Cut Up And Scarred

#4 ~ Hell Is So Close To Heaven. I Was So Close To Heaven.

"Chris," My therapist, Dr. Gaskarth, sat down in the burgundy-purple leather recliner and clasped his hands together in a very cliché-shrink way on his lap. "I'm glad you could make it."
I was still stood at the other end of the room, one hand fiddling with the trinkets and ornaments that were placed on the shelf for decoration.
Without looking up from the box I was trying to open one-handedly, "It's not like I had a choice. And even if I did, where else would I possibly go?" My voice was dripping with venom hidden behind a fake smile and a single, half-assed laugh.
But I did nothing to sugarcoat or hide the vicious glare my dark eyes sent him - that I sent him every time I saw him.
This was no surprise to him; nothing out of the ordinary for me or most patients.
"So, how is Oli?" He asked, his quite-so-formal tone already driving me insane - well, more so than usual for me.
"Oliver," I raised an eyebrow, leaning forward. "-is fine I presume." Mimicking his voice.
"That's good. But I've heard personally every time I see him, that his preferred name is Oli." I rolled my eyes, heaving a sigh.
"Sure." I smirked. "...Oliver will be Oliver I guess." To be perfectly honest, it was a natural reaction to call him by his full name now.
"Oli?" I shouted across to the beds from the bathroom, where I was currently trying to hide the pieces of the shattered mirror I had broken earlier from my little fit of rage. Luckily, Oliver had been in the clearing for not being in my way. He was so small I'd have probably killed him.
"It's Oli, Chris." The look on his face told me he wasn't impressed. "Stop it. It isn't funny." He whined loudly back.
But I could see the inner-smile he held back.
"I've said it once, I've said it twice, I've said it a thousand fucking times," He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "It's Oli. Okay? Oli." He pressed, enunciating it loudly and clearly right in my face.
I nodded, smiling broadly.
"Okay, so what did you want?" He smiled back casually.
"Forget it. It was nothing anyways, Oliver."
He screamed lowly, gritting his teeth and stormed off, leaving me behind laughing.
"So how have you been feeling lately, Chris?" Gaskarth relaxed back into his chair.
"Don't start with all the shrink shit. I'm fine. Same as always. Every time you ask I give you the same answer." I shrugged.
"I'm just waiting until you give me a different one." He shrugged. "One day you will." He pursed his lips and stared at the wall for a second.
A minute passed before anything else was said.
"You're not like what I expected." My head tilted in contemplation.
"What?"
"You aren't what I expected a therapist to be like." I breathed a sigh, my eyebrows raised.
"And what did you expect?" He smiled crookedly, his hands clasping together again on his lap.
"I'm not sure." I shook my head, thinking. "Some idiot who thinks he knows everything and can just point out what's wrong in people, like their flaws and their illnesses. Shit like that." I shrugged.
He nodded in agreement. "I went to therapy as a kid - believe me, I hated it. This guy was the biggest dickhead out there." Are therapists allowed to swear? "It's what made me want to pursue this career. To help people - actually help them. Not just diagnose them with some mental disease and give them pills to get over it - insensitive crap like that, but talk to them and want to know what was wrong and how I could help." He leaned forward slightly, his face screwed up in remembrance.
"Wow. That's some deep shit." I sighed and offered a small smile which he gratefully returned.
He shrugged casually, flipping it off with a scoff.

*****

"Oliver, what really happened between you and Justin?" I sat down next to him. I only had on my jeans and my hair was still wet from the shower.
My elbows rested on my legs and my hands fiddled with the pocket on the side of my left leg.
Oliver's breathing stopped for a second, then sped up almost instantly. Tears glistened in his eyes and his head bowed down; looking at the floor and his feet which were bare. Small droplets of blood from the tiny shards of glass in the bathroom stained the pale pink skin. I had forgotten about the mirror I had broken a day or two ago, but he looked as though he hadn't even noticed them.
"You know what, it doesn't matter." I shook my head. "Forget about it. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." To be honest, this was the most I had probably cared for and spared his feelings.
I must love him. I had always been an upfront, blunt person. Whether or not I knew the person, or if they were family or friends, they could never exactly put up with how straightforward I was. The only ones I'd ever known to were Ricky and Oliver.
As I went to stand up from the edge of the bed where we were perched sitting, Oliver's hand rested upon my shoulder and pushed me back. It trailed down my arm and gripped my wrist. He pulled me more into his side and entwined our fingers for comfort. I leaned myself over him slightly and he pressed the side of his face into my shoulder.
My arm, almost a sub-conscious reaction, reached around to wrap around his shoulder and my fingers went to his hair. My thumb instinctively went in small circles; gently tracing intricate patterns onto the skin. He breathed a sigh and his tense frame loosened up and relaxed a little.
"He used to hit me a lot, tell me I was worthless; useless. Pathetic and ignorant." His quiet voice shook slightly and made me want to bundle him up in a blanket and cuddle him like the kicked puppy he was. Those big brown doe eyes; the resulting me - a melting mess.

Oliver's POV:

Shadows on the walls used to haunt me a lot back then. Since I was eleven years old they whispered in my ear and scratched at my skin until they brought blood to the surface; my ears constantly rang like distant bells with static and white noise; my mouth tore at the edges slightly like someone had stuck a knife between my chapped lips and tried to carve me a smile.
"Oliver," Chris sighed from the other end of the room where he was looking upon the wall. "You know you can't draw on the walls. They've already told us this." He didn't seem at all bothered though. It was like he just said it because it had been dug up in memory.
"I know." I whispered whilst a shiver ran through me as though an electric current; adrenaline spiking my bones and spine.
'I may look happy but honestly, dear, the only way I'll really smile is if you cut me ear to ear.' I had scratched with my bare fingernails into the drywall of our room. To be fair, my nails had grown pretty long since I hadn't bitten them down to stubs in a while. Nothing had been back to haunt me yet so I'd really had no reason to attempt to bite my fingers off.
"I like the quote." He smiled at it, shrugging it off like it was no bother, and then disappeared into the bathroom like he usually did every time he came back from Alex's sessions.
Justin had been different. When I met him I instantly felt this pain in my stomach like I wanted to throw butterflies up. But it felt... Good? When he grabbed my hand, I felt the energy run through me - electrifying my blood.
I had met him in a nightclub. Not very romantic but it felt it at the time. Most of the regulars there were alcoholics and addicts. Little did I know back then that I'd soon join them. But I was months clean now. Something I was proud of.
I had only turned to the bitter taste of forgetting (alcohol) because of the awful taste left behind by Justin. Drugs had just helped me cope and sleep.
The list goes on with the shit in my head.
"Pill-popper." "Addict." "Alcoholic." "Pathetic." "Worthless." "Stupid." "Waste of fucking space." "Get out." "It won't happen again, I promise."
No wonder my insomnia and demons had come back. No thanks to him. But because of meeting Chris here, they'd all but disappeared with only a few recent visits.
I could sleep again. I could feel pain and happiness again. I was months clean. The weight on my shoulders and inside my head felt lighter. It felt good to breathe.

"Get out of my way." He snarled as he threw the door back in its frame; the tremor rattling through the house as it slammed against the wood.
I was shoved by my shoulder into the wall and fell to the floor. I shook slightly and tucked my legs into myself, hugging them to my chest.
He turned and came back, kicking me once or twice in the side. I couldn't remember so clearly now because my head had been spinning as it was. The pain was numbed, my breaths were lighter because of the ecstasy pouring into my veins so sweetly.
I could barely see as it was but it was getting darker - my eyes were drooping slightly.
"I'll kill that bastard if I ever see him out of prison." Chris snapped me out of my daze.
I smiled lightly. It felt nice for someone to care enough to stick up for me. All I'd ever had as a kid was my mother; and she'd obviously cared - enough to leave me with my grandmother when I was ten. I never saw her again. I never met my dad either so all I ever knew was Justin, my grandmother and now Chris.

Alex had told me upon my arrival that being a depressed, paranoid schizophrenic going through a phase of insomnia originally from my old childhood sleep disorder that I had grown up with - Old Hag Syndrome - after an abusive relationship and being an addict to alcohol and resorting to drugs was definitely something that took strength to pick yourself up from. And he said I had his respect. Alex was one of my only friends. He knew I'd needed one after just our first, one-hour sessions every day back then. That said something in the least.
He was my first friend. After that, he had informed the institution to let me share a room and build up my social skills a little more. That's how I met Chris.
And Chris was the best thing that ever happened to me.
"I love you." I whispered.
He breathed a sigh and whispered 'ditto' back to me in my ear as he hauled me up into his arms, lying down, and we both fell asleep.