Lawrence is in the hospital waiting for Adam to make his usual visit. This is a piece about what goes through his mind during that time.
Please R&R :)
Solid Ground
A safe man is a foolish man. What is safety anyway? He always thought it meant being free from threat, living beyond harm's reach. But there is no such thing as safety. Humans have tricked themselves into complacency, letting their guard fall simply because all appears well at a surface level. They don't see what lurks beneath the façade, the elaborate web of lies known only as normalcy.
So here he is, helpless for the first time since God knows when. His aimless wandering through life has been brought to an abrupt halt, both figuratively and literally. There's nothing left to do now but sit and reflect on the path that led to this moment.
Where do I go from here? It's a logical question to ask, one that is often brought to mind when another chapter of life has been written and only blank pages lie in the distance.
Where do I go from here?
Sometimes it's a choice, a conscious and deliberate movement from the familiar into the unknown. And sometimes, the path ahead is forged by the last steps we took.
Ironic, to say the least.
Each choice had been made with the greatest of care; each step had been taken on what he had been certain was solid ground.
Someone knew his secrets. That alone frightened him. He had been doing it for years, sweeping his problems under the rug, ignoring even the most obvious warnings signs that his house of cards would crash in on him at any moment.
The old saying is true, "What goes around, comes around." And boy, it hit him hard. It left him with the ability to do little more than crawl out of the squalor he, on some level, knew he deserved. But did he deserve to be like this now? Shouldn't all his good deeds at least count for something? His years of helping people as a doctor earned him no merit? His love for his daughter wasn't enough to redeem him?
Yes, maybe that should have been weighed into the overall equation. But ….HE… didn't seem to think it was enough.
No. Why should a man have every blessing in the world if he doesn't even realize he's been blessed?
Seems like such a waste…
But what did it matter? Even a brush with the devil himself hadn't been enough to make either one of them want to hang on and see it through. And who knows? Maybe that was the point. They had been dragging each other down, like parasites. Perhaps taking separate paths would allow them to become who they were meant to be, allowing their true, yet repressed selves to come to life. At times, the choice left him lonely, wondering if it was really what he wanted. He was haunted by ambivalence.
He was alone, trapped within the walls of the cold, indifferent world he had once sought as an escape.
Another one of life's little ironies.
A hospital wasn't where he wanted to be as a patient, and as the days droned on, fading one into the next, he realized that it wasn't a place he wanted to be as a doctor either.
As noble as the decision had been at the time, he had grown weary of it. And after having stared death in the face, how could he go on and keep telling his patients that they wouldn't make it without falling apart himself? He now understood their fear.
Every day of your working life you have given people the news that they're gonna doe soon…
The voice on the tape had been right.
In the beginning, he had gotten so attached to each and every one, and knowing he couldn't help the terminally ill threatened to overcome him. But somewhere along the line, he snapped. A cool head and a distant heart prevailed.
After all, he had to survive too.
He sighed at the thought. Survival isn't living, he had come to realize. The two concepts weren't mirrors of each other, but rather two opposing ends of a spectrum. As painful as it was to admit, he had patients who were dying who were living fuller, richer lives than he was.
Where did I lose my way?
Intention and dreams aren't enough to say you're alive. They are but wisps of smoke, here now and gone forever, if not fueled by action.
Oddly enough, another crucial decision stared him down. His reluctance had conjured up a piece of the Jigsaw killer within himself. He could almost feel his would-be killer's eyes watching him, his rusty voice taunting him.
Are you going to blow this chance? Have I taught you nothing? Are you going to wake up and open your eyes? You may have nothing to show for your past now, but your future is right in front of you! Are you going to reach out and claim it, or are you going to let it pass you by? What do you have to lose? There's nowhere to go from here but up.
How could such a man – such a monster – have such a powerful hold on him, even now? It was unnerving to think of the possibility that a part of him would be forever governed by his captor, questioning him, testing his every choice.
He had been putting it off for some time now. They had become friends, how could they not? But there was something more. Something about the way Adam would look at him. The way he would say something steeped in metaphor, and make no attempt to deny that he was implying the obvious.
Yes, Lawrence could see it. He could feel it. Both their senses had been heightened since…that day. They had a mutual understanding that needed no words to be articulated.
He glanced at the clock on the wall, an action he now loathed. He hated clocks. He hated the concept of time. He hated waiting. Whenever possible, he made it a point to be asleep or otherwise occupied when 10:20am and 6:00pm rolled around.
Adam would be arriving at any moment. His visits made even the depressing hospital seem less of a prison. Home really is where the heart is, he had learned, and one's surroundings have no bearing on what home really means.
His pulse quickened with anticipation. It always did. He felt the constant rhythmic thud in the bottom of his leg. It was a sight he didn't want to see, and a memory he wished he could forget.
It's insane what one can do when lives are at stake.
The sound of his door creaking open shook him from his thoughts, and Adam walked in. Larry smiled as Adam closed the door.
Yes, today would be the day. He would tell him what they both knew, but both feared to say.
Lawrence and Adam sat in silence for a few moments, as they always did. He loved being near him. His loved how he always looked slightly disheveled. It was a look he had never considered for himself, but he was strangely intrigued by it. He loved Adam's smile, and over time, he noticed that the lifelessness of his eyes had been replaced with a faint glimmer of hope that only seemed to grow.
Adam still had two good feet to stand on, and Lawrence had come to rely on him for a lot of things, primarily companionship. It was humbling to admit defeat and ask for help, but with Adam, it didn't feel as uncomfortable as the imagined it would. Adam made him feel whole, and not crippled. Together, they stood firmly on their feet, and surely it would always remain that way, even once Lawrence said what needed to be said.
Adam's hand rested on the bed, and Lawrence eased his hand on top of Adam's.
Slowly, Lawrence thought as he searched Adam's eyes for any sign of revulsion.
Adam responded favourably by placing his other hand on Lawrence's.
They smiled.
Okay, Lawrence thought. This is it. All or nothing.
Taking a deep breath, he met Adam's eyes. Their silence wasn't strained, and he knew this was exactly what needed to happen.
"Adam, there's something I need to tell you…"