Walter stood there with his head down fighting against the emotions he felt. A few weeks ago this wouldn't have been an issue. He'd have laughed and walked away. But without the self loathing anger and hate, he was now feeling everything so much deeper. It was almost enough to make him wish he hadn't met Paige. His true psyche wasn't this strong. The false psyche built by all that hate and anger had seemed like an impenetrable fortress by comparison to this wispy and fragile shell.
Paige continued to squeeze him. Pulling his back ever tighter into her chest. She wasn't sure how or if she should, just hearing what Walter glossed over concerning his relationship with his parents, she knew he had just cause to walk away. But she knew she had to help him.
"Hey, Walt. I know this is a delicate subject and a tender spot for you. But, if you ever want a professional objective ear to talk to about your childhood, I'd be happy and honored to listen." Toby told him.
Happy stepped over and she kind of tapped his arm.
"Walt, you might not know to what extent this happened. Because I never told you after you got upset that one time, but you talk in your sleep sometimes, a lot when it happens. And I know a lot of what happened in your childhood already. But if you don't want to talk about it with Toby or with Paige, with Paige's permission I'd be willing to let you spill. I don't know if there is anything I don't know, but…it is your call." Happy told him while looking at Paige.
"It seems to me that while you think you are alone Walter, you've got people in your corner. Even with all you have done. But if you do want to talk about it, we're here. Or if you would feel more comfortable because of your longer history with Happy, I'd understand you talking to her about it." Paige pressed her lips against his shoulder blade and kissed him.
Walter sighed before he pointed at several chairs there about them. He didn't want to do this at all, but he wanted to demonstrate he was changed. And he wasn't about to share without sharing with Paige.
Paige slipped into one chair close to him while Happy sat not far from her. Toby was quick to jump into a chair on the opposite side. He wasn't missing this. A chance look into the psyche of this man, was as addictive of a thought as gambling. Walter turned and stepped to Mark's desk that he was using in the interim. Walter turned and half sat back on the edge. His hands rested on the edge even as his fingers curled around the edge and squeezed it tightly. Sylvester moved his chair around so he could see Walter's face.
"My life was complicated from the moment I became self aware. Which was much earlier than I think anyone knew. The first doctor's appointment I remember, Mother was so frustrated with me. She wanted to know what was wrong with me. I wasn't sleeping like other kids. I was only sleeping a total of twelve hours a day. The doctor seemed concerned since I was only three months old at the time." Walter told them.
"Wait, you were three months and you remember this? And you were only sleeping twelve hours a day? Was it like ninety minutes at a time?" Paige asked.
"Roughly, yes." Walter nodded.
"Walt, you are a remarkable person, truly gifted mentally, but. I really find this hard to believe." Toby told him.
Walter shrugged.
"I can't help what you believe, I can only tell you what I know." Walter told them.
"I actually do believe you. You said Ralph reminded you of what you were like. And Ralph at around three months was not sleeping normally. About every ninety minutes he'd wake up and then be awake for ninety minutes." Paige told him.
"I never knew this." Cabe said as he stepped in from the kitchen.
"Anyway it seemed each month I slept less as my time awake grew longer. Nothing really seemed to help me sleep more. Megan was the only one who seemed to truly not mind. She enjoyed playing with me because I was awake so much. She loved dressing me up and undressing me to dress me up in something else. I didn't mind too much, it gave me more time to look around the room trying to figure things out. She was constantly giving me my bottles of Mother's milk. Another sore spot for Mother when I became self aware. Mother's touch was alien to me. So most of the time she pumped her milk and Megan fed me." Walter said as he looked up and saw Megan listening. He smiled briefly.
"Then Mom was upset because I wasn't talking like other kids. I suppose I could have talked if I wanted, but I didn't really have anything I wanted to say. I was too busy trying to understand what was around me. There were so many complexities about the world, not to mention interactions between people. I was walking at six months old. I mean, how else was I going to truly analyze the world around me if I couldn't get to it? Dr Johnson just declared me as challenged. I'd never amount to anything in his opinion. He told them they should consider placing me in a facility to deal with." Walter sighed as he remembered his parents sitting at the dinner table discussing it like it didn't mean anything.
Paige struggled not to cry as his story reminded her of all the challenges she faced with Ralph as he grew.
"Megan though." Walter smiled. "She tore into my parents as they sat discussing my fate at the dinner table. She was my champion, my hero and she wasn't quite five yet. But I was her baby brother and no one was doing anything against me. She bore the brunt of it from both sides." Walter paused as he looked up again. He saw Mark had joined Megan. Walter raised a hand and wiped at the tear on his face. He cupped his hands over his heart as he looked at Megan and then lifted them up and spread them towards her as if he was showering his love towards her.
He saw the tears on Megan's face and then he heard Paige blow her nose and Happy strangled as she choked back the feelings she felt.
"And so I became her burden, if she was going to fight them over it. I'm not sure it really mattered, she was already ninety percent my caretaker. Although our cousins learned real quick not to mess with me after that. Megan was on them instantly and that meant Dad would be on them. You didn't mess with Megan. She was Dad's pride and joy. And Dad had no problems busting their butts for even slightly irritating Megan." Walter smiled.
"Uncle Tobin was one of the worst. He constantly berated Mother for keeping me. Said I should be in an institution. He'd sneer at me anytime he passed by me." Walter sighed.
"I remember the night of Megan's fifth birthday. She gave me my bath like normal. I was seventeen months old at the time. After she had me dressed for bed she put me down and she stared at me with love. I can still remember that look." Walter wiped the tears from his eyes. He looked at Paige and gave her that same expression and Paige burst into tears as she ran the few steps between them and grabbed Walter in a tight embrace. Her shoulder and his ribs be damned.
"That's kind of how I felt from that look." Walter smiled as he hugged her back.
"I looked into those beautiful eyes of hers and smiled." Walter said after Paige sat back down. "I told her. Thank you for loving me Megan, for accepting me as I am. I hope you enjoyed your birthday." Walter said as he looked up at Megan who was crying now.
"The first words I ever said. Of course our parents called Megan a liar. There was no way I had said what I had. So I screamed as loud as I could and they all looked at me." Walter smiled remembering the look on their faces at that scream. "Leave my deirfiúr alone! I screamed at them. Megan ran up to me and hugged me tightly to her. Mother and Father were stunned into silence. I thought maybe things would get better but they didn't." Walter sighed.
"Nothing was ever enough for them." Walter sighed again. "So I grew distant and only really talked to Megan. I suppose if I had realized it, I would have talked sooner, just because now I could ask Megan what something was outside and she'd half-carry, half-walk me around the farm and let me see and explore things. It is probably a good point here to really recommend that if you do something like this, make sure you know what poison ivy looks like." Walter grinned up at Megan. "That itching was horrible."
Megan broke into a laugh as she nodded.
"Megan going to school was the next hurdle. At first Mother just put me in the pen in front of the TV, but the kid's shows she put on were horrific. But I worked out how to change the channel quickly enough and got it to the BBC. It wasn't the best, but better than what Mother selected." Walter sighed. "Later I found the science channel and that helped a lot. Shows with closed captions really helped as I learned how to read and write from it."
"My own schooling was another problem once I was old enough. I read my text books the first few nights I got them. There wasn't anything left for me to learn and it was so boring. My teachers got frustrated and would try to humiliate me. Giving me questions and problems from chapters the class wouldn't cover for months. Then they would just get more upset because I could answer it. Father Williams was the worst. How that man got a job teaching math is beyond me." Walter smiled slightly. "I spent an inordinate amount of time in the corner."
"I learned that if I took the cover off of the same textbook from the library, I could put them on some of the more advanced books from the library. So I would go to class and rather than being bored I was reading what I didn't know. They never had a clue what I was reading." Walter sighed. "It helped, but I'd still get into trouble for something."
"I'd hoped to make friends with the other kids but it wasn't to be. My frank and matter of fact attitude didn't entice anyone to warm up to me." Walter chuckled mirthlessly.
"And so I wasn't really developing emotionally anymore. With Megan I was more or less fine. Because she loved me without a question. It was like I was on this deserted chunk of land, separated by kilometers of rough seas. And she was willing to work to bridge the gap. No one else cared. In part I think that is what led to me being duped by the plan they gave Cabe." Walter sighed.
"Part of me worried, I saw how others gave up on things if they didn't see a reward, for lack of a better word, coming back to them from it." Walter looked to Toby. "I had to do something to prove I had value before Megan got tired of me. I knew what that look she gave me on her fifth birthday meant, but I didn't understand just how much love did away with needing a reward from something. And so I threw myself into that humanitarian aid package program. If I could help them help people who were hurting, that would show Megan I was worth her love. Worth the frustrations and aggravations of being my deirfiúr." Walter began crying. "I didn't know, couldn't understand that her love wasn't for sale. I didn't have to earn it, it was already mine and always will be." Walter choked out.
"Oh man, I don't know if I can go on." Walter said quietly. Paige started to get up and Walter shook his head. He knew that would doom him. He just breathed for several minutes.
"Nearly a month after I finished working on that program Doc Johnson recommended they send Megan to the US for treatments for her MS. Of course they didn't want me at the farm without Megan and I didn't want to be anywhere without Megan. But before the decision could be made. Boom." Walter sighed.
"The nightmare I faced over that. Oh I'm not talking about Dad, he was bad enough but he already hated me. What more could he do? Kill me? He certainly couldn't hurt me enough to do any real damage. He didn't want me stuck around the farm as an invalid." Walter told them. "But Megan, I thought I went from trying to prove I was worth her efforts to becoming a disgusting mass murderer. I dreaded every creaking board in the house. I just knew at any moment my door would burst open and the only person in this world I thought loved me would come in screaming about what a horrible monster I was." Walter's eyes closed as he struggled with the memories.
"About how she wasted so much of her time and energy on a monster. That she was done with me." Walter's shoulders shook in fear, grief and pain at that memory. Walter felt Paige grab hold of him again and then another set of hands which had to be Happy and then Toby wrapped his arms around them best he could.
Cabe stepped up behind Paige and reached around Walter's head to hug him. Cabe's tough exterior shattered at the pain he had unwittingly inflicted onto a sixteen year old kid.
"But that never happened." Walter said finally as he regained some control. He reached back and grabbed some kleenexes and began blowing his nose and wiping his eyes.
"My parents were even happier now to be rid of me. Even though our little family was the only ones to know, they were so embarrassed, so worried the truth of who and what I was would leak out into the community. That their offspring was the monster who had destroyed so many lives. So I got to come with Megan to the States." Walter finally finished with what he was willing to share.
Toby looked at his watch and shook his head.
"Damn Walt, that was a hell of a session. And a lot you unpacked. How do you feel?" Toby asked.
"Wiped." Walter told him without a trace of humor.
"I feel wiped just hearing it all again." Happy said quietly. "But it all matches with what you've said in your sleep."
Walter just nodded.
Greetings! I hope this finds you well!
Railman - Toby just can't seem to learn can he? lol Sometimes a deathbed meeting can be a good thing, sometimes it can be worse. Let's hope for something good if the story speaks of it. I got a feeling she can. lol
JerBr23 - hehe He was definitely enticed by the Demon...lol Glad you enjoyed it...here Toby was actually decent, of course he was getting something he wanted too...Montezuma's revenge? Is that what you want for Toby? lol Oh yeah, Walter wouldn't stick around the Garage without Paige. Even if it did mean leaving the 3 geniuses to grope about blindly. He'd probably make sure that Megan and Mark had what they needed to live and research and he would probably support Happy but Toby and Sly at this point would have been hurting financially. lol
LouBe - Wasn't he though? lol I'd say sorry for making you look that up, but hey, you learned something new! That's a great day in my book! lol If I remember right, researchers say that the human brain operates at about 10% of a petaflop. LOL Paige definitely wouldn't want to use whipped cream with Toby...She's probably want the bullwhip for him. lol A little messy for now...who knows how messy if the story takes us there. Yep, the Shakespeare scene was so amazing...Elyes and Kat both pulled that scene off amazingly well emotionally. Blew me away. Thank you, I'll take all the luck I can get on finishing Callan. Chapter 67 is done and so close...so close. lol
Pearliegirl - I don't know, what about them? lol What do you think you missed? I'd be happy to tell you. lol Yeah, the best thing about being old...not being under the daisies yet! Nope, Toby wasn't able too. But he wanted too. lol He finally got the hard drive out and destroyed it to be sure the data was gone. Since you are being overwhelmed with so many stories to read, would you want me to slow down or stop for a while? *Mwhahaahaaaha*
Skunkeefunk - Goodness, I wondered what happened to you. Sounds like you had a very busy holiday! Too busy! And man...your husband was certainly blessed! Glad nothing too bad happened to him, scary! Glad things have evened out so you can enjoy reading and relaxing!
Lucy - hehe Well I had to throw a small red herring in there. lol I agree for sure. I mean I think the abused should forgive it for their own well being, but they don't have to tell the abuser squat. It is kind of a catch 22, Walter knows how he feels towards his parents and it kind of guides him now with Happy and Patrick. He had to tell Happy he was sorry but he knows there really isn't anything he can do to ever make what he did right to her. He doesn't expect forgiveness from them, he just continues to move forward.
As a teaser for the new story...there is a song you might want to listen to as it might have an important role to play in the story at some point...Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Your guess is as good as mine! lol
To the Adventure! -Tim