Prologue:
Strange things happen all the time. Strange things happen when you’re sober, and strange things happen when you’re drunk. The only difference between the latter two is that alcohol leads you to believe that what you thought you had seen weren’t in fact real.
This is precisely the battle I have been waging for many years after the fact. I like to believe that maybe I was unconsciously drunk the whole time that this all went down. Hah, I should have such luck! My mother told me, using every big word she could immediately summon, that that scenario would be highly unlikely – near on impossible.
‘Isaac, you need to start accepting what happened and what you went through, rather than perpetuate your denial with impossible scenarios.’
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that all before. You know the usual shit they tell you: ‘Isaac, you need to talk about your problems.’ ‘Isaac, are you okay after what happened?’
And when you tell them the answer, they try and fob it off by saying that time will heal the scars. Then right before your eyes, they find a speck of dust on the coffee table highly interesting. I know that much is not true. Time does not heal the scars you own; it just gives new, fresh scars time to overshadow the old ones.
No one wants to really know how a certain situation or scenario affected you, apart from those gossips who relish all the dirty details. I’m talking about the ones that take too long looking at something in a shop, just so they can hear what so and so said about this or that.
On the other side of the coin, there are the people you actually want to talk to about this stuff. As soon as you loosely grasp the topic and start to feel comfortable, they pull the rug out from under you, turn the tables and whip out, ‘It’s only been a month, Isaac. Give the therapy a chance to work.’
Mate, I don’t need therapy. I just need someone to listen to me, and help me to realise that what Axton Thatcher and I experienced wasn’t fake or a fucking Halloween joke, that it was 100% real and that it actually happened.
Axton and I have talked in depth about what we went through only once. That was enough for the both of us. Friends and family told us that it would help the healing process if we sat down and talked about what happened a month ago. We laughed at their ignorance. They weren’t there. Axton and I both know what happened because we were both there. We both experienced it. We both remember stuff that we will never forget. So what gives the people that weren’t there, the right to offer up advice?
Sorry, I need to keep control of my anger. I will tell you more in due time.
So, to answer the question: No, going over the past didn’t help Axton and me. It only brought the damage in us back to the surface; raw and real.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for everyone that has tried to help me; the psychologists, the police, and the various others. But just for once, I would like someone in my family or a close friend to ask me to tell them everything. How masculine is that?! But seriously, all joking aside, that’s all I want. If one of my mates would say, ‘Hey Isaac, let’s grab a beer after work and have a yarn?’ That would honestly be awesome.
So, due to the fact that none of my family members volunteered for the job, and my friends are all either too busy or too scared, I have decided to write it all down from start to finish.
Buckle in, because this story is so insane and unreal that most people think that Axton and I made it up, but is it so unreal that you just have to believe it?
