"Katy. Hi, I was just thinking about you." Shawn was excited to hear from her. He was finishing up his article and he was going to see if he could stop in New York before taking another assignment. He'd been on the road a bit too long and he needed to take a break. After Nevada he had to go to New Mexico and was now in Louisiana.
"Oh really? Hope you were thinking good things. How's New Orleans?"
Shawn chuckled. "Yeah, there are definitely good things going on in there… New Orleans is okay. I just finished up my article actually, thinking about heading back to New York."
He hit save and closed his laptop.
"Well how about that? 'Cause I was just wondering if you were heading back soon. The kids are gonna be in Texas for the week and I could use a few nights out." Katy twirled her hair as she talked on the phone to a boy she liked and she felt like a teenager again.
Shawn smiles. He's been around enough to know that a few nights out could lead to a few nights in and while he's very excited about the idea of spending a lot of time with her, he knows it will also mean letting Katy in on the bigger parts of himself. The ones he hopes doesn't scare her away.
"It's settled then, I'll head back to the city. I should get there in a few days. What are the kids doing in Texas?"
"The girls signed Lucas up for some bull riding rodeo event and Lucas's family is putting 'em all up to support him." Katy explained.
"Oh wow. I hope Lucas knows what he's doing." Shawn was surprised. "I covered a few Texas rodeos for an article a couple years ago. It's wild."
"From what Maya tells me, he's a Texas boy at heart, he should be fine."
They talked a little bit more, thinking about where they'll go and what they'll do and what Katy's work schedule is like for the week.
Shawn books his hotel room for New York and starts the long drive back home.
He does get to see her every day. She still has to work some nights, but they take the opportunity to do something together each day. They have a picnic in Central Park, have brunch before her work shift, see a movie Katy's been dying to see, go to the botanical gardens. He takes her to a Broadway show and even a poetry reading.
After their fourth date, Katy stays over at his hotel.
He starts to think that maybe, he's in love. That different kind of love he'd been looking for. It sneaks into him and he can feel it resting inside, settling into the marrow of his bones.
Shawn hasn't had someone in his bed in such a long time. Over a year, if he were honest. And even then, it was just a hook-up when he was travelling. He hasn't felt safe and loved the way Katy makes him feel in over a decade. It's slightly overwhelming but not in a way that he can't handle.
The shape of her body fits perfectly next to his and he realizes he hasn't just embraced and laid with another person in so long. Katy seems perfectly relaxed with him and it makes him feel safe as they fall asleep.
Shawn stands outside his old apartment building. The last one he had in New York. It looks smaller than he remembered. It looks darker. He gets the feeling that he's completely alone. Like everyone he knows has left the city. Left him. He walks around the city and no one on the street acknowledges him except a guy outside the liquor store. Shawn doesn't recognize the man's face as he hands Shawn a bottle of his old go-to whiskey and a knife. Shawn tries to say no. He tells him he doesn't need that anymore. The man just laughs. It sounds exactly like his father's voice. "You think you're better than this, boy?" Shawn finds himself carrying the bottle in one hand as he slowly backs away and starts running to the Matthews' apartment. When he gets to the address, it's not there. The entire building is missing. He runs further and ends up where Katy's apartment should be but that's gone too. He runs towards where Jon's apartment is, but it doesn't exist. He looks at the bottle in his hand and drinks the whole thing.
His heart is racing and he doesn't recognize the city he's in anymore. It should be New York but it has parts of Chicago, Vegas, Philadelphia, San Diego. He realizes he doesn't have his phone and he thinks that maybe if he calls Cory, or anyone, he could calm down. He keeps walking and sees an old-fashioned pay phone on the road. It's actually the exact one that used to be outside of Chubby's in Philadelphia. He dials a phone number but just gets an operator. "We're sorry, the person you are trying to reach- Shawn Hunter- does not exist. Please hang up and dial again."
Shawn drops the phone and can't feel his heart racing anymore. He feels around his pockets, double checking for his own phone. He doesn't find it but in his back pocket is the knife the man had tried to give him. He pulls it out and cuts into his arm, knowing this is the only way left to tell if he's alive. But it doesn't bleed. He tries again, desperate to see blood but it doesn't happen. He feels like he's losing his body and so he stabs himself over and over again trying to feel something, but he can't. He doesn't feel anything anymore.
His eyes shoot open and his breathing is rapid. He gets up quickly, nearly stumbling out of bed, forgetting that Katy was sleeping next to him. He paces for a moment until he sees her beginning to move, just the outline of her body in the darkness of the hotel room. He pauses as she turns on the bedside light, noticing the weird energy rolling off of him.
Shawn looks defeated as he realizes Katy is here to witness his nightmare induced panic state. He's not crying, he just looks hurt. He goes to the couch and sits, placing his head in his hands, focusing on breathing. His lungs feel like they're filled with gravity and his heart is just as heavy in his chest. They had such a lovely night together; this was the last thing he wanted her to have to see.
"Hey, hey… Shawn. You're okay. What's going on?" Katy moved from the bed over to the couch to sit next to him. She hadn't helped anyone calm down from a nightmare since Maya was 9, but she recognized the reaction to a bad dream when she saw one.
Shawn takes a few breaths, counting in his head as he inhales and exhales. Katy starts to rub circles on his back and he feels it calming him down, grounding him, letting him feel he's alive. She doesn't say anything more, just waits for him to relax.
After a couple minutes Shawn can finally speak. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I had such a bad one tonight. They normally aren't this bad."
"It's alright." Katy's voice is gentle. "No apologies necessary. You can tell me about it if you want. I always told Maya after a bad dream that we gotta tell the bad stories so they're not so scary and then it makes room for the good ones."
Shawn gave her a small smile. He was grateful she was being so good to him but didn't know how to explain the nightmare he'd just had. He didn't want to freak her out.
"I just… I really am 5 years sober. I don't drink, use drugs, or hurt myself anymore. But, in my dream. I didn't know where I was, and I didn't know anyone. Like everyone I knew didn't exist anymore. Then I didn't exist anymore, so I drank and then I tried hurting myself, like I used to, but it didn't work. I wasn't real…"
Katy gently took his hand and squeezed. "You're very, very real. And we're all still here. The city is still full of people, and the ones you know and love, are all here for you."
Shawn kissed her hand and then let go. He ran his hand over his scars and took another deep breath. He was starting to calm down and he wondered why his anxiety would do this to him tonight. His therapist would know.
Katy watches this man she knows she's falling in love with and tries to think of what he might need. She hates to think of a time when he was in so much pain that he would hurt himself. She wishes he had never had to struggle with addiction. She'd seen her fair share of people lose themselves to addictions over the years. He deserved so much more than that. She moves from her seat next to him on the couch and kneels in front of him. She takes his hand away from his arm and replaces it with hers, gently running her fingers along his arm as if touching the scars will count them and she'll know what each one means. He's never had anyone touch them so gently before. Only Angela, but she always had a deeper sadness when she traced them. It was different.
"You don't mind them, do you?" Shawn asked as he watched her. She seemed to touch them as if she could heal them with her own heart.
"Of course not. They're a part of you. And I like every part of you." Katy looked directly at him, meaning everything she said that evening.
"You can't say that. You don't know every part of me yet." Shawn looked away from her. He was calmer now, but he could feel the angst coming through, the feeling that he was a little bit too damaged to be loved completely.
"That's okay. I see the parts you've given and I trust the rest will come with time." She held his hands and waited for him to look back at her.
Katy didn't have pity in her eyes or fear in her heart. "I'm glad you're here with me Shawn."
Shawn could feel himself wanting to cry but he took a deep breath. He knew it was the come down from the rush of panic he'd woken in and the sincerity of her words that made him sensitive in this very moment. He gently kissed her.
"I'm glad you're here with me too... I don't always know when the nightmares come up. Sometimes I'll assume, like if I've had a hard therapy session or on certain anniversaries, but other times… my brain just likes to fuck with me."
"That sounds awful. I'm sorry you have to deal with that… But is seems like you know how to handle yourself. I'm glad you have therapy to help."
Katy couldn't believe she'd found a man who actually goes to therapy. One who was so actively dealing with bettering himself. She felt lucky that even as he struggled, he was trying so hard.
"Ha. Yeah... It's taken a long time, but I've gotten the hang of how to cope with things... Katy, I need to be honest with you. I want you to know what you're getting into with me because you deserve to make a decision with all the information about who I am, who I've been-"
"A decision?" Katy cut him off and moved back to the couch to sit next to him. He turned to face her. "Like to not date you, because of this? Your scars? Some nightmares? Sobriety?
Shawn, this isn't going to scare me away. I got the sense from the very beginning that you've been through a lot in life. I want to hear whatever you're willing to share but I'm not going to push you to talk about anything. I'm not going to judge you for getting though life, because it brought you here to me."
Shawn let go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding for a moment. He hadn't expected to have to deal with all of this tonight. They had been having a wonder week together and their night was perfect before his brain had to expose his anxieties.
He didn't know what to say. "Oh..."
"Sure, I was surprised on our first date to see so many scars, but you're not the only one with baggage, honey. Your scars may be on the outside, they may be a bit deeper than mine, but that's no reason not to love you."
Shawn wanted to believe her, so he did. He decided right there that if she was going to accept him for this, he would let her. He couldn't quite understand how she could be so perfect. His entire life he had been so unsure that anyone would be able to love him with all the baggage he brought. But here Katy was, loving him at his most vulnerable.
He knows in this moment that he's fully in love with her. He senses the feeling settling into every fiber of his being and while it's a little terrifying, he knows it's right. He knows he would do anything for her.
"Did you wanna tell me about it? Some of these scars look pretty old."
Shawn thought for a moment. He figured he mind as well explain a few things while they were already getting deep. He relaxed into the couch a bit more, settling in to explain. "I did this to myself for a long time. About 15 years give or take some recovery periods."
"That's a long time." Katy said quietly, almost a thought to herself.
Shawn nodded gently. "I started when I was 13, when my parents left. It landed me in the hospital a few times… I haven't done it in 5 and a half years now."
"So, stopping this was part of getting sober?" Katy asked.
"Kind of. I stopped cutting about a year before I actually stopped drinking, but I slipped up a few times because drinking made it harder to care. But, in the end I either had to stop all the shit I was doing or let it kill me." Shawn admitted. He didn't want to keep them up all night talking about his past, but it seemed appropriate for the moment to get through this conversation.
"How'd you end up doing it? How'd you finally get so many years?" Katy asked, falling into some of her own memories. "My daddy drank a lot. He was a loving man, but he lost his job when we were little and he took to drinking. He never was able to pull himself out of it. He always seemed sad that he couldn't put down the bottle. He never went more than a few months sober."
Shawn reached out and held her hand again but looked out into the dim hotel room.
"Well… I was turning 30 and I was going to be celebrating alone in a city where my only friends were other addicts and people I'd met over the years while traveling. I didn't even go see Cory and Topanga for their birthdays. I didn't celebrate with my best friends. I had left everyone that was close to me and realized I had chosen to keep destroying myself. I left because I thought I'd find myself on my own. But honestly, it just made it easier to keep self-destructing without anyone around to notice. I never thought I'd make it to 30. I had too many close calls with death to have the audacity to think I'd survive.
But a guy I had partied with a few times gave me some LSD about 2 weeks before, and funny enough, taking that drug at the time and place that I did, sent me on a trip that showed me I was living my life wrong. I had gotten better before. I had spent 2 years sober. I knew I needed to get back to that. I knew that just because my 20s didn't kill me, didn't mean my 30s wouldn't keep trying. I went to an AA meeting and they helped me find a rehab center. I bought a cabin upstate and I stopped travelling until I felt safe with myself…"
Shawn took a breath. He hadn't talked about this with anyone in a really long time. He really was grateful he'd proved himself wrong, he'd made it past 30.
"I'm sorry your dad never found a way out of it. My dad drank a lot too… He was the angry kind of drunk though. He was always happiest when he had a drink in hand and a kid to knock around. I don't think he ever even thought about stopping."
He felt a sense of satisfaction as it really settled in that he was better than his father. He really had come a very long way and had never imagined he would be sitting here sharing this much with a woman he was beginning to love.
Katy listened thoughtfully. She had sometimes been upset with her father for drinking, but she always felt bad for him as well. She knew he wanted to stop, he just never could. She was proud of Shawn for finding a way out of his darkest places. She couldn't imagine how different life would be if her father were a different kind of drunk.
"I'm sorry too. Maya mentioned once that your parents weren't good to you. But doesn't it bother you to tell her about it? I'd imagine it would be hard to talk about."
"Yes and no. I've been through so much therapy. I've talked about everything so much and gotten to a point were sometimes I'll have nightmares, but I know how to deal with things now. I know there's no going back, even on a bad day. I recognize that sometimes to feel better in the long term, things may feel bad in the short term. Processing all the bad stuff is just letting me make room for the good stuff… I will say, Maya and Riley don't know about all these scars yet. I don't know when it's gonna come up, but I know I'll probably have to explain a few things."
"They'll be okay with you ya know. Maya's tough. She doesn't scare easily and she doesn't run when things get hard. I can tell she just wants to know you, not judge you."
Katy really wasn't worried about Shawn or Maya. She knew they were both going to be able to handle whatever life threw at them. Shawn had clearly already survived more than most and Maya was resilient to a point that still amazed Katy every step of the way.
"Thanks. I'm trying not to overthink it. I know it will happen when it's supposed to. But clearly, I've had a lot going on, and it's hard to explain to the girls who want to know everything." He chuckles a bit and sighs.
Katy laughs too. "They are a very inquisitive duo. Always wanting to solve problems and face challenges. Whatever happened to avoiding your problems and running away?"
"That's what I'm saying." Shawn smiles. "I know we're trying to raise a better generation, but it's so much easier when you just opt out."
Katy leans against Shawn's shoulder and they settle quietly for a moment. Shawn can barely believe he had woken up in a panic just a bit ago.
"Should we try to sleep some more? We could have a lazy day in if you want, order room service later, avoid the world?" Shawn suggested.
"That sounds lovely." Katy yawned as they moved back to bed, calm, comfortable, and happy.
Shawn gets back on the road at the end of the week. He has several assignments already lined up that will keep him on the road for quite a while. But he kisses Katy as he leaves and he feels better knowing he has so much more to come home to.