A Matter of Trust
Kevin just stood there with the stupidest look on his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this nervous. If I wasn’t so angry, I probably would have savored the moment a little more. Instead, I found myself asking again “Why the fuck are you going through my things?”
I glanced over at Brian to see he looked as surprised and angry as I was. I’m glad because for just a brief moment, I thought that maybe they had planned this together. “I’ll distract Nick while you go through his things.” Type of good cop bad cop crap you see on TV all the time.
“I just…I…”
“What?” I walked over and looked at all my stuff on the floor. Reaching down I grabbed a pile of my clothes and threw them on my bed. So help me I wanted to grab his legs and tackle him down to the ground but I refrained from doing it. Instead, I got right up into his face, well kind of, considering I was still way shorter than he was. I am catching up to him height wise but I wasn’t intimidating in the least. I didn’t care, though, I was mad as hell. “Answer me Goddammit!”
Brian took that as a cue to walk over and put himself in-between his cousin and I. “Nick, relax. I’m sure Kevin has an explanation. Right, Kevin? Because now would be a great time to explain.”
Kevin stepped away from me and sat on his bed. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”
“That’s your explanation for going through my stuff? That’s a piss poor excuse!”
“You said you were going exploring in your note.” He actually said that sounding annoyed like how dare I come home before he has time to finish riffling through my belongings. You’ve gotta be kidding me with this guy! I mean what the hell?
“Do you go through my underwear and put it on while I’m not here or something like that?” He rolled his eyes at me when I asked him that. AT ME!
“I was looking for drugs, okay?” This time he shouted. Why the hell does he think he has the right to yell at me?
“Drugs? Are you doing drugs now?” I shouted back at him.
Brian looked at me sympathetically. Okay, I was a little slow, sue me. I was angry. Even Kevin laughed before answering. “No Nick, I’m not doing drugs.” Moving his hands through his hair in frustration, he sat down on his bed and looked up at me, “I thought you might be.”
Now it was my turn to look dumbfounded. “What?”
“I was just checking to see if you had drugs.”
“You still don’t have the right to go through my things!” I was angry and even though he took me by surprise, I wasn’t letting him get off the hook. “Even if I’m on all the drugs on the planet, that wouldn’t give you the right to take them away from me!” I know it was a weak argument, but it was all I could come up with.
“I know, I’m sorry…I just…”
“You just what?” I cut him off, “Thought because you are older than me, it gives you the right to boss me around and do whatever the hell you want?” I growled at him. Yes, I actually growled.
“Okay relax baby tiger. Why don’t you come over here and sit down.” Brian actually smirked at me as he sat down on my bed and motioned for me to do the same. I think my pacing was making him nervous, and possibly the growling too. Maybe he thought I was going to bite his cousin.
I could tell Kevin was trying to control his anger. Maybe if Brian wasn’t in the room he would have screamed at me, not that Frick had any control over Kev’s emotions or anything but I just got the feeling that Brian being there was a good thing, for me anyway.
“Because when your dad isn’t here, I’m in charge of you, so yeah. I feel like it gives me the right.”
“Even my father wouldn’t go through my stuff!” We weren’t yelling at each other but our tones were so staccato that you could here our lips and teeth biting out each word.
“Maybe that’s part of the problem.” He mumbled, just loud enough for me to hear him.
“Excuse me?”
“Nick, we’re just worried about you. You’re acting like an insane person and there has to be a reason.” Brian interjected before our argument took another turn.
“I keep telling you people, I’m tired!”
“Yeah, you do but that’s not good enough. Are you on drugs? Are you taking something because if you are we need to…”
“Jesus! NO Kevin, I’m not taking any fucking drugs, okay?”
“Are you sure?”
“Fucking positive!”
“You can stop with the swearing. It’s not helping your case any.”
“You know, I can call the police and have you arrested for going through my stuff!” I mumbled at him.
“Call the police, go ahead.” He shook his head at me, “OR we can try to have a semi adult conversation about what the hell is going on with you.”
Brian wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Nick, tell us what’s going on. We all know something is up and we want to help.” It was almost as if Brian was acting as Kevin’s translator. Repeating everything his cousin said, but much nicer and calmer.
“By going through my shit?”
He sighed and gave Kevin a nasty look. “No, that was stupid.”
“It was…” Kevin finally admitted. “I’m sorry Nick. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I just didn’t know what else to do. You have my back against a wall.”
I began to calm down when I really noticed the look of concern on both of their faces. “Okay, fine.” I started biting on my bottom lip and pulled my legs onto the bed so I could sit Indian style. “I’ve just been having these weird; I don’t know what you’d call them. I guess anxiety attacks.”
“How so?” Brian asked while Kevin just looked at me.
I shrugged, “At first I just kind of felt uneasy like I was being followed.”
“You aren’t getting any kinds of threats, are you little man?” Kevin asked with concern, ready to call the police right away.
“Nope, nothing like that at all.”
“Because if you are, all you have to do is tell us and we’ll…”
“I know Kevin…I know. No one is threatening me.”
“Okay, well then why were you sleeping under the desk?” He looked confused. I don’t blame him. This whole situation was one huge ball of what the fuck.
“Because I thought someone had broken into the room while I was in the bathroom. I swear I heard someone walking around and I was afraid they were hiding under the bed.”
“I don’t understand…”
I let out another sigh, wishing that I could just take everything I said back. It was so hard trying to explain this to someone. “Every little thing scares me, like on the plane. I thought for sure the guy across from us wanted to hurt me.”
“Why would you think that?” Kevin asked with growing concern in his voice which I didn’t even think was possible.
I shook my head, “I don’t know.”
“Something must have happened…how long has this been going on?”
I wanted to lie about this and I almost did, but we were way beyond lying now. “For about 3 months. It’s starting to get a lot worse.”
“I believe that.” Brian said, “You’ve been acting weird for about that long now. Did you have a panic attack just now outside?”
I nodded at Brian, “It’s like out of nowhere I just feel like I can’t breath and need to get somewhere safe.” I let out another sigh this time trying to fight the tears that were threatening to spill. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Kevin and Brian looked at each other and then I felt Kevin’s hand on my leg, “There’s nothing wrong with you buddy. We’ll figure it out. I’m sure maybe it’s just a combination of things. Being away from home for so long, being so young and being in the spot light. Have you talked to your dad about this?” I have to admit this was a much different reaction from the one I had talked about earlier. Maybe they could really tell how scared I was this time. No laughing or mocking was involved at all. It made me feel dumb for waiting this long to say something.
“No, he would just worry and it’s not like he could do anything about it. He’d probably just demand I come home and then Lou would kick me out of the band.”
“I still think maybe you should mention it to him. It might not hurt to see someone too.”
I knew this was coming. That’s one of the reasons why I had avoided having this conversation sooner. The dreaded ‘your nuts and need to see someone’ conversation. Kevin swore by therapy. After his dad died, his family insisted he go talk to a therapist and to this day, he says without doing that, his life most likely would have taken a different turn and not in a good way. I am not Kevin though.
“I’ll be fine. Like you said, it’s probably a mixture of things and now that we’re home and have some time off, maybe things will settle.”
“There is medicine doctors can prescribe for these kinds of things, Nick. It might make it worth it for you to try to get a prescription.”
I looked at Kevin and had to smile, “didn’t you just yell at me because you thought I was on drugs and now your solution is for me to take drugs. Make up your mind dude.”
“Anti-anxiety meds and crack are two different things.”
“You thought I was a crack head?”
“Well I know you’re already a bonehead so…”
That was a pretty quick and witty comeback, I’ll give him that. Not up to my standards or anything, but still, for Kevin, it was impressive. He knew it too. I could tell by the look on his face. “Do you want me to try to find someone for you to talk to? It’ll be confidential and I promise we won’t even tell AJ, okay?”
I looked at Brian to see what he thought about it, his nod made me do the same, “Okay…fine.”
Kevin stood up, “Good, and Nick…I am sorry for going through your things. I was only…”
“Yeah, I know.” I put the man out of his misery.
Maybe talking to a therapist wouldn’t be so bad, especially if I could score some meds out of the deal, anything to make me stop feeling like this.
If only I would have known…
