Seldom Did I

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"Mr White?" I inwardly groaned, coming face-to-face with Doctor Homer who didn't seem not to take a hint I didn't need "comforting words."

Everything in this speech consisted of everything I knew and literally hated. I wasn't happy being in this room as much as Doctor Homer and my parents were.

He cocked an eyebrow and stared impassively at me. I groaned, conjuring answers that I had "spelt out" to everyone in this office time and time again but it seems no one wants to listen to me.

"You want my answer? Again, I don't need therapy."

The room stilled as always at this given answer but all the same, one person was bound to break the silence: Doctor Homer. He exhaled, adjusted his eyeglasses on his face, leaned in.

"Mr White, I presume these weeks have been hard for you."

I scoffed and looked at the middle aged man who seemed to understand the offense that his words bore. "You presume? Oh, of course, you aren't the one who had his leg chopped off."

"I apologise. You've been going through a hard time and I understand."

"None of you do. If you did, you all won't be breathing down on my neck, expecting a miracle to happen. None of you will ever."

"Mr White, your parents have reported changes in your behaviour lately and that is why I believe therapy would correct it."

"And what will I gain? Nothing! I lost it in that freak accident."

"Doctor," my mum's voice quavered as she pulled herself upright. "We want Gabriel better. Please. What do you suggest?"

"A group therapy. It might help you," he spoke directly to me and I only rolled my eyes at him, "understand that nothing is lost. Circumstances happen. Life happens. What happens is you picking yourself up and challenging life and her games."

"And this is to help me feel any better? I'm going to pretend this talk isn't happening." I reached out for my crutches next to me in an attempt to leave.

"You're bitter," Doctor Homer said and it struck a nerve within me. I swallowed hard. "You're taking this hard on yourself."

Why wouldn't I? Each time I envisioned myself without a second leg, there was so much distortion in the life I had carefully planned out for myself since he had decided to leave with his "friends."

I didn't want the rounds of "I'm sorrys" I had received in abundance since my amputation, or the weird glances that made you feel even more of a freak than you should have, or the "pity eyes" that evoked hatred for what life had done to you. I didn't want any of those things. I don't care of that methodologically planned life. I was done with it and didn't mind for once seeing what he must seen when he decided to walk out of our lives.

The darkness had such a comfort to it and a pulling I hadn't been able to resist. It understood me and I would play under that control and power exacted on me.

As much as I loved it, I hated it as well because when I was to myself, left in my misery. I self-loathed constantly in the hiding of my room.

"Could you give us a moment?" I announced, and Doctor Homer nodded, and excused himself out of the office, leaving myself and parents alone.

They stared at me, expecting me to say something, and I was but I didn't have the right words to explain my reached decision. I gazed upon my mum to find her lips pressed into a thin line, forehead creases with worry but in all, her eyes spoke something different: hope. It quavered with every second but she held it on. I wished I were her, trying to believe the dark waves would pass over but no one knew what else awaited us.

"I wish I could be understood. Unfortunately, I get misunderstood," I commenced and with a squeeze of my hand from my mum, I went on. "My scholarship, I knew was gone the moment what happened happened. I'm scared of being looked down like nothing. A freak. I haven't come to terms with the fact that I'm missing a piece of my limbs. I think it's there but each time I try to move it, I realise it is gone.

"I face a reality that I haven't come to terms with. It is past 21 days. They said I was going to adjust within the next 3 weeks but I haven't."

The first time, I had voiced out. I had told them what was going on. They could understand because they showed they did. My mother smiled and my father threw a hand over my shoulder.

"I know I can do it. I'm not going to give up before I even start," I whispered, maybe to them or to myself. Either but we registered the message.

"You can never be him," my dad consoled. "You aren't him. You have shown you aren't him."

I smiled up at him and gave my mum a hug and next to her ear, I said, "I'm doing it. But if it doesn't work—"

"We'll pull you out of the session. We just want you to alright. You know we love you."

"I do."

"I'll go get Doctor Homer to start off with the drafting process," my dad said, leaving myself and mother in the room, taking comfort in our silence. Staring at her and I got to notice the dark under her eyes and the tiredness each orb held.

"Your father and I are proud of you Gabriel."

I nodded, drawing my hand from my mother's the moment Doctor Homer and my dad stepped back in the office. Doctor Homer's blank face lit up as he pulled papers from different corners of the room.

Though I couldn't see past that night. The pains. The lights. The lost limb that felt like it was attached to my body; the sensation, the doctors that had attended to me called Phantom Limb Syndrome.

How I was going to move past it, I hadn't figured out but what I knew was that I was a fighter, desperately wanting to run away from the shadows of depression and the voices, and the pictures, and the scenarios that made me feel worse about myself.

I didn't want to keep running. Hiding from the monster that never stopped at anything to claim my mind. I wanted to face it and show it that little hope I had seen in my mum's eyes and the pride I heard in my dad's voice.

I was doing this for me.