Unfortunately, Ted called during Brian and Justin's role play. Aidan had just accepted James's proposal, and they had started making out when Brian's phone rang to indicate Ted had texted him. He didn't tell Justin what the text said. He'd just thrown on clothes, kissed Justin softly on the lips, and then run out the door.

Justin decided to use the time to try to move forward with his CBT techniques. He'd been meaning to try new ones, but he was terrified, in some ways more terrified than he'd ever been. The therapist on his tapes actually said that that can happen once you start because pushing yourself will, at least in the short run, produce intensified anxiety and panic attacks. He said that your body and mind will rebel, trying to keep you safe by resisting further progress. The panic and anxiety would get much worse before it got better. And that had turned out to be spot on. Justin had had two panic attacks in the last week, and they had been REALLY, REALLY bad. He had managed to keep himself conscious, with a little help from Brian, but just barely. And Justin did NOT want to go back there. Part of him wondered if it wouldn't be better just to leave Brian, forget about Kayla, and live alone, but be safe. Not happy, but not terrified. Not only of the panic attacks but also failure. What if he tried his hardest but couldn't manage to overcome his social anxiety? Justin didn't want to disappoint Brian, Kayla, or himself. Would it not be better to say "I didn't try" than to say "I tried and failed"? These and other paralyzing questions plagued him. But … there was a little voice inside of him that whispered "maybe." That pointed to the life he could have if he were only strong enough.

1) A REAL life with Brian … going on dates … to get-togethers his surrogate family organized … to Gus's Little League games or school plays.

2) Fatherhood … trips with Kayla to the zoo or the park … Kayla's living with Justin, at least part of the time.

3) A bonafide career as a writer … meetings with potential publishers … interviews and book tours if he succeeded.

A barely discernible glimmer of hope lay buried, deep, deep, deep, in Justin's heart. No matter what, it wouldn't go out. It had encouraged Justin to reach out to the world somehow (writing), and that had led Justin to Brian and even to Kayla. Now it encouraged Justin to TRY to rejoin the world, to put one foot in front of the other in a forward direction, even if at a snail's pace.

So he listened to the next session. This one was about unpacking negative thoughts and beliefs. The therapist explained that automatic thoughts were immediate, unchallenged negative thoughts about a situation; intermediate beliefs, false assumptions that guide day-to-day behavior; and core beliefs, our most basic, deeply rooted fears. He gave examples of safety and loveability.

Core belief: The world is unsafe.

Intermediate belief: I can only be safe if I never leave home.

Automatic thought: Someone is walking behind me. He wants to hurt me.

Core belief: I am unlovable.

Intermediate belief: If I don't think always of others first, no one will ever love me.

Automatic thought: I got caught up with work, forgot to thaw the chicken for dinner, and dinner was two hours late. My partner doesn't love me anymore.

Core beliefs are the main problem. They are basic ideas about yourself or the world that scare you. They lead to intermediate beliefs, which are supposed to help you feel better about core beliefs but end up making you feel worse. They are what you tell yourself about your behavior. If you just do 'this,' you can get what you want or need. And automatic thoughts record moments when you fail to maintain the 'appropriate' behavior.

It's lose-lose. You don't believe whatever it is can be made better, so you set impossible standards and then beat yourself up when you inevitably fail (in some small way).

The therapist said Justin needed to monitor himself for and write down automatic thoughts whenever they occurred. He also said Justin should try to discern and write down any intermediate or core beliefs he might have. Then he was supposed to ask himself a series of questions to gauge their validity and try to come up with a positive thought or belief to replace them.

So Justin had grabbed a notepad and a pen and was thinking. He didn't have to think long. A core belief immediately popped into his mind.

"There is something inside me (that has always been inside me), something monstrous that people can perceive without really even being able to name it that tells them I am not worth anything."

Then an intermediate belief appeared (in his mind).

"Hide. If I don't hide who and what I am, if I don't push myself into a smaller and smaller space until I'm nearly invisible, people will start hating me and leave."

Justin's body flushed. He closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly. Next he was supposed to look for evidence to support and evidence to counter these beliefs.

Justin started talking to himself. He also started pacing. And clenching and unclenching his gimp hand.

"Okay. So … My dad always seemed to hate me. He always seemed angry or annoyed no matter what I said or did. I can't remember his being any other way. I tried for a long time to please him. I joined Little League, even though I really wanted to take art classes instead. But trying to make him happy like that failed because I SUCKED at baseball."

Justin carded his free hand through his hair, hard. His face and forearms had suddenly gotten so hot. Images of a specific game flashed through his mind unbidden. His team and their opponents were tied. The other team was hitting and had already gotten two strikes. The next hitter went to the plate … and hit the ball into the outfield. The ball was coming right at Justin. He jumped as high as he could and his mitt touched the ball, but he ended up deflecting it rather than catching it. He chased after it and was so focused on the ball, he accidentally knocked over a teammate who was also trying to grab it. Justin did finally capture the ball, and he threw it, but he missed the second baseman by at least four feet. The hitter ended up getting a home run and winning the game. When Justin missed the second baseman, his father stood up in the stands, glared at Justin, and left. He ended up having to use a pay phone to call his mom for a ride. Justin's father never went to another of Justin's games.

"When I stopped trying to please him, when I started spending all my free time drawing, he pretty much stopped talking to me. I tried to make it work with Daphne, even though I NEVER felt what everyone said they felt … my guy friends would talk about looking at girls in short skirts and tight sweaters and getting hard, and it just never happened for me. No … that only happened when I drew some of those guy friends, or I saw a half-naked man in a deodorant commercial in TV … all wet from the shower or sweaty from the gym. And I had to think about Chris to get hard enough to have sex with Daphne. So I admitted to myself, to her, to my family, to her family, to my friends … what I feared all along, that there was something 'wrong' with me … and one by one they left."

Justin's body was now burning. Oddly, he was also shivering. "Daphne fled the country, Chris assaulted me, my parents disowned me … I was all alone."

Justin swallowed hard. His mouth was so dry. "Then I met Ethan. He was gay and attracted to me. He said he loved me. Asked me to live with him. He was an artist of sorts, too, a musician. He of all people should have been able to understand me. To value me. But he didn't even like me. He didn't want me to talk about what mattered to me, or even what mattered to him. He spent almost all of his time practicing or hanging out with his friends. Even when they came over, he would talk only to them. Fuck, if he couldn't love me, who can? We had so much in common. Cared about similar things."

The heat in Justin's face and arms was everywhere now … in his belly, his legs, and even his head … his vision swam. He was breathing in short, shallow gasps.

"Brian says he loves me. Asked me to live with him. But he doesn't know me. Or … he's only starting to. I mean, I tried to avoid talking about Chris and Daphne, but then I did, and now he knows."

Justin grabbed the arm of the couch to steady himself and let himself fall onto one of the cushions. He buried his face in his hands and tried to slow his breathing. To take deep breaths. "He's out now trying to recover my SEXTAPES. Fuck. And he saw them. Well … enough. He saw me. He saw."

Justin sat up straight and opened his eyes wide, trying to clear his vision. Still blurry but better. Then he tried to force his muscles to relax, starting with his neck and his back.

"He knows about Daphne and Kayla. That Daphne didn't think I was good enough to be her father. Because I was gay. Brain damaged. A shut in. No college degree. No job I can tell people about. A filthy, broken thing. 'NOT APPROPRIATE' as my mom always said."

A painful tingle passed through his hands up to his arms and back again before settling there. Justin stretched out his fingers, trying to restore normal sensation and swallowed hard again. Why was his throat so dry? Now he was dizzy. The room seemed to darken, especially at the edges of his vision.

"I don't want Brian to see me the way Daphne does, the way Ethan did, the way Chris or my dad or my mom did. I don't want him to see me as a filthy, broken, uneducated failure. Parts of me Brian knew before we met. The rest I tried to hide, but he sees it all the same." Justin was staring at the coffee table. Everything beyond it was a dark blur.

"NO." Justin shook his head and cleared his throat. "Stop." He thought back to his first kiss with Brian. When he'd first glimpsed Brian, he'd been floored by an ache, a longing … He'd breathed, "Fuck, you're beautiful!" just as he'd done a million times in his fantasies with Aidan. Brian had said nothing but taken Justin's hand in his and placed it on his chest. Justin could still feel the quick thump-thump of Brian's heart. The warmth of his touch. The intensity of the look in his eyes. And Justin … he'd crawled into Brian's lap and kissed him, exactly how he'd always imagined himself kissing Aidan. That memory had the intended effect (the therapist had suggested that Justin have a 'go-to' memory or imaginary place to visit in times of distress … something that would bring him back enough that the other relaxation and distraction techniques would work). The waves of dizziness and heat receded.

He breathed in and out slowly. He spent the next five minutes relaxing his body bit by bit. His neck. His back. His shoulders. His right arm. His left arm. His right leg. His left leg. By the time he was done, his breathing and heart rate had slowed and his vision had mostly cleared. The room was no longer so dark.

He picked his notepad back up and started writing.

Evidence to support beliefs

Dad (art vs. sports)

Mom/Dad/Chris (gayness)

Ethan (?)

Daphne (social anxiety/brain damage/gayness)

Evidence to counter beliefs

Brian (writing/sexual attraction/still here)

Justin started speaking out loud again. "Okay … so looking at the list, I notice that all the things people hated about me, hate about me, are things I can't change. Things that are natural, like my love of art and my orientation, things done to me, like the brain damage, or consequences of things done to me, like the social anxiety." He took a deep breath. "Hating myself for things I had no part in choosing and can't change is pointless. The only thing I can alter in any way is my social anxiety. And I'm doing that now."

Justin swallowed hard and blinked a few times. He had to push the heat and the dizziness down before they threatened to overcome him (again).

"Brian probably doesn't think I'm filthy. He knows the sextapes were made by someone else without my consent. And he spends hours upon hours touching me. Looking at me. He probably wouldn't do that if I sickened him. He knows that there are things I struggle to do. But … he said I was brave. He said he thought I was making progress. He even quantified it. 200%. And he said…" Justin's voice grew thick with tears that wanted to come out. " … he said I made his life … perfect."

Justin closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly. "Okay … so what is a positive reframing? My gayness and love of art may have inspired people to leave, but those things are NOT monstrous. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying my best. As long as I try my best, a good person …" He cleared his throat. "… like Brian will find value in me. He won't give up on me, if I don't give up on myself."

Justin widened his eyes and nodded. He wanted to believe this.

"I am NOT too broken to ever be a real partner to Brian. I am NOT too broken to ever be a good father. I have accomplished SOME things and will SOON accomplish MORE." He negated his greatest fears. He would need to keep telling himself these things until he believed them.

(Unbeknownst to Justin, Brian had unwittingly walked in partway through but didn't want to interrupt, so he stayed hidden).