You lie here in this bed, just like every night for the last three weeks since you woke up, and you try to remember.

That’s all you can do… just try to remember.

Your emotions are so close to the surface and you know at any second you could burst into tears or start throwing shit across the room. The nurses figured that out pretty quick and stopped leaving anything throwable in your reach.

They can’t do anything about the tears though.

You can’t leave this place, this hospital. You can go outside into the courtyard, but not into the street. Can’t leave the four walls and gated lawn of this safe little place that’s supposed to make you feel better.

But you don’t feel better. Not really.

Instead, you feel trapped. Trapped in your head, in this fucking body that won’t work the way it should, trapped in this hospital.

And you’re bored out of your head, because there’s nothing to do. You can’t watch TV – it’s too bright and gives you a headache. Reading’s worse – you can’t focus and the words swim across the page. And the thing you love the most – drawing – is out of the question. The doctors told you that you’d probably never draw again, and that it’s too soon to try anyway.

You didn’t believe them when they first told you that, and stole some paper and a pencil from the nurse’s station, curling up in the armchair beneath the window in your room. The sun streamed across the paper and you saw what you wanted to draw, knew you could do it. Took the pencil in your hand and…

It was like you forgot how to hold it. Like your brain didn’t work anymore.

And that’s exactly what it was. Your brain didn’t work anymore. You could see the picture, fucking see it, knew exactly how it should look, could almost feel the pencil strokes coming from the pencil, the soft brush of lead on paper.

But you couldn’t do it. The pencil got snapped in half and the pieces thrown to either corner of the small room. Papers scattered on the floor, and you pulled your knees to your chest and wept.

You didn’t want to try again after that.

And so there really isn’t anything you can do but lie here in bed and stare at the ceiling. Your thoughts wander, your brain tries to busy itself, and all you really wish is that you could just *not* think for a little bit.

You don’t like where your head goes, what thoughts creep into your brain. You don’t like somehow feeling like you did something wrong, that you fucked up. You don’t like that thready sensation of trying to grasp at memories and emotions that are just out of reach.

So you try to remember. Eyes closed, scrunched up tight in concentration, hands in fists pressed to your head and your teeth grind together. Okay, you’re at Babylon, and you’re dancing with this cute guy, and it’s all right, well, it’s great, but you can’t stop looking for…

Then you see him, see Brian, he’s at the bar, then takes off, Mikey in tow. They talk, whatever, and you leave the guy you’re dancing with and see Brian heading downstairs alone and you quickly pull out your cell and dial his number, watch him pull his phone out, then you go talk to him…

You can see he’s pissed off, probably because of Michael moving to Portland, but you don’t care. You only have one chance to do this, and you’re fucking determined to ask, no matter if he laughs in your face or what. And so you do ask him, and he does laugh in your face.

But hey, you asked and that’s what you wanted to do, and you did it. You wanted him to come to your prom with you, wanted him to share in your big fuck you to St. James and the fucking pricks and homophobes you dealt with there… but whatever. He doesn’t want to go.

You can still remember the way your stomach clenched up when you approached him… you couldn’t stop grinning, and you were so nervous and excited at just the thought that he could come with you… but you guessed it was okay if he didn’t want to go. Still, you were disappointed, and you’d dropped your head and slid your cell into your pocket.

He’d started to walk away, and you’d called his name out again… he’d turned back and looked at you and you’d smiled, you remember that… he looked so fucking hot, and even if he was an asshole, you couldn’t help yourself but smile at him. He’d sucked his lips into his mouth the way he does sometimes, and grinned back… he took a couple steps back up the stairs and motioned for you to follow him. You did and he’d taken your hand in his and pulled you downstairs… he’d kissed you and you forgot about the prom and St. James and everything… you got lost in his kisses and that’s where…

C’mon!! You punch at your head and pull at your hair. Fuck! You suck in your breath and try, try, try… it’s there, it’s gotta be there.

You were there, you did these things, and it’s impossible that your brain can just erase them. You start to hyperventilate and the anger boils up inside and you try to calm down, but it’s hopeless and the chair gets turned over and you pull at the blinds and then the nurse comes in and grabs your arm to try and steady you, but you pull away because you can’t stand to be touched, can’t stand that warm, clammy feeling of someone else’s skin on yours and you scratch at the place where she touched you till you start to bleed and you know that you will never remember and you will never be the same again.

Never be the same again.

You feel hated and different and scarred now. You know you will always be hated and different and scarred forever.

And you’re sure that’s why he won’t see you. You’re different now. He doesn’t want to see you. That has to be it.

Daphne told you that he was there for everything, that he held you in his arms on the concrete, that he was covered in your blood, that he rode in the back of the ambulance gripping your fingers in his. That he sat outside your room for an entire 48 hours straight until they made him go home.

And then he never came back.

Maybe he felt like he didn’t need to. That his responsibility to you was finished. Maybe…

You just don’t know. And you want more than anything to see him, just to talk to him, to hear what happened, to try to understand. He’s the only one that would know. The only one that was there the entire time. The only one that could explain it. And you know he would tell you point blank, he wouldn’t sugarcoat it. You know he would tell you everything, and besides… God, besides… you need to see him. You have to see him.

You feel the tears come to your eyes and you curl up deeper beneath the sheets and remember his kisses, his touch. Remember the things that happened before and try to remember how you felt before, before fear and anger and pain were the only things you knew.

At first you asked your mom to call him. And then you asked Daph. But by the time you had to ask Debbie, you knew he wasn’t coming. It wasn’t anything that anyone said – it was what they wouldn’t say. The way they’d look away and change the subject every time you asked.

And it makes you fucking crazy, because as each day goes by, you think about Brian more. Think about him when you wake up, when you eat breakfast, when you’re in physio, when you’re with the trauma specialist, when you’re supposed to be thinking about everything and anything but what happened, you think about Brian.

Of course the most you think about him is at night. They give you drugs, but they just dull everything, don’t really take it away. And the lights go down and it gets dark, and you close your eyes and imagine you’re lying in bed in the loft. Imagine that the humm of the instruments is just the refrigerator; that the steps in the hall are really out in the street. You imagine the blue light filtering in the window is really from the lights over the bed.

You imagine that he’s here, watching you sleep. You know he used to do that, nights that you’d stayed over at the loft. You’d wake up in the middle of the night, and he’d be lying beside you, eyes wide open, and watching you sleep. You liked it. It made you feel safe.

And you imagine with everything you have that he’s still doing it. That he’s somehow here.

Of course you know he’s not here. That it’s not possible. You know he’s not coming. He doesn’t want you anymore. He’s not coming. He doesn’t want you.

You try not to think like that, but you can’t help it. It scares you to think that could be true, because getting out of here to see Brian is the only fucking thing that’s keeping you going. If you don’t fight for that, why would you fight? To go back into a world that hates you? To go back into a place that wants you dead?

You can’t draw anymore and you don’t have Brian.

There’s nothing else.

Your life went from screaming Technicolor to black and white. You had everything – fucking everything – and still it wasn’t enough for you then. And now you have nothing. Not even clear memories of what it was that brought you to this place.

It’s not fair, more than not fair, and for not the first time, you wish that you’d been killed. You’d be so much better off dead, because without drawing and without Brian, there is no life left for you. You know that’s stupid, pathetic almost, as Brian would say, but you can’t help it, because try as you might, there’s nothing you can think of that can replace those two things in your life.

Drawing.

Brian.

They represent who you are, who you’ve become, and now that you don’t have either of them, you don’t know who you are anymore, and you don’t want to become anyone else.

The days get longer, the hours harder and finally you know you’re ready to go home when you wake up one morning with a painful hard on and sticky pants. You’d had a wet dream, and you hadn’t had one of those in months and months – not since you started masturbating and getting fucked on a regular basis.

You’re embarrassed and frustrated and desperate and needing to get home, to any fucking home that’ll take you. You can’t be here under the watchful eye of nurses and doctors and technicians when all you want to do is jack off.

So you work harder in physio and stop asking for Brian and quickly – surprisingly quickly – they tell you that it’s time to go home.

Your mom says she has a room for you at the new town home, and it hurts a little inside because you know that’s not true. You know she’d set that room aside for an office for her new real estate business and you hate that now you had to intrude on her life too. Bad enough you were the reason she and Molly were stuck in a shitty townhouse and didn’t have the big beautiful house with the backyard and bay windows anymore. Now you’re taking her room too.

But first things first.

You have to believe that you’re ready to go home, because if you’re ready to go home, then you must be better, and if you must be better, then maybe he’ll see you.

You’re done with black and white and you’re ready for Technicolor again.

So you finally get out of the hospital, and you don’t know what’s worse… now you’re at home, but your mom is there every fucking second of the day and she won’t leave you alone.

You wish your bedroom had visiting hours.

She put up your drawings and set up your easel in the hopes you’d be inspired. You wanted to tear it all down, but then decided to punish yourself and think of all the things you don’t have anymore.

And you thought that since they let you out that you really *should* be better now, but then suddenly there’s nightmares and visions and these panic attacks. The drugs they give you out of the hospital aren’t nearly as good as the ones they can pump right into your veins and so the nightmares get worse and you think you see things and you cry. You never cried before, not like this, but now you do all the time, from fear and pain and frustration. And then you feel weak and it makes you want to cry even more.

You try to be strong, you try to be normal, but it’s not working.

You see some people, your friends, your family. They come to visit, and you find yourself cradling your gimp arm like it’s broken or hurt, but it’s not really. There’s nothing wrong with your *arm*, just the wires in your head that connect to your arm. But if you hold it in front of you, then people can see where you’re hurt, and not think of your head and your brains bashed in. Then maybe they won’t think that you’re fucked in the head, they’ll think that just your arm is hurt and that it can get better.

They won’t know that the part that’s hurt can’t ever get better. They won’t know that maybe you shouldn’t be out here in the world right now, that maybe you should still be in the hospital. They won’t know that maybe sometimes deep inside you want to kill yourself and dream of it, wish it and know that the only fucking thing stopping you from doing it is your intense desire to see Brian again.

Brian.

You’ve been home six days and you still haven’t seen him.

You tried calling him, hanging up when the machine clicked on. Once he picked up and he sounded wasted and you couldn’t say anything, just held the phone close to your ear and listened to him breathe.

And then you hung up.

On the seventh day you call Daph and tell her to come by that night and to wait half a block down the street. You sneak downstairs and leave by the back door and climb over the fence and nearly fucking break your neck but when you see Daph and her car all you see is freedom and Brian.

She takes you to Liberty Ave and you’re reminded of a night, almost a year ago now, when you first came here. You stepped in a puddle and nearly drowned that night. But you came out on the other side, knowing the taste of another man, the feeling of tongue and cock deep inside your ass, your throat. Everything started that night, and you felt like you were finally alive. You want to feel that again.

You go to Woody’s, barely making it there, the fear and panic creeping up over you till you can’t fucking breathe, but then you see him again, see Brian again, and you can breathe again, but it’s not what you expected. You see him and he sees you back, his face all shocked and scared and worn and old. He looks older than you ever imagined.

You go back to the loft with him but everything’s fucked up. You try to pretend that nothing happened, but of course everything happened and everything’s changed and it’s worse than you imagined. You hate the feeling of pretending, of lying, of not talking about what you need to talk about. You hate it, but then finally the lying is done and he talks, tells you, and you’re in his arms again. It’s not fucking, not even kissing, but just like that first night, you’re in his arms, his chin on your shoulder, his breath in your hair, his smell on your clothes.

There are wet streaks on his cheeks when your embrace finally breaks and you realize that your face is wet too, but these tears are different, this is so different and suddenly, perfectly, it’s all good, it’s all right, you’re here, he’s here and it’s nothing like you dreamt it would be, and nothing like before, but it’s new and changed and hopeful.

You know now that he did hurt and that he does care about you, it’s so clear, so obvious. You heard everything from his lips, you know what happened now, you know that it was guilt and pain that kept him away from you, and you know that together you can fix everything that’s wrong.

You know now that shame can be replaced with pride and anger replaced with action and fear replaced with love. You’ve got a long fucking road ahead of you, but you think now that maybe you can make it. 

You say goodbye to him that night knowing there will be a thousand hellos to come, and you slip beneath the sheets of your bed, warm and satisfied and almost feeling normal again. You press your fingers to your lips where he’d kissed you. You imagine you can still feel his arms around your back, and you close your eyes and smile and only remember all the good things you’ve shared with him.

You can see it all with crystal clear clarity, a million Technicolor dots coming together to create a life for you… your life… and you know who you are again.

In the days and nights that follow you’ll hurt more than you thought you could, and feel more joy than you ever imagined possible.

You’ll realize that what happened changed you forever, but instead of hatred, regret and denial, you come to embrace it. You learn from it, and instead of letting it define you, you define the experience. You learn about strength and healing and forgiveness and compassion. You don’t let it rule you anymore, but you never, ever forget it.

You get back the things it took from you and in spite of what happened – or maybe because of it – you become more passionate about everything. You become the best fucking artist you can, and you love Brian with everything you have. You don’t back down and you throw yourself one hundred percent into the things you believe in most. Sure you make mistakes, sure you screw up, but almost losing your life has made you realize how fucking precious it really is.

And so maybe what happened wasn’t a curse but a blessing in disguise. Because you wouldn’t be the person you are today, you wouldn’t be the man you are today if it hadn’t happened.

And you like who you are today. You’re proud of the man you are today.

You vow to never let yourself see black and white again… that you’ll live in a million beautiful dots of Technicolor, that you’ll grab each opportunity like it’s the only one that matters. That life is definitely not worth living if you don’t live as much or love as much as you possibly ever can.

And so you do.