Chapter Forty-One Clinging Part One: To A Life 2 страница

“It’s not your fault,” I told her softly as we pulled into the hospital parking lot. She didn’t answer me for a long time, taking her time to pay for a parking pass and then sliding into a spot. She glanced over at me when the engine had been cut, her hair falling down from the loose pony tail she had put it in, and her eyes displaying another night of lost sleep.

“Remember what I told you about lying to me, Frank,” she whispered softly, her vacant eyes not even registering anymore. She leaned over to me in what I thought was going to be a hug I had wanted to give, but instead just opened the door for me and motioned with her hand. Disappointed, I sighed and got out, looking in and hoping she would say something more. She just got out of the car.

“You’re coming too?” I asked back quickly, my voice breaking. I had thought I was doing this all alone. I had wanted to do this all alone.

“You can’t go alone,” she corrected my thoughts, her expression still tired. She unlocked the back door, getting her purse out and slugging it over her shoulder. She looked at me with the most emotion her face had held all morning, her voice cracking like mine as she said her words. “You’re still a child, Frank. They need to see a parent because you can’t handle this on your own.”

She placed a hand over her face, sucking in her quivering breath and turned to walk towards the tall building. I followed, nervous, scared, and worried about what would happen next. To the both of us.

 

The building still sent shivers up my spine, but I was getting better at focusing on other things. My mother led the way, me lagging behind her, my hands jammed in my pockets and looking around every once in awhile. I felt like people were staring at me, their eyes burning into my skin like they knew what I was there for. Eventually, I stopped looking up, and watched the specks of the tile floor and hearing my mother’s soft shoes hit over and over again. It took us awhile to find where we were going in the huge building, but we located a nurse at a station, and she pointed us in the right direction. The halls were so dense and big, floor plans or bad art lining the wall. I heard the familiar sounds of heart monitors and ghost whispers, but I tried to ignore it. It was easy when I thought of just how fucking embarrassing this was going to be.

My mother had to come with me. I had failed to realize that detail from before. I wondered how long she would need to be with me. I was a child, in their eyes, but I could handle this by myself. I wanted to handle this by myself. My mother could just talk to the doctor beforehand and fill out paperwork. Then I could have my physical alone. I shuddered just thinking about what this physical would entail. I didn’t want my mom to see me naked. I didn’t want her to be around when they stuck things in places. And most of all, I didn’t want her to know or find out if I had had sex or not. She used to always take me to medical appointments before, and either wait in the waiting room or actually come right in. She even still went to the dentist with me a majority of the time, and finally stopped coming in the room only a year ago when the dental hygienist had begged her to stay in the waiting area because she only got in the way. But this was something different than having a tooth pulled, or having my infected ears looked at. This was far more personal, intimate, and fucking embarrassing. This was something I fucking wished I could do on my own, that I knew I could do on my own. And from the way we walked apart from each other I the halls, I felt like I was alone.

We followed the pointed fingers and friendly smiles of the nurses to the clinic where I apparently had an appointment. They riffled off my medical forms right away, my mother snatching it from their hands before I could even glance at the pink and yellow papers. She insisted on filling it out, just waving off my questions as to what it was all about.

“Just your allergies and family history,” she said in a monotone voice, her eyes not removing from the sheets in front of her. “It would be easier if I do them.”

That was the end of the conversation, one of the only ones we had, and I had to sit in silence for the longest time, before they called me to get my blood drawn. I was ushered away from the blue foamy chairs in the waiting room to the hard white plastic ones in the side area, separated by curtains for a plump, older lady to take my blood. My mother followed me back, practically jumping out of her skin the second my name was called. Her eyes were wide with worry, but when she was informed it was only the blood and not the physical, a wave of relief washed over her face. I felt some bitter resentment ride up, that she didn’t even want to be here for her own son when she had to, but then again, I wouldn’t want to be there either, especially in the delicate position she was in. The nurses kept looking at her, giving her sad sympathetic sighs. My mother rarely heard or met their gaze, but when she did, their sympathies only reminded her about why she was here. And the vicious cycle was going again.

After the small pinprick from the needle, they began to steal my blood. It certainly felt like theft after the fourth vial was filled up. They were taking so many, I didn’t think it was healthy. I felt myself tense as the dark liquid was expelled from my body, knowing very well that it could hold my fate and whether or not I was diseased. The nurse dealing with me was short and round, her smile chipper and not judging at all when she looked at my chart and realized what this all was for. In fact, her round cherub face smiled when she had stuck the first needle in.

“It’s good that kids are getting this sort of stuff checked,” she said sweetly, tapping the vial before replacing another. “Too many wait too long and then it’s too late.”

I merely nodded and shrugged my shoulders, waiting for her to just finish. My mother was behind the curtain still, a mere shadow. Even if she had been out from behind, I had a feeling she would still be transparent.

After, we were ushered into the waiting room once more, cotton pressed into the newly pricked vein on my arm and masking tape to hold it all in place. We were barely given time to warm the chairs, before another nurse came forward and called my name.

“Frank Iero.” She looked up from her clipboard, her bangs covering her furrowed brow. My mother was out of her seat again, on the edge, but didn’t move forward. The blood and medical forms were done and filled out. She knew what was coming now.

“Examination room, just around the corner.” The nurse motioned with her arms to the direction we were supposed to go, and I started to walk. I didn’t hear her footsteps behind me at first, but eventually, slowly and surely, my mother began to come forward, her face in more of a pained expression than my own was. I got to the room first, where the nurse told me to put on a gown.

“Oh, I’ll let him change. I’ll just be in the waiting room,” my mother stated, waving her hands in front of her face as if to brush away the worry that had set in. The nurse cast a gaze over to her, furrowing her brow.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but you have to be in here with him. He’s still a child,” the nurse interjected, and I felt my heart fall. I was so close to being alone. So fucking close. I hated being the age I was and everyone calling me a child. I was a month away from being eighteen. Fuck. That was old enough.

My mother’s frantic hands still waved around in front of her face. “I’m still here though,” she argued, her voice cracking and breaking. “I’ll be right over there. I can even see a chair I can sit in where I can still see the room. I’ll just be over there…”

I looked at the nurse, my eyes pleading with her. She caught my glare, sighing hard as she looked at my mother who was on the verge of tears. She had fucking been through enough, I thought to myself, for once unselfishly. She shouldn’t have to come into my room if she didn’t want to. We both didn’t want her to be there. And God, I didn’t want to see her cry again.

“Fine,” the nurse gave in, brushing her bangs out of her face and making a compromise. “You don’t have to go in with him, but you have to stay in the hall. The doctor must talk to you about the results after.”

My mom breathed a sigh of relief, her hands not as frantic and settling to just mask her face. “Thank you,” she uttered, as she leaned against the wall. I could see one of her eyes peak out from under her slender hands and in that small moment, we finally both agreed on something.

The nurse led me into the small white room, closing the door as she left and instructing me again to change and put on a gown. I did as I was told, trying to be as quiet as possible. I was aware my mother was on the other side of the door and would still hear everything, but at least she wouldn’t see it, and most likely she wasn’t going to want to listen. She would do everything in her infinite power to not listen to anything said on this door. She didn’t want to hear it; that was clear. She even looked a little reluctant to talk to the doctor after, but at least in that scenario, the doctor could sugar-coat details, and would only tell her what she needed to know. I was still afraid of what that would entail, but at least I was starting to regain some independence.

I felt like I waited for hours afterwards for the doctor to come in, the blue and stiff fabric doing nothing to cloth myself or hide my shame. I began to realize that I was feeling less and less confident about my body as the day progressed, and I felt my heart sink. The lessons that Gerard had worked so hard on were slowly fading away. I tried to conjure up that day in my mind, but it only began gray and fuzzy. I racked my brain over and over again, probably too much, and sent myself into a worrying fit of why I was finding it hard to remembered his face, the motions and mannerisms of the man I had shared so fucking much with. Shared so much that I now had to deny. I was beginning to believe my own lies, and that was when I knew it was becoming a problem, as if the crinkling hospital paper wasn’t enough of an indication.

I became aware of murmuring on the other side of the door all of a sudden, and before I could distinguish anything, the white door was thrust open and someone came inside.

“Hello.”

It was a woman. She was wearing a white lab coat, stethoscope around her neck. She placed the very same clipboard, with other sheets now attached to it, that my mother had handed off to the nurse before I came in. She turned around towards me, leaning on the counter, giving me her full attention as she crossed her arms over her chest and flipped her dark brown hair over her shoulders with an airy smile.

“I’m Dr. Lansing, but you can call me Bonnie if you want. How are you today, Frank?”

She caught me off guard with her presence, and her use of my name right away. Though people had been fairly friendly with me all day, they had never once addressed me by my name in the manner that she had. I had heard my name in the waiting room, but that was a call, something to get me to pay attention. I was a mere patient to everyone here, except this doctor. She addressed me by my name letting me know that she wander to know how I felt. The phase ‘how are you’ was always too overused when meeting someone for the first time. It was always said, not always meant to be answered. She had twisted this phrase, even if just a little bit, and adding my name to it. The way she stood, her hazel eyes wide and listening, made me feel like I was Frank, not another name on a list to them.

The fact that she was a woman also caught my attention. I had nothing against female doctors, but I just thought that since this was a physical they would have given me a male. Especially with the way this physical was going to end up heading.

“I’m okay,” I stated slowly, adjusting to my new environment. “Been better.” I crossed my legs in front of me suddenly, realizing just how exposed I was.

“Oh,” she uttered, noticing my discomfort. She looked at my clipboard really fast, crinkled her nose and drew her attention to me once again. “You can have a male doctor, if you wish. I was just free and I usually do cases like this.”

I paused for a second, not answering and marveling at how she had read my thoughts.

“I think Dr. Barker is on shift today…” she trailed off, leaning over and touching the doorknob about to go. “John’s a really nice guy. You should like him.”

I found myself involuntary reaching out to her, not wanting her to leave me so abruptly. I had this strong urge inside of me, wanting and needing her to stay for some foolish reason. The way she smiled and moved her hair reminded me of Vivian, and they looked to be about the same age. I would have much rather have her look me over than a complete stranger, no matter how nice this John guy was. At least I could identify with something familiar here.

She noticed my out stretched arms, and raised an eyebrow at me questioningly.

“You can stay,” I told her, settling down on the crinkly paper again. She smiled sweetly, brushing her hair out of the way again and nodded.

“Let’s get started then,” she said, and almost as soon as she entered, the whole process began.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – at first. She did the normal doctor things, like check my ears and mouth and stuff. Her eyes were a lot more narrowed and concentrated than my normal doctor, but that could have been because she was a thirty-something attentive female, as opposed to a nearly retiring old gray haired man. She was very good at her job, and no detail seemed to get passed her watchful eye.

“You had a shower this morning,” she stated after she pulled the instrument from my ear.

I felt my skin tighten, and I gripped down on the crinkling paper on instinct. How the hell did she know that?

“I can smell your shampoo. It’s very nice.” She smiled at me as she moved over to the other ear, probing me once again.

“Thanks…” I mumbled under my breath, focusing on my cupped upwards palms on my lap.

“You’re technically not supposed to have a shower before you come here,” she started to speak again. Though her words were authoritative, she presented them in a friendly fashion. I still couldn’t help but be scared.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out right away. I began to wring my hands together on my lap.

“Don’t be - I’m assuming no one told you about it?”

I nodded, eyes facing down. No one had told me anything about what was going on. I had showered because I needed to remove the evidence they needed to collect. Though I had wanted to fight the system before, I still felt guilty in front of Bonnie.

“Don’t worry about. It just makes things easier for you if you don’t’ shower. Hopefully we can still get what we need.” Her voice broke my thoughts, and when I looked up at her, she smiled, trying to put me at ease. I nodded, breathing a little easier, and she went back to work.

She began to head towards my chest, her stethoscope out and ready to listen, and it was no time that after that was complete that she told me to lie down. It was then that my nervous anxiety began to get the best of me, as if it hadn’t before. She noticed my hitched breathing immediately, and told me she was just feeling around my stomach, making sure any organs weren’t damaged. This was normal doctor stuff. I complied, but anytime she got close to my ass or my genitals in general I could feel my heart stopping. She didn’t speak again, but she smiled at me a lot, warming up anything cold that she had to use with her breath and hands.

“Okay, Frank,” she started once she had finished feeling my lower abdomen. Her voice had changed from its high complacency, to a serious nature. “This is the hard part…”

“Oh, God,” I muttered under my breath. She was far enough away from me now, just standing before me and no longer touching, so I knew she couldn’t hear my random outburst.

“I know it’s awkward, but I need to do the rape kit now,” she stated smoothly, procedure like.

“What?”

I knew I had been getting a physical, and my father had threatened with proof of my past sexual habits, but a fucking rape kit? I had never even admitted to having sex. Could my father just authorize something like that?

“A rape kit, honey,” she said smoothly, seeing my distress. “I need to. I talked to your mother about it outside, and it’s in your chart.”

Without skipping a beat, she walked over and grabbed the clipboard and showed me the small fine type in the mess of papers. Rape Kit was printed loud of clear. I couldn’t believe it. I hated my father – Anthony - more and my mother was starting to top my list as well. Her sad nature cancelled the anger I had within me for her and I was just left with a pile of nothing in regards to her.

“But I wasn’t raped!” I exclaimed after reading the words over and over again. I didn’t care if my mother heard me, in fact, I fucking wanted her to know what she as doing to me. She thought this was hard on her? Well, it wasn’t going to be fucking easy on me either. This was fucking worse than being raped as far as I was concerned. I looked up from the clipboard to the doctor’s eyes, begging, fucking pleading with her to not do this to me. She frowned, but not at me like everyone else was doing. They were always condemning the action that Gerard was being accused of, never sympathizing with it. She was sympathizing with it, even if there was no action in my opinion.

She had done enough of these cases to know what she was doing. She wasn’t going to pursue the rapist, and forget about the victim. Even if in my case there was no rapist, I was still being victimized. She saw that. She was going to try and help me.

“I know, honey,” she soothed. She folded the chart under her arm and took a deep breath, answering my next question before I even asked it. “But I have to do this. It’s the rules.”

“I wasn’t raped…”

“I know,” she stated again, and though I knew that she really didn’t know, had no fucking clue even, I believed her. “But we have to do this rape kit to prove what you’re saying. It will tell us if you’ve been raped or not.” She paused, taking another deep breath while I just stared blankly at the ground. She rested her hand on my shoulder, her soft voice in my ears. “It’s going to be hard, but I’ll do anything you want to make it easier. We can talk during it if you want, or you can talk to me after. Or we can not talk at all. Hell, I’ll even sing for you if it makes you feel any better. Whatever is easiest and better for you, hon. You’ve been through too much for me to just dictate everything. I have to with some things, but there are exceptions to the rules.”

I looked up at her then, my mouth hanging open in contrast to hers giving me a weak smile. She said there were exceptions to the rules. She said so, and I couldn’t believe it.

Maybe, just maybe, I could trust her.

She rubbed her hand on my shoulder again, soothing me like Gerard had done many times before. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had to do this. I hadn’t been raped so I knew the test wasn’t going to show anything. I was still nervous as fuck because there was still a chance, a remote chance, that it something would show up, because I had still had sex with him, but I had to do it. I had to take risks, Gerard had taught me that.

“Okay,” I finally agreed. I laid down the way she told me to and let her guide me. I didn’t want to talk during it, I told her, and I declined her invitation at singing as well. The small joke made me smile, but my face was too stressed to show it. I just wanted to lay in silence and bite my lip wishing I was someplace else. She dipped back into her austere nature, and started to work.

She seemed to take forever, swabbing and probing and collecting. It hurt a few times, but probably because I was so nervous. It was way more invasive than I had first expected, some of her instruments actually going deep inside me. I gasped and choked, at the first sign of penetration, and she had asked if I was okay. I didn’t or do anything but grip the sheets, and she went on. She didn’t just busy herself with my lower regions, when she was done the most persistent procedure, she looked over my hands, took nail scrapings, and went over my limbs. She looked at my face too, and paused momentarily over my father’s hit. I held my breath as she gazed, not prepared to answer questions about that marking.

In the mirror that morning, the welt was only pink with a few raised blood vessels. If it still looked that bad in the doctor’s room, I was sure I was blushing enough to cover all tracks. Sure enough, she bypassed it, and that was it.

I hated Anthony, but for some strange reason, I didn’t want him to be caught. He hit me, and I just wanted that to be the end of it. I wanted a lot of things to end, and when Bonnie finally told me that the procedure was all done, I let out a sigh of relief. My lungs ached as I moved myself into a sitting position; I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath for that long. I watched the doctor as she took the samples wrapped in plastic bags over to a box, place them inside, and then check some information on her clipboard before I finally said anything, voice barely above a whisper.

“What does it say?”

She glanced over at me from her clipboard, frowning. I didn’t want to see that frown. I didn’t need to see that frown. It only made me want to crawl under the blankets that did nothing to warm the chill I felt going through me.

“I won’t know any for sure results until we get it back from the lab,” she stated, pursing her lips and still trying to give me a smile, but it wasn’t working.

“But what do you say?” I probed deep, like she had. Too many things were in the air, even if it was just an opinion, I needed it.

“Well,” she started, pulling the clipboard to her chest and leaning against the counter. She sighed, wondering how she was going to proceed. She spoke her next words lowly, so my mother could not hear them on the other side. “You’re muscles have been stretched. I can tell that you’ve probably had anal sex before.”

The words dropped to the ground along with my eyes and shattered before me. I cursed my fucking father for being right, I cursed the fucking rape kit, I even cursed the doctor for being so nice to me when it just ended up getting my hopes up to be dashed to pieces. All of the hope I had garnered on this one thing I saw fall before my very eyes. Weren’t there exceptions to rules? Gerard had said so. The doctor had said so. I had said so. Why couldn’t this kit say so? I started to picture all of the frightening and horrible events that would happen next; Gerard getting arrested, thrown in jail where he may even be killed before my father got a chance. They don’t like pedophiles in jail; they kill them. Just the thought of everything made my stomach twist and turn and I thought I was going to throw up. I probably would have if I had eaten breakfast that morning. Rather, I placed my hands over my eyes, rubbing the base of my palm into my eyes and pressing the tears back into my face. I was not going to cry, not over fucking this.

But if I didn’t cry here, then when would I be allowed to cry?

“I wasn’t raped…” I begged again, so quietly even I couldn’t hear myself.

“I know, honey,” she stated again. She moved over to me and placed a hand on my back, which I wanted to knock away. But I kept it there, all the same. It was some contact, something comforting. Even if she didn’t understand.

“I know you weren’t raped because I didn’t find any tearing,” she started again, making me pay attention right away. I looked up at her, hope in my eyes and only bare remnants of tears. She smiled and nodded at me, continuing. “In usual rape cases, there’s an abundance tearing, fissures, sometimes scarring. Even with those types of markings, it doesn’t always mean it’s from a rape. There are so many gray areas with this. But from what I could tell, I didn’t see any signs of trauma with you. I took some swabs, but I don’t think their anything to worry about. It’s the lab’s decision as of right now, but I don’t think you were raped.” She patted my shoulder again, still smiling.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but unlike the other times I had felt like that in the past few days, it was joy pulsing through my system and not unbelievable dread.

“Are you serious?” I expressed, my voice nearly dropping out from under me.

“I wouldn’t be saying it if I wasn’t,” she voiced earnestly. Her smile fell into a serious countenance to match her voice.

“Oh my God,” I breathed again, still unable to fathom the good luck I was finally having. The rape kit wouldn’t come back with anything incriminating. I wasn’t caught. I wasn’t fucking caught.

I turned to her. “Thank you so much. My parents don’t get it… I – I -”

My happy thoughts started to spill forth from my mouth, I didn’t even know what I was saying. I was motioning to the door, as if telling her the story of my distant and vacant mother on the other side, and a non-responsive father who didn’t even care enough to stick around, but I could barely move my arms along with my words. I was just so fucking happy. I still hurt from the kit, and I was still traumatized by it if I thought about it long enough, but I had other things to focus on. Euphoria was like a drug, and the last time I had taken a hit was that last day with Gerard, before things fell down. I wasn’t caught.

I relived the doctor’s words, and something I had been too blissful from before stood out in my mind. “Will you have to tell my mom I’ve had sex before?”

“No,” she stated seriously again, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. “If you’re gay, that’s your business. Not mine or anyone else’s, even your parents.” She paused and smiled at me, and I felt my heart flutter back to life.

Finally, someone was agreeing with me. Someone was letting me be gay if I thought I was gay. I didn’t care what Gerard said about exceptions at that very moment in time. This doctor believed in exceptions too, and she was agreeing with me that I was gay. I respected Gerard so much, but I was gay. This doctor, this woman I didn’t even know until today was finally helping me in more than one way.

“Anal sex is one of the most risky sexual activities anyone can ever do,” she began to explain, though not provoked, catching me off guard. “The anal cavity is sensitive, it tears easily, and the tissue there is more absorbent than most other places on the body. During sex, too many bodily fluids are released, and accompanied with tearing, this can prove to be quite a dangerous mix.”

I stared at her, blankly. I always knew that anal sex couldn’t be the best activity to do in regards of safety, but I had no idea it was the most dangerous. I didn’t say anything to her. How was I even supposed to respond to that?

“Sorry, it’s the doctor coming out in me,” she said, sighing a little and waving her hands around in the air. “I’m just telling you for future reference. If you’re participating in these acts, you should know. It’s your business now and no one else’s. You need to be responsible for yourself. ”

I smiled, despite the serious nature. Not only was this woman allowing me to be gay, but she was helping me to grow up.

“It only becomes someone else’s business if the sex you’re having is hurting you in any way shape or form, beyond the initial dangers it poses,” she continued, her professional attitude coming forth with a hint of personality. She looked down at me, making sure I knew where she was going with this.

“I know,” I uttered, finding it hard to breathe as my heart expanded to fill up my entire chest cavity. “It was entirely consensual. I wanted to have sex. But my parents found out…” I trailed off, the sticky and unbearable memory coming back. They were too fresh to dive into again, especially since my mother was on the other side of the door. I dropped my head to the ground, fiddling with the crinkly paper. “They don’t even have the whole story.”

“Honey, I know, it’s okay,” she stated, rubbing my back again. “I completely understand. Some parents can’t cope with their son being gay. If they hear it, and more importantly if they find out that you’ve had sex, then they immediately jump to awful conclusions.” She paused and pursed her lips, looking down at me and to the clipboard on the side again. “I don’t know the situation behind it all, but I’m sure this rape kit says you haven’t been raped. Ultimately though, it is you who has the final hand in all of this. If you feel like you’ve been raped, then that’s all that matters. No one else can tell you what you are or are not. Not your parents, not this kit, and not even your boyfriend, whoever he may be.” She gave me a smile and nodded her head again, done with her lecture. I smiled back up at her, finally feeling better than I had in ages.

“And please,” she begged in a mocking tone to lighten the mood, “please, please be safe. Use condoms. There are free ones in jars all up and down this hallway. Use them. You’re a nice young boy and I don’t want you to waste your life away.”