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Two weeks into one of the hottest summers he’s ever experienced, Neil finally gives in.
Andrew has never pushed Neil to do anything he doesn’t want to do, and Neil knows he never will. But every time he’s awake with Neil through the night, or putting pressure on Neil’s neck to remind him to breathe, or watching him carefully as Neil stares at his own reflection with distaste, Neil can see the words behind Andrew’s eyes. You need more than what I can give you.
It starts and ends like this: Neil’s shirt is sticking to his back with sweat, scarred hands clutching at knees that are drawn to his chest, his breathing finally having evened out after what felt like hours of his chest burning.
“Neil,” Andrew says through the darkness. His voice is ragged and exhausted. It’s the closest thing Neil has ever heard him utter to the word please.
It’s this that forces Neil to bow and rest his forehead against his knees. He exhales, unable to believe what he’s about to agree to.
“Alright,” he says eventually. His voice is hoarse from gasping. “I’ll do it.”
Andrew’s grip on the back of his neck tightens. “Do what?”
“Dobson. I’ll go and see her,” he says, looking up. He can see the ghost of Andrew’s face in the red light of the digital clock on the bedside table. It remains impassive.
“If you want to,” Andrew says, seemingly indifferent.
“I don’t want to,” Neil snaps, wiping sweat from his upper lip. “But I will try it.”
“Why now?” Andrew asks, hand still on the back of Neil’s neck. His grip is getting tighter by the second, but it’s not a warning. It’s like he’s holding on to the moment.
Neil blinks. “It’s not your job to fix me.”
“No, it’s not,” Andrew agrees. “I don’t want it to be. That doesn’t mean you should do something you don’t want to.”
“I will try it,” Neil repeats. “But if I hate it, I’m never going back.”
Andrew’s grip finally loosens. “Correct,” he says, his hand sliding into Neil’s hair and tugging at it. “Go back to sleep.”
The next morning, Neil spends most of his run around the streets of Columbia regretting his agreement to try. Mostly, he’s thinking about what his mother’s reaction to his choices would be. He spends the last mile of his run listening to the smack of his feet on the pavement as he tries to outrun his regret.
Andrew is sitting on the curb, waiting for him, and having a cigarette. His phone is lying on the ground beside him.
“One o’clock tomorrow,” he says in lieu of hello. Neil pulls his bandana off his head and wipes his face with it, sitting down next to Andrew.
It’s summer, so Reddin is technically closed, but Neil knows Betsy would drop everything if the Foxes asked her to.
Neil scrunches the fabric in his hands into his fists, then says, “Fine.”
“Coffee?” Andrew asks him after a minute, and he nods in agreement. They stand, head into the blissfully air-conditioned kitchen, and kiss over the coffee as it brews.
On the drive to campus the next day, Neil says, “What is it about Dobson that you trust?”
There is a monster clawing its way through his chest, telling him to run. He needs Andrew to start talking before he opens the car door and hurls himself onto the highway. Andrew must sense this, because he’s quick with his response.
“She never flinches,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road as he speaks. “I tested all twelve of the previous ones in my first session with each.”
“Did you take them to a club and drug them?” Neil tries to joke. Andrew glares at the windscreen.
“Did all sorts of things,” he says. The hatred in his voice makes Neil curious, but he doesn’t push. “And they all broke within the hour. Not Bee, though. She didn’t bat an eye. Not a hair out of place by the end of it.”
“She passed the test,” Neil says, and Andrew gives a curt nod.
“She passed the first test. And all of the ones that followed,” he says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Neil leans back against the headrest and considers this.
He knows that Andrew plays fast and loose with the term ‘therapy’ at the best of times. Neil wouldn’t be surprised if half of their sessions were spent with Andrew sitting in stony silence.
Yet, he and Aaron still have their joint sessions. Sometimes they come back and slam their respective dormitory doors. Other times, they remain in silence, but linger in each other’s orbit for longer than usual.
Sometimes, Andrew comes back from his personal sessions looking wrung out and hollow. Neil hates these days. These are the ones where it takes everything in him not to ask what the fucking point of it all is, why Andrew is putting up with this woman making him feel worse, but he knows better than to say anything.
Neil turns to look at Andrew, who flicks him an impatient look, but doesn’t say anything.
He steeles himself. If Andrew trusts Betsy, Neil will learn to as well.
Andrew signs them both in at the empty reception desk, then leads Neil all the way down the corridor to Betsy’s office. The building is silent. It sets Neil’s teeth on edge.
The door to her room is wide open. She’s sitting on the armchair opposite the couch that Neil knows he will have to claim. He stalls in the doorway. She looks up from her notebook and smiles.
Run, the monster in his chest hisses.
“Hello, you two,” she says warmly, placing her notebook on the table beside her. “Come in.”
Run! it screams, but he remains locked in place. After a moment, Andrew gives him a small shove, and he stumbles over the threshold.
“Hello, Bee,” Andrew says from behind Neil in a bored voice. “No time to stop and chat, I’ve got things to do, I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” she says. She gestures to the couch and says, “Would you like to sit, Neil? Or would you prefer standing?”
Neil doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he turns to face Andrew and grabs him by the collar.
“Do not leave this building,” he says in German. Andrew makes a noise from the back of his throat somewhere between amused and annoyed.
“I don’t trust you here by yourself. You might burn it all down in a state of paranoia,” he replies, but Neil hears the promise in his words.
“Very funny,” Neil deadpans, releasing him. The tension in his jaw appears to have lessened slightly at the notion that Andrew isn’t abandoning him here. Still, he feels distinctly uncomfortable as he makes his way to the couch and lowers himself down into the cushions.
In English, Andrew says to Betsy, “Don’t break him.” It’s as much a joke as it is a warning.
“Of course not,” Betsy says. “Thank you for trusting me.”
He watches Andrew nod at her, then give Neil one last blank look before he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him.
As soon as he’s gone, Neil turns to face her. “I don’t trust you.”
She shrugs. “That’s perfectly understandable. I have to earn your trust, and we hardly know each other. Would you like a drink?”
“No,” Neil says, studying the woman before him. “I want to get this over with.”
“Alright,” she smiles. “Well, we have an hour together. As this is our first real session, I would like for you to tell me a little bit about why you’re here today.”
It’s like Neil’s throat has closed up all of a sudden, rendering him voiceless. How could he possibly begin to explain anything to this stranger? He picks up the pillow from next to him on the couch and starts to pick at it, stalling.
“You can give me as much or as little detail as you would like. Or, if you’d rather, we can talk about something else until you’re feeling more comfortable with me.”
When Neil fails to come up with an answer for this, too, he looks up from the pillow at her. He doesn’t quite know what he’s expecting; perhaps for her to be looking frustrated, annoyed at his inability to do something as simple as talk? But no. Betsy Dobson looks patient and steadfast as ever.
He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again.
“I’m not usually this quiet,” is the first thing that comes out of him. He’s not sure why he feels like this is suddenly important to tell her, but she nods like it’s a perfectly normal thing to say.
“I’ve seen some of your post-game interviews,” she smiles, her eyes sparkling. “I would have to agree with that statement.”
“Do you watch all of our games?” Neil asks, curious.
“Of course,” she says. “I must say I still struggle to follow the rules, even after all these years, but I enjoy watching you all do what you’re most passionate about. Sometimes it seems like you’re different people entirely on the court.”
“When I first started playing, that’s what I thought it was too,” Neil says, “But I think the people we become on court are all inside of us. Sometimes they’re just buried a little deeper than we think.” He thinks of Andrew, shutting down the goal, and feels an unwilling smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Much deeper.”
“I think that’s a very nice way of thinking about,” Betsy agrees. “You like talking about exy. I can see how passionate you are about it.”
Neil pauses. “It’s one of the only things that’s easy to talk about,” he says eventually.
Betsy considers him. “What else do you find it easy to talk about? Perhaps we could start there.”
Neil thinks. Andrew? No, he doesn’t like to talk about Andrew, especially when he’s not there. He likes to talk to Andrew, but that’s different. He sits silently, picking at the pillow again, racking his brains for anything easy to talk about, other than exy. He comes up with a big, fat, nothing.
“I can see you’re thinking hard about that, Neil. If you don’t mind being honest with me for a moment - is that because you’re struggling to think of anything else that’s easy for you to talk about?”
Neil squeezes the pillow in his fists. “I’m terrible at being honest.”
“It’s important to practice things that don’t come naturally to us,” she says encouragingly. “Would you like to try it? Remember, I won’t share anything you say with anybody else.”
Neil exhales. If he’s going to actually attempt this therapy thing, he supposes he should at least try to be honest.
“Fine,” he concedes, swallowing around his dry throat. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can talk about easily.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Betsy says. “Neil, if you don’t mind, I usually take a few notes throughout my sessions so that I can come back to them, if I need to. Are you comfortable with that?” she says, gesturing to her notebook.
“No,” Neil says, “but you can do it anyway.”
“Alright,” she says evenly, picking up her book and her pen. “If at any point you would like me to stop or share something I’ve written with you, please let me know.” She scribbles something quickly, then looks up at him.
“You said you find it hard to be honest and to talk about anything that isn’t exy. What do you talk about with your friends?”
In favour of answering the question, he tries to ignore the nagging voice - something akin to his mother’s - in the back of his head, saying Dobson is going to use this information against him.
“Well, with Kevin it’s always exy,” he says. “With the Nicky, and the upperclassmen, I usually just go along with whatever they want to talk about.”
“Do they ever ask you questions about yourself?” Betsy asks.
“All the time,” Neil says.
“And are you honest with them?”
Neil chews on a bit of dead skin on his lower lip as he considers his answer. “I’m… trying to be more honest with them,” he says. “I lied to them all for a year, and they’re the first friends I’ve ever had. They deserve the truth.”
“I imagine it’s hard to break a habit you’ve had for so long,” Betsy nods. “It’s nice to hear that you’re trying. You mentioned Kevin and the upperclassmen. What about with the twins? Or anyone outside of the Foxes?”
“I don’t talk to anyone outside of the Foxes,” Neil says, his flow of words suddenly grinding to a halt.
Andrew doesn’t talk to Neil about his sessions with Betsy, so Neil has no idea how much she knows about them. “I don’t really talk with Aaron,” he adds.
“You don’t get along?”
Neil shrugs. “I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“Are you staying in the same place as him this summer?”
“No. He’s on holiday with Katelyn’s family. I’m at the place in Columbia.”
“So with Kevin staying at Coach Wymack’s place and Nicky in Germany, it’s just you and Andrew?” She asks. Her tone betrays nothing she might know.
He eyes her uncertainly. “I don’t want to talk about Andrew yet,” he says. The truth stings his bitten lip.
“That’s fine,” she tells him, and pivots. “You said the Foxes are the first friends you’ve ever had. That must be difficult to navigate at times, especially as you’re used to being so private. Do you think developing your confidence in being honest is something you would like to work on during our sessions together?”
Neil frowns. “Is that… we can do that?”
“Of course,” Betsy says, looking, for the first time, slightly surprised. “We can use this time however you like, Neil.”
“I thought you were just going to try and diagnose me with mental disorders and ask me if I wanted to sleep with my mom, or something,” he says, and she laughs warmly.
“Definitely not,” she replies, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles.
They go back and forth for a while. Betsy says that no matter how honest Neil gets with her, or what they work on together, she will never make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. While therapy is most effective through a consistent routine, she says, she also recognises that the same things don’t work for everybody.
“I’ve got a small challenge for you, Neil, if you’re up for it,” she tells him towards the end of the session.
His shoulders, which he didn’t realise had relaxed slightly, feel suddenly tense again.
“What?” he asks.
“Over the next week, I would like you to try to be honest with one person each day.” Catching sight of his face, she reassures him, “You do not have to share any secrets with anyone. But if someone asks you a question in passing, such as ‘How was your day?’ I want you to really consider your reply before you say it. It’s natural for us to believe that people don’t really want to know the answer when they ask a question like that, so we water down our answers or lie and say ‘good’ when it probably wasn’t. But I want you to focus less on what others think, and more on your own reaction and answers. Does that sound doable?”
“I’ll try,” is the answer he eventually settles on, and it’s not a lie.
Neil doesn’t expect Andrew to ask him how the session went, and he’s grateful when he’s met with the usual silence. He’s not sure how he can feel so exhausted from sitting down and talking for an hour.
At the car, Andrew offers Neil the keys, but Neil shakes his head. Andrew shrugs and sends a quick text message before he gets into the driver's side.
“We’re going to Abby’s,” he informs Neil, who nods, then slumps back against the seat. Andrew turns on the car, pauses for a moment, then looks over at Neil.
“What,” Neil says. Andrew reaches out a hand and pulls Neil towards him by the collar of his t-shirt. Nothing is demanding in the movement. It’s a question, one that Neil knows the answer to instantly.
“Yes,” Neil affirms, and Andrew drags him into a bruising kiss.
Neil isn’t surprised to see Coach’s car parked outside of Abby’s place. Nor is he surprised to find Abby in the kitchen while Coach and Kevin, by the sounds of it, are arguing loudly over a sports segment on the television in the living room.
“They should really start paying you for your cooking,” Neil jokes with her as she gathers him in her arms for a hug. It used to bother him so much when she did that. Now, in her air-conditioned kitchen with the smell of spices lingering on her clothes, it relaxes him more than touch from almost anyone else.
“I’ve been saying that,” she says as they break apart. “And every time I bring it up, they feign sudden deafness.” She cups Neil’s chin and searches his face. “You’re supposed to be resting. You look tired.”
“I’m f-,” he starts, then cuts himself off, remembering what Betsy had asked of him.
Andrew had been rooting around in the cupboard for snacks, but he stills at Neil’s pause. He can hear the muffled voices of Kevin and Coach floating in through the open door to the hall. Abby’s hand is still on his chin, but it’s not bothering him. She’s watching him carefully, but her eyes don’t betray anything she might be thinking.
What, apart from years of habit and promises to his long-dead mother, is stopping him from being a little honest right now? He doesn’t need to tell Abby he’s kept both himself and Andrew awake through the night all week. But he also doesn’t have to lie.
Mostly, he wants to prove to himself that Dobson’s little challenge is doable.
“I’m tired,” he says, and he sees Andrew straighten up out of the corner of his eye. “I had my first session with Betsy today.”
Abby finally drops her hand, her eyes widening, and a smile stretching across her face.
“Neil,” she says warmly. “That’s a big step. I’m proud of you.”
Neil shrugs, but appreciates what she’s saying all the same. There, he thinks to himself. That wasn’t so bad, huh? He finally looks over at Andrew, who is holding a bag of chips in his hand and watching Neil like a hawk.
“Staring,” Neil smirks, and Andrew’s gaze turns into a glare.
“I hate you,” Andrew says, turning and stomping into the living room, chips in hand.
A few days later, a familiar smell and an echoing bang startle Neil from a surprisingly peaceful sleep. He jerks awake, finding the bed beside him empty. A second bang, followed by a third and a fourth, almost deafeningly loud, forces a shuddery gasp out of his throat.
Danger, is all he can think, followed by Andrew. He scrabbles desperately at the sheets beneath his pillow, searching for a weapon that’s not there. The noises continue, ricocheting off the walls and filtering in through the windows left open to try to quell the sticky-hot heat.
And then Andrew is there, beside the bed, repeating Neil’s name in his wavering ears. There’s something else he’s saying, too. Neil continues clutching at the sheets with one hand, the other splayed over his heart, which feels like it’s going to beat right through his skin and out of his chest.
“Fireworks,” Andrew is saying, his voice getting clearer. “Neil, it’s the fourth of July. They’re fireworks.”
“Fireworks,” Neil repeats in a raw voice, disbelievingly. His heart rate seems to be slowing down. Of course, they’re fucking fireworks. He’s so stupid. He can feel the flush of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks, smell the offending gunpowder as the fireworks continue outside. He pulls his hand out from under the pillows.
Andrew stands up and closes the window to block out some of the noise.
“I’m fine,” Neil tells him before he can stop himself, despite what his tight chest and sweaty forehead seem to be trying to say.
Andrew shoots him a dirty look and finishes latching the window before he arrives back at Neil’s side. Clambering onto the bed and sitting cross-legged opposite Neil, he says, “I was having a cigarette.”
“It’s fine,” Neil says, which earns him another glare. He runs his fingers through his tangled hair, flinching as he hears another set of fireworks let off.
He’s not sure, exactly, what it is about the sound that’s so off-putting. All he knows is that it feels dangerous and stupid not to have anything to defend himself and Andrew in this moment.
“We should get a gun,” he says, trying a bit of honesty.
“That might be one of your more terrible ideas,” Andrew says. “No.”
Neil thinks about the number of times he and Andrew hurt each other accidentally throughout the night. “Okay, maybe not,” he mutters. Defeated, he slumps back against the headboard, wincing at the obscene popping noises coming from outside.
“I’m tired,” he says eventually, repeating the same thing he’d told Abby. It’s the only thing that feels true. He has no other word to explain the bone-deep ache he’s been experiencing since the semester ended.
“I know,” Andrew says, “me too.”
This, somehow, manages to make Neil feel worse. Andrew has his own issues to deal with. He doesn’t need to sit with Neil’s, too.
“I’m trying,” is all he can think to say. It’s meant to come out as earnest, but it sounds closer to petulant.
“I know,” Andrew says, a hint of mockery in his voice. It makes the corner of Neil’s mouth twitch. “Let me distract you,” he says next, to which Neil murmurs an easy yes.
Andrew takes Neil apart on the bed until the noise from outside is nothing but a distant memory.
Andrew raps hard on a locker nearby, startling Neil and Kevin from their conversation as they get dressed after their practice.
“What?” Kevin says grumpily, and Andrew taps his wrist, then points at Neil.
“Tick tock,” he says. “You take any longer, you can walk.”
Neil runs the towel through his shower-damp curls once more for good measure, throws it into the laundry hamper, and picks up his bag. “Betsy,” he says at Kevin’s affronted look. “We’ll see you later in the week.”
“Think about the plays we discussed,” Kevin says instead of goodbye.
Neil had almost forgotten about his next session with the psychiatrist. Where exy is concerned, nothing else matters. But now that his gear isn’t weighing him down, he feels suddenly vulnerable sitting in the Maserati in his denim shorts and Andrew’s t-shirt. Their clothes have turned from two messy piles into one over the last couple of weeks.
Neil pulls his armbands out of the pocket of his shorts and snaps them on as Andrew starts up the car.
After a few minutes of radio music that he doesn’t recognise, Neil asks the question he’s been avoiding since his session last week.
“Does she know about us?”
The reaction is exactly what he expects. Andrew keeps his eyes steadily on the road and says, “There is no us.”
“Sure,” Neil says swiftly, unbothered by the dismissal. “But does she know that - you know-,”
“Don’t,” Andrew growls, gripping the steering wheel. “I don’t care to hear you say it.”
“Well, I need to know,” Neil says. It’s never bothered him that Andrew doesn’t want to recognise their relationship out loud; it’s not something he’s ever particularly wanted to do either. But it’s important to Neil that they’re on the same page here. “I don’t want to - and I won’t - talk about you behind your back. But if I’m going to try and be honest with her, I can’t ignore the elephant in the room.”
Andrew hits the brakes a touch harder than he needs to at the next red light, then says after a pause, “She knows.”
“So if she asks…”
“I don’t care what you say about me,” he says, and Neil’s mild annoyance melts away as quickly as it came. He recognises Andrew’s indifference as permission.
“Okay,” Neil says, then a sudden thought occurs to him. “Do you talk about me with her?”
Andrew hits the gas pedal a second before the light turns green, eliciting an angry honk from someone nearby.
“Not if I can help it.”
“Thanks,” Neil says, relieved.
“Shut up.”
Despite Andrew’s caution, they arrive at Reddin with a few minutes to spare. They sit on the hot hood of the car, sharing a cigarette to pass the time. Andrew’s right hand is on Neil’s lower thigh, where his shorts ride up, sweat building where their skin meets.
Still able to feel where Andrew’s hand had been and to taste the acrid smoke in his mouth, he gets a minor boost to step into Dobson’s office without the same level of hesitation as last week.
“Hello, Neil,” Betsy says warmly as he walks through her open door.
“Hi,” he says, looking out into the empty hallway, then closing the door behind him. Leaving myself at her mercy, that same voice says.
He takes a seat on the couch without being prompted and declines her offer of a drink. She gives him a moment to settle himself, then says, “How are you this week, Neil?”
“I’m f-,” he begins, then remembers how jittery he’s been since the fourth of July. “I’m…” he searches for a word that won’t give too much away, but that will at least be a little honest. “...tired,” he says.
Besty hums. “Are you not sleeping well?”
Neil shrugs.
“Have you always struggled sleeping, or is this a more recent development?”
“Straight in there today, huh, Doc?” he says before he can stop himself. She only smiles.
“We can start somewhere else if you’d like. I thought you would prefer I didn’t go over the usual niceties, but I’m sorry if that was an incorrect assumption.”
“No, that’s…” he’s momentarily surprised. “...correct.”
“Please tell me if I’m ever wrong,” Betsy says, taking a sip of her drink. Once she’s put her mug back down beside her chair, she says, “Tell me about your sleep, if you’re comfortable.”
Neil pauses, flipping through old memories quickly. Waking up several times to check that there’s still a weapon within reach, sleeping on hard concrete and beneath the cover of wet bushes, lying awake in his mother’s arms; never because he was being hugged, but because he was being protected.
Then, more recently: restlessly waiting for Kevin to wake him for practice, getting up to check that his roots hadn’t started to show, or listening for Andrew’s breathing to make sure he’s safe.
“I guess it’s never been great,” he concludes aloud. “Even when my Mom and I had shelter, we were always watching our backs. We slept because we had to. It wasn’t exactly a luxury.”
Betsy tilts her head slightly and says with a small smile, “Thank you for telling me that. You’re getting better at being honest already. Does that mean the little challenge I set you has been met this past week?”
Neil’s skin prickles. “I could be lying,” he tests her.
“You could be,” she agrees, “but the fact that you’re here of your own accord - when you’ve expressed such a disinterest in therapy previously - makes me think there’s probably a lot of truth to your words.”
Neil swallows around his dry throat. She’s doing it, he thinks. She’s analysing you. She’s breaking you down, and it’s going to make you weak. He puts a hand over the spot on his thigh where Andrew’s had been sitting earlier, steeling himself against the voice.
“I think my sleep has been getting worse,” he muses after a pause. “I’ve always been a light sleeper, but now I struggle to sleep at all.”
“I see,” she says, picking up her pen and notebook from her lap and making a quick note. “When do you think that changed?”
The thing is, Neil tries not to think about stuff like this. He tries not to overthink things like his habits, unless they concern the safety of himself or his family. He knows that if he does think about them too hard, something ugly will stare back at him.
He still knows the answer to the question, though.
“It was okay, for a while,” he says eventually. “Even after Baltimore,” he catches her eye to see whether or not she knows what he’s talking about. He assumes Abby, Coach or even Andrew had talked to her about it. She nods him on. “There were some nights that weren’t great, but mostly it was fine. And then we won the season, and it was still alright. And then the year was over, and summer began, and all of a sudden it was every night, not just some nights.”
“I see,” Betsy says again, making another quick note. “You struggle to fall asleep?”
“Sometimes,” he says, and now that he’s admitted to it all, it feels a little easier to be honest without being prompted. “But even if I do, I have dreams. Or I wake up and I… can’t breathe,” he finishes kind of lamely.
“And when you say dreams, you mean nightmares? And panic attacks?” she says, and he grimaces.
“If that’s what you want to call them.”
“That’s the name I would use for what you’re describing. Would you prefer something else?”
“It makes me sound weak,” he says stiffly. She raises one eyebrow.
“On the contrary, Neil, I think it proves that you are anything but weak. If you’re shouldering experiences that trigger nightmares and panic attacks, weak is not how I would describe you.”
He slumps against the couch, mulling over her words. There’s some truth to them; it’s the sort of thing he would believe about most people. But to place himself in that category doesn’t feel right.
“I can see that you’re uncomfortable thinking about yourself like that, so unless you’d like to keep discussing it, we can move on.” She waits for approval, and he gives her a nod. “Apart from the fact that you’re not in the dorms, has anything else about your sleeping arrangements changed recently?”
A screaming wall slams down in front of the thoughts he’s been letting leak out slowly. Neil stiffens again, looking down at his hands. He tries not to give too much away, instead picking at one of the scars on the back of his hand.
“What does that matter?” he mumbles.
“It matters because a change in routine can often trigger anxiety.”
He takes his left hand into his right, then slowly cracks each knuckle as he thinks carefully about what to say.
“Yes,” he says eventually. “Things have changed.” Then he looks up. She’s watching him with no change in her expression. “Andrew told me he doesn’t care what I say about him here. But I don’t like to talk about him behind his back.”
“That’s very respectful of you,” she says. “Remember, I am asking about you, not Andrew. You only have to tell me what you are experiencing.”
He concedes. “Most nights, Andrew and I sleep in the same bed. Unless one of us says no.”
“And that started happening consistently since the school year ended?” she asks, and he switches to the knuckles on his right hand.
“Yes, but that’s not making things worse,” he says, offended at the suggestion.
“If you both feel comfortable, then I agree,” she says. “It’s just good to bear these things in mind. Neil, I think the reason you’ve been feeling more run-down recently is that your body and brain aren’t quite on the same page. You’re trying to rest for the first time after several traumatic experiences that coincided with the end of the school year and the exy season. That is no small amount of stress. Your brain doesn’t know how to keep up with your resting body, and as a result, it’s been put on high alert.”
“Right,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“I also think your brain is confused, because it’s never been allowed to rest before,” she says.
Shit, he thinks. This time, it’s not the weird rodent mother-like voice speaking to him. It’s his own. Shit, she’s right.
“How do I fix it?” he asks quickly. Betsy lets out a small sigh.
“Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for complex trauma. I think we can start by going over some relaxation exercises you might find helpful. With more sessions together, I think we can get you sleeping better, which will help immensely.”
“And the rest?” Neil blurts out before he can stop himself. He’s sitting up now, straight-backed against the couch. “How do I get over the rest of it?”
Betsy thinks quietly for a moment before she finally answers. “You are not the first client to come in here and ask me how to fix things, nor will you be the last. The truth is, Neil, humans are not made to be fixed. I am here to help you cope with the things you have been through and make it easier for you to go through life without being so negatively affected by it. But I’m sorry to say that the things you have experienced will probably always be with you.”
He thinks about Andrew, who’s been working with Betsy for years now, but who can still feel phantom hands in places he doesn’t want them. Neil is suddenly awash with emotion. He frowns at it.
“Then what’s the point?” he asks.
“Well, that’s up to you,” she responds. “First and foremost, you should be doing therapy for yourself. But it’s also not a bad idea to have other people, or things, to hold onto as reasons you want to get better - beacons, as I like to think of them, to keep you afloat during the process.” She considers him, then says, “Perhaps your homework for the week, along with continued practice at honesty, can be to think about who or what your beacons are.”
Neil’s immediate thought is his future career. But there’s something far more important hidden behind the Olympic court; Andrew swims to the forefront of his mind again. He’s always there, lingering at the edges, tucked away where nobody except Neil can have him.
“Alright,” Neil says. “I’ll think about it.”
Before the end of July, Neil has three more sessions with Betsy, most of which they spend going over relaxation techniques and discussing his routine around sleep. Against his better judgment, he thinks it might be helping a little. He focuses on getting himself through the nights and being honest with Andrew in passing. He spends the rest of the time ignoring the voice in his brain, reminding him that soon, Betsy will start to pose questions about his life he can’t hope to ever answer aloud.
Most days, the thought occurs to him that he should just quit while he’s ahead. But then he remembers her stupid comment about beacons.
Neither of them would ever admit to it, but Neil has become a master at reading Andrew. It’s undeniable that since Neil started being honest with Andrew day to day, where he could, something in Andrew’s mood has shifted. Happy is not a word he would ever use to describe Andrew, but there is a certain lightness that has settled over the bubble they’ve created for themselves at the house in Columbia.
They spend their days tangled together on the couch, in the bed, mouthing at each other beneath the cold spray of the shower when they’ve overheated sitting outside sharing cigarettes. They watch daytime television and drink whiskey at the barstools while the other cooks dinner. Though there are still nights when Andrew’s walls are back up and his boundaries become much stricter, for the most part, things are relatively relaxed.
Neil keeps thinking about what Betsy said about his body and brain never having been able to rest before. He tries to let them rest, and although the itch to run never really dies out, most days he’s able to quell it with long runs or visits back to the court to practice with Kevin.
None of Betsy’s techniques has stopped the nightmares, but Neil has started to sleep through the night again, most of the time. He brings it up to Andrew late one night, when they’re lying outside in the dark on the damp grass after some unexpected warm rain.
“I’m sleeping a bit better,” Neil says apropos of nothing.
“Yes,” Andrew agrees.
“I still have nightmares,” he adds for his dose of daily honesty. The truths still feel strange rolling off his tongue, but Andrew doesn’t react any differently than usual.
“You might always,” Andrew says to the sky.
Neil rolls over onto his stomach, resting his chin on his palm. “Do you think you’ll always?”
He doesn’t entirely expect Andrew to answer, but after a moment, he gets a curt “yes,” in response.
They’re silent for a few minutes, before Neil plucks up the courage to say, “I’m taking a turn,” in reference to their never-ending game. “Has it ever gotten easier? Do you really think it helps? Therapy?”
It’s now so dark that Neil can barely see Andrew’s outline on the grass beside him, but he can feel the other man debating how to answer the question through the silence.
“There have been,” Andrew starts eventually, “moments. Where I have believed things have been easier. But I am usually left to regret ever allowing myself to believe it.”
The two of them let the truth fall between them and linger in the silence.
Neil has always believed himself to be living on borrowed time. For as long as he could remember, it was run and survive until you’re dead. Though it’s no longer the truth he has to live by, most days he wakes up with a weight on his chest. A reminder that he’s allowed to exist now, but the fear that he will lose it all again within seconds if he’s not careful.
He doesn’t want to say I understand when he doesn’t understand what Andrew has been through, and he never really will. But he feels through the darkness for Andrew’s arm in the grass, and when Andrew taps his hand in acknowledgement, Neil begins to trace his fingers up and down Andrew’s bare forearms, feeling the raised skin beneath his fingers.
“I don’t know if therapy helps,” Andrew says eventually. His voice reveals nothing of how he feels. “But Bee has helped.”
“Do you think she can help me?” Neil asks, thumbing over the scars, knowing Andrew views Betsy in a light that Neil never will.
“I don’t know,” Andrew says. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He pulls his arm from Neil’s touch, and there’s a rustling sound. After a second, Andrew’s face is lit by the flame from his lighter, burning the end of a cigarette. He takes a long drag, then says, “If you don’t want to keep going, you shouldn’t.”
Neil watches Andrew watch the sky by the orange glow of the cigarette. He thinks about the fact that every psychiatrist Andrew ever had gave up on him within hours. He thinks about how Betsy didn’t. He thinks that if she can see beneath Andrew’s scars, she can probably see beneath Neil’s as well.
Betsy said therapy had to be first and foremost for himself. Neil can pretend that’s what he’s doing all he likes; a liar is best at lying to themselves. But the desperation to be whole and functioning is not for himself, but for the man in front of him.
“I want to,” Neil says, and it’s mostly true.
“I’m definitely sleeping better,” Neil drops onto the couch without so much as a hello and informs Betsy during their next session. “And it’s getting easier to talk myself out of the panic, too.”
“Hello, Neil,” she says, ignoring his rudeness. “That’s very good to hear.”
“What do you want to ask me?” he says, picking up the cushion he’s been steadily picking apart over the last month and squeezing it to his chest.
A small crease appears between her eyebrows. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“I mean,” he says impatiently, “what are your burning questions? Get into the stuff you’ve been ignoring. I want to get on with this.”
Her frown turns into a small smile. “I thought I already told you there’s no quick fix to dealing with what you’ve been through.”
“Yeah, I know,” he tells her, frustrated that she’s not understanding him. “But I can tell you’ve been avoiding asking certain questions. So stop holding out on me. Hit me with whatever you’ve got.”
“Ah,” she says, surveying him over the tops of her glasses. “I see. Well, if you would like me to prompt you with some questions, I’m happy to do so.”
He shrugs. “Go on.”
“What are your nightmares about?” she asks, picking up her pen and her notebook.
“Lots of things,” he barrels through his inner voice, screaming don’t tell her! By speaking as fast as he possibly can. “Sometimes they’re memories, like from when I was injured on the run or my mom died, or when I was kidnapped in Baltimore, or when I was tortured in the Nest, and sometimes they turn into new things like my dad coming back to life or terrible things happening to the team or to Andrew, or me doing-,” he pauses to breathe, then pushes on despite the prickling sensation on his arms, “-or me doing terrible things to the people I care about.”
Betsy looks up from her notebook. “Do you find yourself having violent thoughts during the day, as well? Not just when you sleep?”
Neil resumes picking at the cushion. There’s stuffing leaking out of the tiny hole he’s created over the last few weeks. He thinks about the weird thoughts that come and go throughout the days, even when he feels perfectly relaxed. Like how he could pick up the knives he uses to cut Kevin-approved fruit with and slice lines through the marks Lola made on his arms. Or turn around and stab Andrew with it, if he was quick enough.
They’re usually fleeting thoughts, although sometimes they stick around and play out in his head. He finds the ones about hurting himself strange; survival has always been his goal, and hurting himself would be counter-productive.
“Yeah,” he says, as he thinks. “I do.”
“Given the amount of violence you’ve been exposed to in your life, that doesn’t surprise me,” she says. “Do they bother you?”
He swallows. “I guess… some of the ones about hurting others… they frustrate me,” he replies.
“Frustrate you how?”
“They don’t really feel like my thoughts,” Neil says. “They feel like they’ve been put there by someone else.”
“But - and forgive me if I’m wrong - you would have no problem being violent towards anyone who harmed the people you care about?”
“Of course not,” he says, surprised she even has to ask.
“I can see how if fighting back and protecting the people you care about has been the main course of action for most of your life, the thoughts of doing the opposite to those closest to you would be very frustrating,” Betsy says. “And I’m not surprised your violent nightmares elicit responses such as panic attacks. Nightmares are often more detailed and disturbing than day-to-day intrusive thoughts.”
“Quit the therapy talk,” Neil looks up and says somewhat rudely, “I told you I don’t like those words.”
“Yes, you did, and I apologise. I will try to refrain from using terms that make you uncomfortable from now on. If you’re happy to keep answering my questions, I’d like to know why you’re so opposed to those sorts of words.”
“I already told you,” he says, “they make me sound weak.”
Betsy taps her pen against her notebook a couple of times and hums in acknowledgement before she settles on a response. “I don’t agree. But let’s say I did. Let’s say I, or anyone else, or most importantly, you, thought of yourself as weak. What would be so bad about that?”
“Because I’m not,” he says curtly.
“So it’s important to you that people know who you are?”
“No,” Neil says. “I have survived by hiding. I don’t need that to change, apart from with my family.”
“Your family being the Foxes?”
“Yes,” he says stiffly, not liking the direction she’s leading him in.
“And I’m sure, given what they now know of your past, none of them thinks you are weak. And I don’t either.”
“I’m already weakening myself by sitting in this room with you. What don’t you understand about that?”
“You think therapy makes you weak?” She doesn’t sound offended, just curious.
“Do I think letting someone poke around in my brain will make me weaker?” he snorts. “Yeah, a little. I told you, I have survived by lying and hiding my entire life. Being honest meant being killed.”
“But not anymore,” she says. “I’m not saying that it will be easy, but don’t you think it’s time to let that ideology go?”
Neil doesn’t know how to answer that. He sits silently with his frustration. Why did he ever think this would be a good idea?
“I have been nothing my entire life,” he says eventually, in a low voice, “and for the first time, I am something. I don’t know how to let it go.” He meets her eyes again, finally, and he’s surprised to see that she’s smiling.
“I was wondering whether or not we had come to the same conclusion, and it appears we have,” she says. “Neil, you have never been allowed to just be. You have never been allowed to put yourself first or learn anything about yourself. You are finally allowed to do all of those things. You have the support of your team, your partner, and me, if you’ll allow it. Let us help you find yourself.”
Neil is shaking. His head feels askew and wobbly on his shoulders.
“I can see that you struggle to think of yourself as anything other than the boy - the survivor - who went on the run all those years ago. You’ve been trained to believe that letting people in makes you weak. Let me ask you to think about someone else for a moment. Someone you care about.”
“Andrew.” His voice comes out funny when he says it.
“Good. Would you ever consider Andrew weak?”
His eyes fly open. He didn’t even realise they were closed. “Never,” he says guturally.
“But Andrew does therapy. Andrew has let you in to see some of the most vulnerable parts of himself. So what makes you any different from him? What makes you weak, but him strong?”
Try as he might, Neil cannot muster an answer to this question. There is a dull thudding against his skull and a sense of tragic and unusual misery blooming in his chest.
“Let us help you find yourself, Neil,” she repeats softly. “Not any of the other names or identities you’ve gone by. You. Neil Josten.”
“Okay,” he forces out after a moment, squeezing the pillow against his chest. “Okay.”
“Good,” Betsy says, and her voice is warm. “Now, let’s take some deep breaths together.”
Neil doesn’t say a word on the drive back to Columbia. He feels wrung out and exhausted, like he’s just run two full halves of a game. It takes a cold shower and another hour of silence before he can find it in himself to say, “Here,” quietly to Andrew, who is slumped on a beanbag opposite the couch Neil is on, reading.
Andrew drops his book and stands up almost instantly, like he’s been waiting. He settles on the couch next to Neil, who says, “Kiss me. Yes or no?”
Andrew’s lips meet his in response. He kisses Neil like he always does, one hand in Neil’s hair and the other gripping his jaw tightly, like he’s worried Neil is going to disappear. Neil relishes the groundedness of Andrew’s lips on his, licking into his mouth and tasting artificial grape from the lollipop Andrew had been sucking on earlier. Andrew guides Neil’s hands to his hair, giving wordless permission for Neil’s fingers to get tangled in it.
After a few minutes, Andrew pulls away, keeping one hand against Neil’s jaw. They regard each other for a moment; Neil admiring Andrew’s red, raw lips and Andrew searching Neil’s face for answers he won’t ask for aloud.
Neil wants to say: “I’m fine.”
Neil actually says: “I will be alright.”
Andrew moves so that he’s in Neil’s lap, then boxes Neil’s thighs in with his knees. He kisses Neil, then says calmly: “I know.”