Half-Full - 1. Heal

Take my mind and take my pain, like an empty bottle takes the rain. And heal, heal, heal, heal Tom Peter Odell

*Arnold’s POV*

3 months went by in a blur. The remainder of the summer faded into a cool autumn that would usher in a cold winter. A cold winter it would be indeed.

These past three months have been really interesting for me. Why you ask… Well, it all has to do with a little chat I had with Cameron and how he told me I could confide in him. Ever since that day I have taken up his offer and began telling him about the day Alex died and how I coped with the trauma thereafter. He suggested I see a psychologist just to be on the safe side, but he wouldn’t force me into the matter. He felt that I should do it because I wanted to get better, so I did as he suggested. For the past 3 months I’ve been seeing Dr Beth Dawson. She’s 45 years old and is still pretty young at heart. Besides Cameron, she is the only other person to see me smile and laugh all the time. She has this energy that just makes you want to open up to her no matter how bad your day has been. The moment I met her, I instantly opened up to her which is something I found pretty strange as I had been sent to a psychologist earlier, but that didn’t go well (I hardly said anything in the sessions). She has been amazing at helping me heal, but we haven’t really spoken about Alex’s death a lot. I think she is waiting for me to open up and speak about it freely and explain what I feel every time I talk about him.

After all this time, it still hurts. There are days where I would just lock myself in my room after school until dinner then after dinner, I’d get cornered by Cameron and he’d try get me out of my funk, but it won’t work until my next visit to Beth. I tried to get her to prescribe me anti-depressants, but she abhors the medication and feels that it’s a sad way to evade ones emotions. She explained that she was once a depressed child and was put on the drugs and they made her not feel half the time. As she got ‘better’, for lack of a better word, she began to realise how horrid the drugs were and as such she never recommends them to her patients, unless it is really necessary to do so.

My stepdad has gone back to his old ways, non-caring and cold as ever. However, he seems to be scared of something lately, I think. Why am I saying this? Well, lately, he comes home and shuts himself in his office for hours, whispering incoherently and always making mysterious phone calls to unsaved numbers (okay, I check the phone bill every month for some odd reason and I’ve memorised most of the frequently called numbers in the past year or so). Another thing I noticed is his business trips seem to be longer than usual. What was once a 2-day trip out of town becomes a 1-week trip. Also, these visits seem to make him ever more distant. Last week was the saddest thing that happened since dad left. My stepdad disappeared. I was waiting for him after school because he promised to pick me up. That never happened. In fact, when I called him, his number no longer existed. I called mom who told me the exact same thing and also told me that his clothes were all gone. What we hadn’t noticed is that each time he returned from a trip, he had less clothing than when he left. He was smart with this as he often bought gifts and those distracted us. All in all, our stepfather abandoned the family, just like my dad had.

Friend wise, I still hang around Grayson and Rudolph. They seem to have noticed my change and well, I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with that. Rudolph still doesn’t like me for some reason, but it has toned down these past 3 months. In fact, him and Grayson seem very touchy feely around each other. It sort of reminds me of Alex and I, but then again, I could be reading into something that isn’t there. Grayson also seems to be a little cooler towards me recently, like he dislikes something I’ve done but will never let me know what it is. It’s highly unnerving at times but I refuse to call him out on it. If he wants to talk, he’ll talk.

Isaac and I have re-established our relationship, however tense it may have been. He has also made up with Chuck and the two of them seem to be dating from my perspective. There was a time when I suspected that Isaac had a crush on his friend, but I didn’t say anything that could potentially harm their friendship. Dad has also tried to be more present in my life after he left. I’m not going to lie, but it feels like I’m talking to a stranger half the time. There are days that I sit and wonder why and how he could make me choose who to stay with back then. It hurt when he didn’t show any hint of being hurt by my decision and when he just took Isaac and left abruptly. It’ll take time to get used to the fact that he’ll be in town for a long time because now that my stepfather has left, he has to take over and run the business.

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Today started off like any day. I woke up with a hardon, something I haven’t taken care of in months. I just don’t feel the urge to masturbate anymore, even if my body wants such pleasure. I took a leak and then headed into the shower. While I was showering, Cameron knocked on the door to let me know that I was going to be late if I stayed in the shower any longer and that Grayson was waiting for me downstairs. I was stunned because Grayson never came to pick me up. I quickly finished up and got out the shower. Now, I normally don’t have a towel around my waist when I walk to my room because there is a bathroom in my room, so imagine my surprise when I am drying my hair and a very loud gasp catches my attention. Sitting on my bed and staring at my naked body is Grayson who decided he wanted to see my room and tell me to hurry up. Now, I naturally don’t feel the need to cover up as I feel comfortable in my skin, but the way Grayson was leering at me was enough to make me want to wear all the clothing in my closet. I covered up and cleared my throat to get his attention. He immediately snapped out of whatever trance he was in and went beet red. He was also very hard and could do little to hide it. I decided to try and diffuse the rather awkward situation he had created.

“Hey Grayson. What brings you here so early and so suddenly?”

“Uhm, h-h-hey A-A-Arnold. Uh, I’ll go wait downstairs for you,” he said as he literally fled my room. I’ve never seen someone run away that fast and I struggled to suppress a giggle from escaping. I quickly got dressed in some rather decent clothes and headed down to meet up with Grayson. He wouldn’t meet my eyes at all and when he did, he’d go beet red and turn away again. He was clearly still unnerved by the entire ordeal.

“Let’s go,” he said as soon as I finished my breakfast.

The drive to school was quiet, but I expected it to be so. I wasn’t going to address the with elephant that now sat in between us because that wasn’t my style. I wasn’t embarrassed by the incident this morning, but he was, and he would raise the point when he felt ready. We stopped at Rudolph’s house to pick him and that was all it took for Grayson to ignore the white elephant. And ignore it he did. I had to sit in the back seat because one cannot stand in the way of love, I guess.

We arrived at school and I quickly hopped out the car as I couldn’t take the lovey-dovey atmosphere in the car no more. They were 5 seconds away from ripping each other clothes off and having sex while I patiently sat in the backseat and waited for them to finish their business. I guess seeing me in my birthday suit really got Grayson going. After leaving the 2 ‘ready for sex’ lovebirds in the car, I took off in the direction of my locker. As I got closer to my locker I noticed something odd. Something that actually threw me off. Alex’s locker, which had been unoccupied for 2 whole years, now had a lock on it. The reason I knew this is because we asked to have our lockers next to one another and when he had died, I had asked they keep it unoccupied. This could only mean one thing. Someone was staring at the school and all the lockers were currently preoccupied. I was mildly upset but I quickly got over it when Isaac came over and spoke to me for a while. He basically caught me up on his tennis match and how thing were going with Chuck. He seemed really happy and I was happy for him (well, as happy as I can get). They say if you speak of the devil, he shall appear, and the devil did appear. Chuck came and practically stole Isaac away from me, all the while not looking at me or even apologizing for doing so. Isaac was so caught up in the moment he didn’t even notice what had happened and before I knew it, I was alone once again. Alone once again… just like I had been over 3 months ago before Grayson and Rudolph intruded on my peace and quiet.

When the bell rang I walked to my first class. I’m still not a fan of classes but I have to just do it. My grades have improved a lot in the last 3 months and my teachers are pretty happy about that. In fact, some are even trying to get me to work even harder, so I can be the top of the grade again. I think they need to relax a bit. I’m not ready to devote myself to work again. Anyways, I enter the class and sit at my usual seat which is right by the window. I like this seat because if I feel like drowning out the pointless droning of the teacher, I can just look out at the field and watch a class having their PE lesson. It was still cool enough to have lessons outside, so I always had some entertainment. I guess my mind was already a million miles away because I hadn’t heard the teacher introducing the new student. I didn’t realise this until the new kid tapped my shoulder to introduce themselves. As I cast a look upon his face, I froze. My brain seemed to shut down. Nothing and everything seemed to run through my mind at light speed. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS GOING ON? WHAT WAS THE UNIVERSE DOING? Sitting next to me was the SPLITTING image of my dead boyfriend. He had his curly brown hair and warm, honey-colored eyes. I didn’t know what to do or how to react. I had essentially shut down and there was no way to recover.

The only thing I heard at that moment was, “Hi, my name is Miles. Miles McKay,” and the world turned red.