Falling Falling Stars

28 - Explanations

Note: Hope you're all going well in slowburn town!

*

He thought he'd be fine, walking home listening to Arden on the phone. But he was terrified. He could hear it in his breathing, he knew Arden could hear it too.

'It's so stupid,' he said, feeling like that was the refrain for the day.

'I promise you it's not,' Arden said. 'Why does it surprise you so much to be so afraid of this, baby?'

'Because...'

He thought about how Arden wanted him to open up more, even as his eyes flickered all around the street like he was trying to see everything at once.

'Arden, how much do I have to tell you before we can look at like, that form? Those pages? When will you know?'

There was a soft laugh over the phone and then a muffled thumping sound. 'Ah shit, that was a whole stack of books. Oh well! Um, hm, sweetheart. Let me think. How about...we just talk for a bit and maybe you can tell me some things? I don't know if it's a good idea for you to recap what happened last week while you're walking home. So maybe not that. You seem really surprised to be scared though.'

'It's never really been like this before,' Efnisien admitted. He stared down at his shoes on the pavement, then edged sideways to make sure the woman in a yellow business suit could get by him easily. He didn't even think about shoving her in front of a car. But he hadn't had thoughts like that in a long time. He bit into his bottom lip as he looked up again, he wondered if Dr Gary would want to know things like that.

'Really? Even, even after Hillview? You said you got jumped, you mean beaten, right?'

'Yeah, by like six people,' Efnisien said, laughing softly. 'It was my fault. I talked a big fucking game. I thought I was the meanest one there.'

'And you weren't afraid after?'

'No,' Efnisien said slowly. 'Not really. I mean I just didn't think about it. I had to go back. I think I was scared, but I couldn't go anywhere else. My parents were never going to like... Like there were some conditions in my life and if I wanted those things, I had to be in Hillview. My cousin he... He said he'd only see me if I stayed there, until Hillview said I was ready to be an outpatient. And he was the only person who ever came to see me. So I had to be in Hillview. I couldn't be scared. It's kind of a luxury isn't it? To be afraid of something.'

Efnisien twitched when he heard a car's engine fire too loudly from a street nearby, then shuddered.

'Though it doesn't feel like a fucking luxury right now.'

'I think I get it,' Arden said quietly. 'Sometimes fear can make things impossible. And you can't have things be impossible when you're trying to survive as it is. So the fear has to go. Or at least, the ability to focus on it and do anything about it has to go.'

'You sound like you know a bit about that.'

'I maybe know a bit about that,' Arden chirped, then laughed. 'The fear never goes away, it just finds other ways to speak up. Like, fuck, migraines or some shit.'

Or stomach aches.

Efnisien's hand went to his gut, he frowned.

'How often did your cousin come to see you?' Arden asked.

'Once a month. Sometimes less,' Efnisien said. 'But I hurt him. And I have this way of getting around him, so I still hurt him. He has no reason to believe I haven't like, assaulted people, in the last three years...'

Efnisien looked around to make sure no one was watching him, but no one was. He didn't cut through the parks this time, but stayed on the path close to them, near the people, the children, the animals. For a while, he heard nothing but his own breathing and the sound of Arden slotting books into a bookshelf, one after the other. Small little thuds.