thinking abt andrew post-meds. the list of actions and words and things and stuff he must contend with. what it means to, how it feels to, the process of returning to oneself. how uncomfortable his body must have felt. how uncomfortable his mind must have felt. how he’ll never again be able to hide behind or reach for the comfort of those drugs. how he hates that he wants to. how long it takes for him to register the truth of the past few years. not just neil, unfortunately attractive and indeed very real. but wymack seeing someone worth investing in. kevin seeing someone worth trusting. nicky seeing someone worth caring for and not just out of guilt. renee seeing someone worth befriending. bee seeing someone who needs help, but isn’t just a victim, who is instead a whole person, a universe in and of himself. coming to terms with what his brother had witnessed and had done in his defense. coming to terms with how close his brother had been to his abuser. thinking abt andrew post-meds and being unwilling to give up his knives, his own sharp edges. not to make up for being unable to protect himself as a child, but because he has been taught in his early adulthood that violence begets violence begets violence. from defending nicky to being drugged to being assaulted. violence is a type of power, violence is definitely control, violence is a tool wielded against him, and doesn’t he deserve to wield it too? thinking abt andrew post-meds and a long night. after he’s checked on all his walking responsibilities and reasserted his boundaries in case anyone had forgotten. the roof and the blank expanse of a dark night isn’t enough. he needs motion, movement, a form of pacing that doesn’t tip anyone off to the internal dialogue, bubbling anxiety, days and hours mentally catalogued, now flipped through to ascertain fact from fiction. it’s the mas rumbling under him as he drives circles around campus. cigarette lit, radio silent, passenger seat empty. just the monotony of traffic lights, turning corners, and watching the sky grow lighter as his thoughts grow quieter.
