Unicorns On Wheels [Petekey]

24. Thursday

2016/03/10 Thursday

Today is Thursday so it's supposed to be a really good day but good days don't usually start with crying and wanting to die and thinking about your boyfriend dying. In fact, in my experience, they don't ever start that way. I also didn't have The Boy in Striped Pajamas with me which means that my entire day was going to suck ass.

Gerard asked me whether I wanted to see Dr Stump and I told him no. I told him that Dr Stump was stupid and therapy was stupid. And today I was going to stay in bed and marinate myself in my hatred for life and everything around me.

My phone went off at one point and I thought about answering it but I didn't, in fact I didn't check my phone until the silence in my bedroom got to be too much. I didn't even reach for my headphones even though I knew they might provide me with more comfort than anything else.

They usually did and even though it was getting hot, I craved the warmth of them over my ears. It's stupid – I know. But I feel kind of like I'm being hugged from all sides. It envelopes me in hope and safety and just all around happiness.

But I decided that, even though it would make me feel better, the best thing I could do was stay in bed and listen to Mindless Self Indulgence and wrap myself in too many blankets to be comfortable. It was an awkward stage of the year thanks to global warming – that time of the year where it was supposed to be chilly but I was dying of heat instead.

I was wrapped in blankets anyway, like I would be if I had a fever. So I sat under a hoodie and 3 blankets wrapped tightly around my body to the extent where I could feel the sweat rolling down my face and dangerously close to my eye – I sat and tried to get rid of an imaginary fever that I couldn't sweat out. I knew that it wouldn't make me feel better but I did it anyway because, let's be honest, I'm a bitch like that.

Anyway... when I put on my Mindless Self Indulgence playlist, I happened to accidently click on the message that I was avoiding. It was from an unknown number and it literally just said Mikey. This is Dr Stump. And I didn't want to respond.

The truth is, that I like Dr Stump. I've only met him once before but I already feel like he's compassionate – I feel like he listens and he understands. And he cares about me more than he cares about the money that we pay him at the end of every month.

I thought about responding, but I didn't. I only put down my phone and rolled over. It was difficult, mind you, without the help of my Useless Logs of Fat while being wrapped up in blankets like a snow ball. I was kind of hungry and I needed to pee but I stayed in the uncomfortably hot nest of sweat and tears.

I just lay there. I lay there until I wasn't hungry anymore and my bladder felt like it was going to burst. And then I rolled over, turned my phone on and opened the message from Dr Stump. What was I supposed to say? What I was supposed to reply after 3 hours of ignoring him?

I stared at the screen for a while, contemplating appropriate responses to this sort of thing. What normal people would say or do and what exactly was the right thing to say. I thought about saying something like sorry I was sleeping. To make sure that I didn't hurt his feelings or get in trouble.

I was going to type something in that sort of line and I spent a long time thinking about it before I suddenly decided that I, honest to god, didn't care. Because therapists were stupid. Especially therapists who are smart and funny and care about boys in wheelchairs. Even boys in wheelchairs who are in love with dying boys.

So I texted him back without hesitating at all. I'm sorry. I was just ignoring you.

Except that, just because I decided that I didn't care, didn't mean that I actually didn't. Because I did care. I cared about Dr Stump and I cared about today's therapy session. And therapists weren't stupid, well, not all of them anyway. And they deserved a lot of respect if they could deal with people like me.