Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight Read Free

drug available, thinking
about that hug and especially the way his hands and lips had felt
on my face was completely irresistible. It would start before I
could stop myself, taking me by surprise and debilitating me,
stringing out into various memories or fantasies, each with their
specific appeal. Then just like with an addictive substance,
following my high was a hideous torturous crash. For one thing it
reminded of the funeral, and my holes. But then I also would have
to face the facts about the past and the future. The truth was that
Gray had never been mine and he never would be. The truth about the
present was the worst of all. He wasn’t with me now and neither was
my grandpa.
    Sometimes I would get mad. Why did he do
that to me? Did he really come all the way over from school in
England to hug me?
    Fantasy Answer: Our time together in Iceland
had bonded us in an eternal way.
    Real Answer: His dad made him come to the
funeral and he was sorry for me because my grandpa died—nothing
more.
    Then I would crash…again.
     

Chapter 3 –
Recovery

    The mental self-destruction lasted longer
than it should have. It felt like an eternity. Maybe it was the
dual nature of the torment, making it seem to last twice as long,
or just the absence of people I dearly loved making time drag. My
mind was trying to deal with a fresh wound (losing my beloved
Grandpa) and an old wound opening back up on me (a strongly
entrenched crush I thought I’d finally beaten). Which was more
painful? It was hard to say. But the combination was greater than
the sum of the parts, and the sadness stabbed at me from different
directions. I was miserable all the time and I couldn’t escape,
though I certainly tried.
    My coping strategy was all about defense and
evasion. Strange things like a commercial would spark a memory and
the sadness would crest over me like a wave. Sometimes I’d
literally get wet from it…breaking out in a cold sweat or, most
usually, getting soaked from warm involuntary tears. I felt totally
out of control and very embarrassed with myself. So I began to
retreat. I spent a lot of ‘quality’ time in my room, quiet and
alone. Being around my folks meant the presence of TV, or movies or
music and I just couldn’t handle the effects.
    Over time I realized that I had myself boxed
into an imaginary padded cell. And though it was boring and lonely
and I felt trapped by it, my painful reflections had no such
restrictions and still managed to come and go as they pleased,
totally unhindered by the perimeter of protection I’d tried to
construct.
    Mom and Hoyt had mercifully given me lots of
space in the beginning. They didn’t try to pull me out or push me
into anything I didn’t want to do. Though I felt free to privately
wallow in my own sadness, I tried to be discrete about it around
them. I worked very hard not to be moody or unpleasant. But there
was no sense in faking happiness. It’s like faking big muscles when
you’re weak and thin. Trying to be myself in front of them was the
hardest thing I had ever done. For once I was glad that I was shy,
it meant I didn’t have to try quite so hard to be outgoing or
bubbly—things I had never been before. Still, I knew I wasn’t doing
it right, pretending to be normal for them, that is.
    It was when Mom started hinting around that
grief counseling might be a good idea for me that my attempts at a
more convincing recovery began in earnest. In the deck of negative
emotions, fear will always be the high card, for me, at least. In
this case it was fear of the very real threat of having to discuss
my ‘feelings’ with a therapist. I was suffering greatly but I still
couldn’t imagine a more acute form of torture!
    Just thinking about that possibility was
enough to affect the most immediate and miraculous emotional
recovery in history...outwardly. Though, the inward recovery was
not too far behind. That began in earnest when I initiated my own
therapy sessions with myself. I told