AN: Colby's attitude at the beginning of this chapter may seem like a step backwards. That is intentional because unlike stories sometimes go, real life isn't a linear process. Realisations don't result in immediate change. Real life is messy, there are set backs, and no matter how strong of a resolve you may form, your determination will lapse from time to time. That's human. Recognising your imperfections, picking yourself up again, and carrying on the fight is what matters.
This is your chapter, FrankElza. Colby is sharing his past for you.
When he sat down in Rena's office, she noticed something was up immediately.
"Colby, you don't look well."
"Thanks," he deadpanned.
She wasn't much one for humour and waited for him to explain.
"It's been a long week. I haven't been sleeping much."
"Why not?"
"Do I have to say it?"
"That's how these sessions work."
She was right, and he needed to commit to this if it was going to work.
"Dean."
"What happened?"
"He's pulling away."
"And that upsets you?"
"Of course it upsets me."
"Have you been skipping meals?"
"No..."
She gave him a don't-bullshit-me look.
"Not many..." he amended.
"You do realise you're heading down the same self-destructive path again."
"It isn't a choice. I don't feel like eating."
"If you are this out of control, I may need to revoke your clearance."
"Please don't do that. Aren't you supposed to fix this?"
"I can't fix it, I can only help you fix it, and there are no easy answers. We have to work on it. Let's talk about Dean."
"Why?" Did she just wanna torture him? He was doing a good enough job of that already without her help.
"He seems to be your trigger. Everything you do is based around your feelings for him."
Willow had said the same thing.
"Let's start at the start," she suggested. "How long have you known each other?"
"A long time."
"You're going to have to do better than that."
Colby cast his mind back twenty years, to the first time he'd ever laid eyes on Dean.
"Since he started school. I was two years above him and I saw the other kids picking on him. He was such a skinny little kid..." Colby could still see those big, green eyes pleading with him for help. "I'm not sure I would have stepped in for anyone, I dunno, my dad was a cop, maybe I would have, but even then there was something about him..."
It was impossible to put into words what Dean meant to him.
"Go on..." she said, scribbling notes across a pad.
"We were inseparable after that. He followed me everywhere, but I didn't mind. He was funny, and he never argued. He just followed my lead. Then my dad died. My mum sat me down and told me he wasn't coming home from work, and then she cried. And she never really stopped crying, and nothing was ever the same after that."
As a kid he'd never understood how his mother could behave the way she had. She'd become an observer in his life, not a participant, and it hurt that she couldn't be bothered to stick up for him when he needed her to. But now as an adult, one who couldn't be with the person he loved, maybe he was beginning to get how it had been for her, that aching, gnawing void, and death was an unarguable finality. There'd been no hope for her.
"That must have been very hard."
"I told you before growing up in Mangrove River was tough. But it was a long time ago."
"Wounds like that leave scars."
She was right about that.
"Yeah, they do."
"And where was Dean while this was going on?"
"Right there. Like always. I was angry, I felt like I'd lost both my parents, and I started acting out, got into some trouble, just kid stuff, but he never questioned any of it. If I said we should chuck a rock through a window, he'd just start looking for the biggest rock he could find."
He hadn't thought about those early days in a while, always fixating on the accident and what went wrong. But they really had been the best of friends, doing everything together, and Dean had become his safe place.
"Then along came my stepdad. Mum was a shell, and she had this kid she couldn't control, and he said he'd fix it. Be like a father to me. But the second she married him his true colours came out. Didn't matter what I did, he'd beat the hell out of me for it."
It was a shocking thing to tell a stranger, but Rena handled it with professionalism he'd come to expect of her.
"No child should have to deal with that. How did you cope?"
"I had Dean. I couldn't tell you how many times he patched me up. Not that we had much, but we did our best. And some nights I'd get home, or my stepdad would come in, and you could feel it, boiling in the air, and I'd just get outta there. I didn't wanna end up in the hospital again." He'd worked so hard to leave all this behind, but now that he was back, and Dean and Willow were around, he couldn't deny his past. It had made him who he was, and maybe he needed to get this out, have someone hear that these things were part of him. Plus, his career depended on sorting himself out. She had to believe he was trying. "Is this what you wanna hear?"
"I'm here to listen to whatever you want to tell me."
He didn't really know, but maybe it would be good to have someone who he hadn't hurt, acknowledge that he'd dragged himself out of the gutter and made something of his life. Or maybe that was just egotistical. Besides, he'd left Dean behind to do it, so it was nothing to be proud of.
"Did things get better?" she prompted.
"For a while I guess they did." He and Dean had been up to their usual tricks, getting whatever they needed, however they could, when they'd decided to break into Brax's car. They'd damn near gotten away with it too, but Brax had caught them and he'd been impressed. Decided to put their skills to use rather than beat the shit out of them. And when he'd found out about Dean's situation, well Dean hadn't had to go hungry again after that. "We became River Boys."
"You said before the River Boys weren't a gang. What did they do?"
"Mostly we surfed. And had epic parties on the beach. It was just somewhere to be instead of going home." He decided to leave out the drug running and auto theft.
"You were around other people now. Did it change your relationship with Dean?"
"No. We were happier, we didn't have to fight as hard, but we still did everything together."
"And when do you think you fell in love with him?"
She didn't change her tone at all.
"You're good, I'll give you that, but I can't answer that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know. I can't really remember a time when I didn't feel that need to be with him. Maybe only right at the start before my dad died, but I always wanted to protect him."
"Those things can be accounted to friendship, even necessity. Why do you think it's love?"
That was a really hard question to answer, and probably depended on how you defined the word. But it had to have something to do with the way Dean made him feel. Looking into those big, green eyes, those moments when Dean would let his guard drop and they'd really connect. The feeling was indescribable except to say that they belonged.
"Who passes out at work and winds up in the hospital because they blue with a mate?"
He pulled his phone from his pocket, pulled up a picture of Dean and Willow. In it Willow was pulling a silly face and beside her Dean was caught halfway between laughing at her and laughing with her, but the thing about Dean was that he laughed with his eyes, in this picture that uncertainty and that joy, had been captured beautifully.
Colby handed the phone over to Rena, a soft smile on his lips.
"Looking into those eyes, there's nothing else like it. And if you catch him off guard and the walls drop for a moment, well I dunno, I think that's about as close to heaven as I'm ever gonna get."
He looked up to see her watching him instead of the phone. She handed it back and shifted a little in her seat. It was the first time he'd ever seen an unmeasured reaction from her.
"Maybe that sounds ridiculous," he allowed. He didn't usually think, let alone say, things like that.
"Quite the opposite," she said, leaving it at that. Maybe he'd made his point.
"I can understand why it hurts you now when he pulls away."
Lost in silly, romantic thoughts, he'd forgotten for a second that this was therapy. That the real world waited, and Dean was not his to have.
"It's not his fault. I push him too far."
Rena looked at her watch.
"Time's up," she announced.
It felt like it went quick, he couldn't believe he'd talked the whole session away, and he wasn't really ready for it to end. Maybe he did need this more than he realised.
"Same time next week?" he checked.
"I'll see you then," she smiled.
