August 10th.
It had been almost three weeks since Ian was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Although it had not been his choice of admission, and even though his complete lack of collaboration in the early days, now things were going well.
The company was not bad, he had formed a good relationship with his roommate, and his brothers came to see him every day.
His brothers and Mickey.
Mickey. It was only thanks to him that he had decided to stay in the clinic. Had asked him.
With tears in his eyes, he took his face in his hands and said to him, "Please, stay here."
And he did. Not because he considered that to be the right choice for himself, but because he had trusted Mickey, as he had done the rest.
The basic problem of his illness was that Ian had had a single instance in his entire life, and that example was his mother, Monica Gallagher.
The woman who had abandoned his family, who had come back a few times, she had cut her wrists in the kitchen during the Thanksgiving holiday and, finally, had escaped from the psychiatric hospital where she was hospitalized (the same hospital where he was now) with his roommate, who was accused of murder.
This was the main reason why Ian did not accept to be bipolar.
In his family, as a result of the various episodes, Monica was treated almost exclusively as a case study and Ian was afraid that he might be the new case study of Gallagher's house.
He saw this in Lip and Fiona. Lip, the older brother who had been his best friend for a while, maybe too long time. And Fiona, the sister who had taken the responsibility to act as his mother and, at the first encounter, had proved perhaps too superficial.
Probably the fact that they had already been in a situation with a person suffering from bipolar disorder had caused to sin of presumption to think they can handle the situation as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Mickey, however, was different. Mickey did not see Ian as a case study.
Mickey was concerned, Ian knew it. He had become an open book to him.
He had become more gentle in manner, gestures, words. Words that chose with much more care than he had ever done, almost as if afraid of being able to hurt Ian in some way.
Ian was grateful, not because Mickey would never be able to hurt him, or at least not anymore, but because he appreciated these small gestures that made him understand what had become important to each other.
And today, August 10th, Ian had decided that this was the day he would not be in the clinic.
August 10 was Mickey's birthday. Not that he had ever told him, but Ian had discovered it during an afternoon at home Milkovich, while he was playing with the playstation with Mandy. The identity card was there, leaning on the table, in the midst of papers, ashtrays and beer cans.
He had picked it up, he hadn't observed carefully as he wanted to do. He just threw a quick glance, the time to read the date of birth.
