I feel kind of bad writing a topic as risky as depression, but I did my best to shape it in a way that doesn't really affect the story much. My whole plan was pretty much only having Italy be a therapist, I didn't know what to give Germany! But I did my research (a ton of research) and I hope ya'll are satisfied.
I own nothing except the idea and the story.
I hate not knowing things, and I hate even more when no matter how hard I try, it remains a mystery. But that's how this whole depression thing is, and will be for forever.
I don't even feel depressed, like how they describe it in the book I bought the other day. The book said some symptoms were, "Feelings of sadness or unhappiness" and "Insomnia or excessive sleeping". But I don't have insomnia that often, and I've always been just a little bit dissatisfied with life. So when did just general unhappiness turn into depression?
But some symptoms it mentioned and I agreed with were things like, 'Irritability or angry outbursts', which Gilbert says I've been doing a lot of lately. But when did my normal easy-to-anger persona turn into a mental disease?
It's unfortunate I have to be pulled out of my thoughts abruptly, especially by something as silly and stupid as one of the many deep cracks riddled in the sidewalk. I stumble a bit, but I catch myself in time to look around a bit. I haven't really observed my small town in a while, but now that I really look at it, I can see why it's easy to get depressed here and why we have a therapist on hand.
The sidewalk harbors a network of deep cracks all across it and the cement is breaking for new ones already. The buildings that aren't covered in a blue re-building (that probably would never happen) tarp are instead covered in graffiti. The bushes, trees, and vines were overgrown, not even mentioning the weeds.
Even the weather was against me, judging by the ominous gray sky that would probably bring rain again.
Not that it's too surprising that there will be rain again.
Finally, I find the small building wedged between two taller buildings, giving the whole wall of businesses a look of inconsistence. The walls are cracked from the growth of vines and the bricks on the bottom have chunks missing, from who-knows-what. The sidewalk and the little step up before the door are covered in little pieces of gum and shards of beer bottles. Whoever's office this is must be disorganized; if they were me I'd have it clean.
I lightly turn the knob, and with a little tinkle from the bell above the door, it gave way. A secretary behind a desk too small for her was chewing gum loudly and had in ear buds. She gave me a passing look then waved her hand behind her to say, "You can go". I nodded at her to show my thanks, because really, who smiles at strangers?
My first impression on the room I'm walking into is that the lights are out. The second thing I notice is that there is a tiny sliver of light coming from the crack between the curtain on a tiny window and a wall. That light is persistent, I think, coming to greet me not just through clouds, but also in a little crack.
The third things I notice are the light snores coming from somewhere in the middle of the room. As I look harder, I can see a figure outlined in the dark, a few shiny buttons, and the rise and fall of their chest. A he, I remember, Feliciano Vargas is my new therapist.
And really, why is my therapist sleeping!? How unprofessional!
"Sir," I shake his leg, "Wake up! I'm your next patient!" I can't help but whisper-yell due to the mood in this dark room.
He wakes up with a start, "I'm so sorry, please don't try to fire me again! I'll do anything, please!" He wails, shaking side to side. The bed was rocking and creaking, much like how my brother's damned parties shake the house.
"No, no, no, you're fine, don't worry. I just had to wake you up for my appointment." I say, suddenly resentful that I could think of this little man angrily.
He also seems sheepish, he's rubbing the back of his neck from where he is perched on the side of the couch with his legs hanging down. The little sliver of light goes up his back, catching his red-brown hair, which still had a gravity-defying curl, in a flattering way. As he rubs sleep from his eyes and stands up, I wonder how someone so much like a child could be a therapist.
Instead of asking though, I sit down in the now-warm spot that he was just in, and watch as he flicks on the lights and gets his chair on the opposite side of the room and wheels it over, grabbing a clipboard somewhere along the way.
"Tell me," He says, leaning in and propping his elbows on his knees, "What's your name?" He smiles and clicks his pen, letting the tip hover over the line that reads 'patient name'.
"Ludwig Beilschmidt" I answer, still sitting up in the warm seat.
He looks at me thoughtfully for a moment, tapping his chin with his index finger, "I feel like I should know that name." He observes, talking to himself more than to me.
I finally lean back into the seat and decide to get comfortable, "I guess you know now."
X-X-X-X-X-X
My therapy has been going on for a couple weeks now, and it is probably one of the most humorous things that I have done in a while. Which it probably shouldn't be, but when someone like Feliciano is my therapist, it can't be helped.
Whenever I come in, it's about the same thing. Towards the beginning of my sessions, I would come in to Feliciano sitting in his chair, leaning back, and yawning. Sometimes his legs would be up to his chest and his head would be leaning on them, but he won't have dozed off quite yet.
But I guess once he found out that all I really do is yell at him and make him stand up, he began to show his tiredness more and more when I saw him. Probably also because he knows that if he cries, I'll comfort him, unlike his brother.
So now when I walk past the secretary (who still just clacks her gum at me) and into the private room, I'll usually find Feliciano lying down on the couch with the lights on, obviously an attempt to fight the need to sleep. He sleeps in fetal position, with his arms wrapped around his knees and his eyes contently closed.
When I walk in on him like this, I hardly know what to do except stare. I'll yell at him to get up, but it seems more like something I do for routine now, not because I'm actually annoyed at him. So instead of going along with the boring routine like usual, I decide to finally look around, get to know these sea-foam green walls better.
As I stealthily creep along the perimeter of the room, attempting to not wake up Feliciano, my arm scrapes a nail sticking out of the wall. It leaves a red scratch from impact and a faint orange trail on my arm from the rust that clung to the nail limply.
The new scrape led my attention to the plain frame hanging from the wall, pegged by the rusty nail. The back was to the room, with the real photograph facing the wall, continuously covered in shadows.
Carefully, I pick the frame up off the nail and turn it over softly in my hands. The glass reflects the light from the ceiling at first, making it difficult to see. I tilt it a couple of ways before finally finding a spot where I can see the picture inside.
The photo was probably taken in front of a public building, for there were a bunch of children mulling around outside on the gravel. I couldn't quite read the sign above them advertising the building due to the camera's quality, but I know it isn't Italian, which is strange, given my therapist's accent.
I try and focus in on the children standing in the gravel, but there is hardly anything recognizable in the photo, except something that tugs on the back of my memory, a quarter long forgotten. I feel like I should know the little girl in the maid outfit sweeping in the front plain of the picture. The hat on the little boy's head behind her seems all too familiar, and I scour my brain for traces of it.
Before I can uncover anything, I hear a stirring over in the corner of the room, where Feliciano had taken his siesta. I quickly put the frame back, and head to the side of the bed to get some kind of alibi.
"Sorry!" He greets, as is his usual way.
"You need to mind when and where you sleep, Mr. Vargas!" I greet back, in my usual way.
"Hmm…" He looks over my shoulder, as I seem to have lost his attention again, to where the rusty nail and golden frame hang, "I wonder why that picture is flipped right-side-out now…" He stands up and takes the object into his hands. Feliciano looks at the photo for a minute nostalgically before hanging it up facing the wall again.
"That was weird, but we better get started!" He sits on his stool and pulls out his clipboard, ready for another day of listening to my problems.
X-X-X-X-X-X
"And do you think your childhood had a part to play in this depression?" Feliciano asked, looking up at my expectantly.
"I don't really remember much of my childhood. Just my brother and a grandfather." I say after a long pause. "I guess a whole chunk of my life has been missing without my own awareness."
The conversation sticks in my head as I walk home. An entire developmental stage of my life, forgotten. I've never really thought of it much, for two reasons.
One reason being that I have always been an avid believer in living for the today and putting the past behind you. Maybe because I've had so many fights and problems in the recent past that instead of focusing on them, I'd rather propel off of them to get better. The squabbles back then may be the ones causing my current emotional situation.
The second reason is that Gilbert would tell me stories about myself when I was around twelve or thirteen, although the stories tended to be outrageous. Sometimes I would just be a poor peasant boy living among the rags fighting every day for just a little bit more, sometimes I was a rich child, with a servant for every finger and toe, but, in the grandest stories, I was an adventurer. Scouting through the Alps with him with only a crust of bread and our own survival skills to live. A mighty warrior at the tender age of six who fought tooth and nail for the smallest of victories. A victorious sailor battling a sea demon on the rough waves of the North Sea.
Of course I can't believe any of it, Gilbert has never been much help, but it offered some consolation to me when I was a child and fretted over the smallest things.
Although I don't count this as remembering my childhood, I can have little flashbacks that seem like something that has to do with my real kid years, something can trigger an intense moment of recollection; just the sight of an old doorknob can send me back to an old memory of a little girl polishing a knob until it shined. The old photograph in Feliciano's room held some importance to me as well, though I don't know why.
X-X-X-X-X-X
I don't know what's wrong with me. The only truth I know about myself right now is that something is wrong.
I get red cheeks, a quickened heartbeat, sweaty palms and brow, bizarre dreams, and an odd feeling in my stomach. Like a fish or something else slippery and unnerving got into me and won't stop. Whenever I get into these weird conditions I become embarrassed and I just get redder.
I've looked at the symptoms online, and I think I might have a cold or the flu or something. Although the sites never explained why certain conditions need to be present for the problems to happen. More specifically, a person.
My therapist has been in my dreams recently. Not doing anything, just saying the usual nice things he will spurt out like there isn't enough time to talk slow if you are telling a story. He looks different in my dreams though, beautified and cleaned up.
I asked my brother, but Gilbert was no help. All he did was say, "It's love, lil bro, pretty soon you'll be with him and you'll know I'm right like always!" I should have seen as much coming from him, considering what he does at parties.
Today though, I'm going to ask Feliciano.
Presently, after I've woke him up, I describe the symptoms to him. I include all the things that really seem life-threatening, but as I describe, Feliciano's facial expressions become progressively odd. As I ramble on, careful not to mention how Feliciano is in the middle of these feelings, I watch him acutely.
It's a tilt of the head, an innocent smile, and the square of light through the window resting on his cheek. It's the yellow indoor lights catching his eyes, the green wallpaper singling him out from the background, and the pink lips that haven't been kissed enough, it seems.
"It's love," he says, "simply love"
And maybe this time, I can believe it.
X-X-X-X-X-X
My last session, huh. My last time ever getting to talk to Feliciano. Might as well be the end of life as I know it.
I really didn't think it would have this large an impact on me. I mean, what would Ludwig from the past say? Probably that he isn't worth my time, and picking up after someone isn't love.
But it is, in its own way. When I would pick up after Feliciano, he would be showing that he is dependent on me, a reverse to how my mental health is dependent on him. He was small and loving and tender, a reverse to my tall, mean, and drill-sergeant type. Opposites attracting really is more than science and stories.
As I slowly shut the door to the dark room I've been going in this entire time, the first thing I notice is Feliciano spread out on the therapy couch, appendages hanging off the seat in a lazy way that made it seem like my therapist was attacked by the need to siesta on the way down.
I chuckle to myself and sit on the stool that hovers above the couch and watch him sleep. I usually wake him up myself, but not only is he gorgeous, but I need an image to trap in my head for the rest of time so that I never forget him.
Around thirty minutes later, he wakes up and, as usual, begins a frantic list of apologies, as if I would actually punish him for sleeping. We switch places, me getting to see the bottom of his chin as usual and him getting to see my laid-out body, as usual. Everything is as usual, and we try to side-step around the inevitable.
But Feliciano, like always, doesn't see my want to not go over this part of the day. "So are you gonna miss me?" He asks jokingly, not even seeing the true weight of that.
"Yes, I think I will." I answer truthfully, because what's the use hiding?
"Oh… well, let's do some talking today. But not about your problems or anything, just... talking."
So I decide to ask the question I've been dying to ask since he became my therapist. "I don't mean to be rude, but why are you a therapist? You just don't seem…" I trail off here, trying to come up with an answer that isn't offensive, but got the point across. "like the type."
"I guess it's because of my past, and how I never had a therapist or a shoulder to lean on that whole time." Feliciano's voice is quieter than usual and he looks down at his lap, glancing up at the next question I ask.
"W-what events?"
"I guess I can start with my family, and how they made me who I am. I have a Grandpa, who still lives in Italy, who took me in after my parents died. Does my parents dying count as an event, even if I didn't know them?" Feliciano asks, oblivious again about how this must sound to me. I can't help but nod my head.
Feliciano continued, "Well Grandpa was very nice to me and homeschooled me, but that's why I was taken away from him. A lady gave me a test to take with all of the things I was supposed to know on it, but I didn't because Grandpa never taught me, so they took me away. That brings me to my time at the orphanage with the mean man and the other one.
"The man at the orphanage wasn't nice to me, and would frequently step on me if I did something wrong. The food he served was terrible and if I ate something else, he might lock me in a dark closet. I was frequently used as a servant at the house, and his only good quality was when he would play the piano so beautifully I think I could burst." Why does this sound so familiar? I feel like I should know this man…
"Of course, this isn't the same for the man's beautiful co-founder and wife. She was very, very nice to me, and all of the children. She always assured me that Mr. Rodreich's anger spells would end soon and all would be back to normal. But the weirdest thing about her is that she could've taken her husband in a fight any day, and won, but she never did. Not even for the children." I should know her, it's driving me insane!
"And now, I guess I should tell you of my first love." My breath catches in my throat. "He," A boy? "was kind of mean to me, no matter what I was doing he would always make me join in his game, or try to get me on his team for whatever sport we were playing. He always told me that once he had a place of his own, he would take me there. He was very strict and strategic, almost reminds me of you. I don't really know why I loved him so much, maybe it was when we were alone and it was quiet and he wasn't trying to make me his, I felt as safe as I did with Grandpa. As safe as I feel with you.
"The day he left was the day his brother turned 18, and was legal to have custody over him. I remember that day as if it was yesterday…" Feliciano's voice is dreamy; his head is tilted towards that little skylight on the ceiling that drips water in the winter. As for me, I swear I should know all these people! Know Mr. Rodreich and his wife, know Feliciano's Grandpa, know Feliciano as a little kid, and know this other person. Know him like I know myself!
"I hadn't known I was in love, I didn't even know that being in love with a boy wasn't right. All I knew was that my friend was leaving, and I might never see him again. I gave him a broom, because that was all I had to give, and he gave me a kiss," Oh my God. I know, I know… "because that was all he had to give. Then his brother pulled away in that shiny black car and left me alone in the playground watching the street."
I don't even realize his story is over; my mind is going so fast. The kiss, the brother, the broom, could it actually work? Gilbert never did tell me about my life besides for lies before sixth grade because he told me to not worry about it, that it wasn't important and that you need to live life in the present and not worry about the past. But him being a freshman in college, 19 years old when I was in 7th grade after the Accident, does it add up?
Maybe, just maybe, when I got that amnesia and all Gilbert would tell me about were made up stories and his life with our Grandfather who lived in Germany, maybe my life before that involved Feliciano and an orphanage. Maybe at one point in my life, no matter how socially awkward and depressed I am now, maybe I was someone's first love. Feliciano's first love.
It's unfair to go on a whim and tell Feliciano. I know it is. But this is my last session, and for the first time in so long I feel completely whole. Happy. And hasn't Feliciano's goal this whole time been to make me feel happy again? All these bright colors are blending and burning inside of me, covering the old gray and navy.
It isn't natural for me, for anyone, to bounce back from a severe illness like this, but I've been doing this session for about a year, I think it's about time something big happened. I never expected this though. My early life is coming together right before my eyes, all I need is something to seal it. I think that my heart knows what I'm about to do, because it is surging and beating fast, giving me the adrenaline and courage to sit up and grab Feliciano.
To bring him closer to me, to let our breaths mingle as he fell off his stool and across my lap.
To kiss him like how I did twenty years ago in front of the orphanage, in a moment so sweet, so lovely, so mine.
And to say it isn't amazing when my therapist kisses back would be lying. He presses himself against me, tilting his head for better access. At some point in this beautiful blur of a kiss, he opens his mouth to let my inexperienced tongue poke in and explore his mouth. I wish I could capture this moment and save it, my first experience in a year or so not struggling with an overwhelming pain and depression, whether I knew it or not.
Feliciano pulls back for air and shuts his eyes, panting in time with my own heavy breaths. He rests his forehead against mine for a few blissful seconds, before starting.
"Oh God, I'll get fired if I have a relationship with one of my patients!" He panics, jerking away from me and rushing around the room, pulling down all the blinds to hide the outside and the gum-clacking secretary. I chuckle as I watch him in his flurry, and I guess he hears me because he turns around angrily.
"What are you laughing at?" He, for the first time I've seen, snaps, "Nothing's funny! I could lose my job, my hous-"
I cut him off, laughing coolly, "If I'm correct, it's 4:02. Sessions end at 4:00. And this was my last one…"
It seems to register to him, because he walks over to where I'm sitting on the couch and brings one of his legs over it, coming forward to sit in my lap. He places his hands on my back and leans forward, kissing my lips quickly.
Feliciano come back in to mumble into my ear, "Even if this is your last time seeing your therapist, I wouldn't want this to be your last time seeing me."
I couldn't agree more, I can't help but think as I'm pulled into Feliciano's world, the one that has always seemed to light up my own.
Review please!