April 24th, 2017

Kinsky, California, USA

Days of Heaven

Outside the apartment complex in which the Ayoubs lived was a small walking path covered in grass and trees. It was suburban – nothing like the real hiking paths just outside of town – but it was close. Those past couple of days Sadja and Magyar had gotten into the habit of taking a walk together in the mornings, drinking their coffee as they did so.

“So… how does it feel?” Magyar asked. “Finally about to graduate high school, having the whole world in front of you?”

“Scary, mostly,” Sadja replied, kicking a rock away from her feet. “But I’m also excited not to be living with mama anymore. Not that I don’t like her, it’s just… it’s a lot. And I think I need a break.”

Magyar laughed. “Oh, I know what you mean. I was where you are now not that long ago, remember…” She looked up to the sky, her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. “I remember being scared, too. In the moment of high school you desperately wish you could be free, then you finally get it and start worrying it might be too much.”

“Yeah… it’s something like that.”

“I remember, too, I was really insecure in high school. I was the only Muslim girl in a school of whites. Plus, I had a lot of my own quirks. I played tuba, you remember?”

Sadja let out a squeak. “Oh God, I forgot all about that!”

“Yup. I played tuba, and didn’t talk that much. Most people in the hallways just referred to me as the ‘brown marching band chick’. Not Mag, not Magyar. Just that. I remember it drove me nuts. I wanted to make a good name for myself but I also didn’t want to stand out. I started eating a lot, getting overweight – not that much but, ya know, enough to look at the scale and get depressed. I didn’t start working out until… geez, maybe that spring of senior year? But I was on and off it a lot.”

Sadja looked surprised. Her voice lowered. “I never knew any of this…”

“Well, it’s not like you asked. And I guess I didn’t tell, either. Everybody’s going through something – but if you work at it, you’ll figure it out in the end.”

Sadja suddenly stopped on the path in front of them. She turned towards her older sister.

“Hey, Mag?” she began. “I’m sorry I treated you kind of shitty this past year.”

Magyar knew what she was talking about. She smiled. “I didn’t think you were shitty, akhti. I was mostly just worried something was wrong. That I was doing something bad.”

Sadja shook her head. “Nah, it’s just like what you said. Everybody’s going through something.”

“Well… if you need any help, let me know.”

“Wanna do something today?” Sadja’s face had brightened up.

Magyar crossed her arms. “Sure… like what?”

“I was thinking we go to the gym… then afterwards we blow it all by going to Kentucky Cream and getting a banana split.”

The older sister let out a hearty laugh. “Sure, sounds like a date!”

The two kept going down the path until they rounded the corner back to the sidewalk and towards their parent’s apartment unit.

…

Kat was sitting in a sterile lobby waiting room. On her right hand she picked at her nails with her thumb, a bad habit she got into as a child for when she got nervous. She was the only one there outside of a front desk attendant.

“Katherine?” A voice called out, from a door suddenly open. Kat looked up, gave a smile, and followed the man who had called her name.

He was a tall and well-kept Indian man who wore a suit vest – a look that was perhaps a bit tacky, but also served to lower Kat’s nervousness a bit. He led her to a room down the hall, which had two different chairs facing each other – one more rigid and formal, the other comfortable and leaned back. A small coffee table sat in the center. It was just like the movies she’d seen.

“So, Katherine… is that what you prefer? Or do you go by Katie?” The man asked, motioning her to sit at the more relaxed chair.

“Uhh… Kat, actually.” She sat down, at first leaning back to the support, but felt it looked as though she was lying down, and out of self consciousness sat back up so she could face the therapist.

“Kat. I like it.” There was a small stand next to the man’s chair with a legal pad and pen, which he picked up. “My name’s Dr. Gupta, but you can just call me Dr. G.”

“Dr. G. Got it.” Kat made the mental note that the man had no accent, but then immediately after wondered to herself why it mattered anyway.

“So… I heard you’re a referral from another one of my patients, right?”

“Yeah, Rose. She’s a friend of mine at school.”

The therapist smiled. “Rose is great. Very energetic, huh?”

Kat smiled back. “Yeah. A lot of things to say.”

“She’s very strict to her convictions. She has a code and she always follows it. It’s what I like about her.”

“Yeah.” Kat felt less talkative than usual.

The therapist scribbled on the paper. “So, is there something in particular you want to start with?”

“Um… yeah. I think so.”

“And what’s that?”

“I want to talk… I think I want to talk about Cole.”

The man’s expression lowered. He knew about this from Rose’s sessions, but kept it close to his chest. “Tell me about Cole, then.”

Kat looked down at her hands so she wouldn’t feel the anxiety of looking someone in the eyes. She was picking her nails again. “Cole is… Cole was, my best friend. Along with Luke. He, uh… died. A few months ago. It was a suicide.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, it just… it hit us all pretty bad. Up until the night he died I thought we were all gonna grow old together. I was gonna be at his wedding, he was going to be at mine… we were gonna all live in the same neighborhood, our kids would hang out… same way we hung out when we were kids. And then one day, all that dreaming… it all goes away.”

“Did the fact it was a suicide particularly hurt?”

Kat hesitated. She was trying to stop herself from crying. “Yes. I think.”

“And why do you think so?”

“Because it was something I could’ve stopped.”

“Could’ve stopped… unlike a car accident or an illness. Do you mean like that?”

“Yeah… y-yeah, but I… I-I don’t know, what…”

“It’s okay to cry. There’s tissues on the coffee table. Just pretend I’m not here.”

Without looking up at the man Kat reached forward and grabbed a wad of tissues from the box. Her tears were already beginning to fall into her lap. She wiped them off and worried she’d make a mess.

“I don’t know what I could’ve done. Still. But I feel like I could’ve done something,” Kat continued.

“Well let me tell you something, Kat,” the therapist repositioned himself in his chair. “It’s very common for the loved ones of those who have committed suicide to believe they could’ve persuaded them to not do it. But you know what? It’s not true. Because you didn’t know they were going through so much pain, and even if you did you might not have had the right words to get them out of it. None of it was your fault.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just…”

“Hindsight.”

“Hindsight, yeah.”

Kat always replied with ‘Yeah’ when she was nervous. When she didn’t want to talk. She usually did it to her father. But this was the first time she felt this way in a while.

“You mentioned a different boy… a Luke. You want to talk about him?”

“Yes. My boyfriend.”

“Ah. So did you know him about the same amount of time you knew Cole?”

“Yes. The same amount, really. They were already friends before I met them.”

“Oh. So he must be affected by his death too, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. It… hurt both of us. Really bad.”

The man gave a solemn nod. “It is always hard. But it’s good to have a support network with him. And your other friends, too.”

Kat didn’t say anything. She was thinking about the elephant in the room. But she didn’t feel comfortable talking about it now. To tell the truth, she didn’t feel comfortable talking about it at all.

“Has Luke been your boyfriend for a long time?”

“Oh… no, actually. Just this year.”

This seemed to interest the therapist. “How long have you known him?”

Kat let out a small smile. She knew where this was going. “Since we were kids. First grade.”

“Took you a long time, huh?”

Kat laughed. “Took me a long time to admit it, I guess.”

“Who made the first move?”

“Lukas. By a long shot. And a couple of years of Cole trying to get us together, too.”

“Sorry – does he go by Luke, or Lukas?”

Kat just noticed the difference. “Oh, sorry. Lukas. I just call him Luke, sometimes.”

“Right, Lukas. Understood.” The man wrote in his notes. “Kat, let me ask you something… did it ever feel weird having two male best friends?”

The question caught Kat off guard. She stopped thinking about the elephant for now. “Not really. Growing up I did get bullie- well, I wouldn’t say that. I got teased for it. But it never felt like that big of a deal.”

“You got teased? Why?”

“Oh, you know… the whole stereotype of the girl who ‘only hangs with boys because they can’t handle drama’, the sausage queen, you know. Which was silly, because I’ve always had a lot of girl friends, too. I just had… Lukas and Cole come at the right time, I guess.”

“Has your relationship with Lukas and Cole made it hard for you to meet other boys?”

Kat hesitated. She thought back to an insecurity she had almost forgotten about, one that plagued her for most of her formative years.

“Well… I wouldn’t blame it on them, but…”

There was a break of silence. The therapist didn’t say anything, just waited patiently.

“I think…” Kat began, trying to think about addressing the question in a different way. “I think growing up with male friends gives you the wrong idea of what guys are like. It’s almost like the opposite of thinking all dudes are evil, to the point where you never want to hang out with any of them. I had two really good guy friends, and thought they were all like that. And I learned the hard way… well, Lukas and Cole were just special. Most of them are bad.”

“Most of them?”

“Some of them, sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t apologize. I want to know what you mean – what made you say most men are bad?”

Kat stopped again. She started thinking about that elephant. She gripped the bottom of the chair tightly.

“It’s never a straightforward thing with them. They try and make you feel like… I don’t know, they want to be your friend, they want to protect you, and then you find out all they wanted was sex. And if they don’t want sex with you, it’s something else. Sex with your best friend, maybe. Or… some of them have other secrets. I don’t know. There was a period in my life where I just felt… so betrayed, all the time. Maybe it was because I was naive. Maybe I’m still naive.”

Kat began to sniffle again. She took her wad of tissues, which she had set beside her, and blew her nose with them. The therapist motioned towards a trash bin next to her. She threw them away.

“Let me ask you… outside of Cole, and Lukas, is there any other boy you’ve felt comfortable with? Perhaps not a love interest, but just someone… someone you felt comfortable sharing ideas, beliefs, emotions… and knew they never wanted anything in return other than to listen to you?”

Kat thought for a moment. A name crossed her mind. She smiled.

“Funnily enough… probably Rodrigo.”

“Rodrigo?”

“Yeah. Another guy in our friend group, outside of those two and Rose.”

“And why Rodrigo?”

Kat took a deep breath, and thought about it. She almost said it was because he was gay, but she knew it wasn’t like that. There was something deeper to him… something genuine. But she couldn’t put her words on the feeling.