knew how I felt. He said he was okay with it. That should have been a
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