Desire and Despair

Chapter 17

"How are you doing?" Rochelle asked.

Nathan waved her away. "Now's not the time for more of my feelings. I've been over those."

Rochelle sighed. "Nathan. Come on this will help you. We scheduled this forever ago, remember?"

Nathan sighed. "I know. But I'm not in the mood to face reality. I'd rather face yours."

"That's not a long-term solution," Rochelle reminded him. "We've been over this. You have to face your problems."

"Really Rochelle? Do I? How do you propose I fix everything? Do you have a get out of jail free card lying around somewhere? A ticket back to my old life?" Nathan demanded.

"No," she admitted.

"That's what I thought," Nathan replied heatedly. "My problems are beyond fixing. Even you admit it, with all your degrees and big words even you can't fix me. I'm not sure anything can. I toss pennies in fountains and wish on every star but nothing ever changes. Trust me, I've tried it all. I believe in everything these days. I'm really almost an optimist, by sheer necessity. I still answer my spam calls because somehow I always convince myself it's Heather. But in the end all that happens is I run out of pennies and waste my phone privileges talking to strangers trying to scam me. I'm a lost cause and you want me to sit here and remember that?"

"Of course not," she sighed. "I just wanted to know how you were doing."

"I can't even answer that!" he protested. "It's too hard to explain. I feel so many things all at once. I'm trying to somehow simultaneously adjust to this life as I try to escape it, appreciate the good without being blind to what's wrong, live this life to the fullest without becoming complacent in it. My whole life is a contradiction at this point. So when I say I'm good I tried really hard to find something good, and my struggles are still around. A good day doesn't mean I'm magically fixed. And if I say I'm not doing well, that doesn't mean I'm not trying to make the best of everything. Happiness isn't an action or a choice, I don't care what people say. If it was I'd just choose it, just do it. But it doesn't work like that. It's a feeling and it's fleeting and I don't know how to get it back. And you know what love isn't a choice either. You can choose how you love someone, but you can't choose who you love. Believe me, I'd change that too if I could. But I can't so I'm in the strange position of trying to make this life as stable and happy as possible, while simultaneously knowing I'd drop it all in a second for half a chance at a one-way ticket back home."

He paused his rant, out of both breath and complaints for the moment.

"I don't know what to feel anymore," he mused finally. "I can't believe this is my future-indefinitely..." he trailed off again. "I can come to terms with what my life used to be...time always moves on, no matter what it would've come to an end eventually. But I can't let go of what it could be. It's not so much that I miss who I was...just that in this very moment I could be happy instead of explaining to my prison therapist why I'm definitively not."

Rochelle nodded sympathetically. "What could've been is always the hardest thing to get over, because it's unlimited potential, there are no little imperfections or annoyances, because it's all in your head. Really, the best advice I've got to offer is just to keep living. Because if you just tell yourself you have to get through only one more day, make up your mind to survive every morning, eventually you'll find you've gotten through weeks, months, even years."

"You're right," he admitted because she clearly was. What else was there to do? Believe it will get better and keep going, one foot after the other, day after day, with a quick prayer to the sky that things would change even as he walked the same halls he'd paced all year, nothing changed but the shirt on his back. At least he had his gold stars over nothing, his bright, condescending smiles, and the perpetual participation trophies people always felt the need to hand him. Good old Nathan, always around, come rain, or snow, or sickness. People were always awed when he'd go on normally no matter what, but the truth was he'd never wanted to show up, to live this life. A little snow standing in his way didn't fundamentally change anything. Rain or shine, there'd never been a day he'd actually wanted to be here anyway. What was one more obstacle, really? He'd been "hanging in there" so long it was habit, mind over matter til he lost his mind, living the same day over and over with robotic consistency. His emotions weren't founded in reason, his reactions might as well have been set at random, he didn't recognize his words even as they spewed out of his mouth, autopilot taking over, default cruise control on the high-speed, winding roads of a life he'd never learned to navigate, because these weren't the roads he'd mapped out, the easy streets to home and comfort and familiarity, an answer to every question, no guessing at the next turns, perfectly planned out until the end of time. He didn't know where he was going now. He'd stopped redirecting a while ago. One wrong turn hadn't been so bad but now he was too far gone to turn back. So of course he showed up. It was in his programming. He was far from the perfect attendant but at least he had perfect attendance. He had to take a bow to the hollow applause. Three cheers for Nathan Parker and his paper-thin awards. If nothing else he sure could show up.