Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [129]
Milo shrugged. Though she was right, a lifetime of assuming responsibility, accepting blame, and feeling shame was difficult to relinquish.
“Look, Milo. I’m the last person in the world who is going to pass judgment on you or tell you how to live. But you realize that this thing you have could probably be treated. Right? You don’t have to live with it if you don’t want to. These demands that you have, they can probably be managed with some counseling and maybe some medication.”
Milo had considered the possibility of treatment many times, especially as he had gotten older, and he knew that there was therapy and even medication for people with certain mental disorders. But he did not believe that his condition was like any other. He had seen movies and read about people with obsessive-compulsive disorder: the need to count things or clean things or check the stove fifty times to make sure that it had been turned off. But his condition was something more than simply having to obsessively count the letters in people’s names (his had nine, unless you counted his middle name; then it rose to sixteen) or storing the iron in the trunk of a car in order to ensure that it was turned off (which Milo had admittedly done once or twice before). In his mind, his condition was more insidious and more sophisticated than simple OCD. It involved the interplay between Milo’s arbitrary, incongruous demands and his strategic, creative problem solving, going beyond simple compulsive need and obsessive fulfillment. Milo’s circumstances demanded intelligence, ingenuity, and flexibility. He doubted that any doctor would be equipped to deal with this rarified condition, and his inability to share his secret with anyone, including a doctor, because of the potential embarrassment that it might bring had always prevented him from finding out.
But more important, Milo knew in his heart that there was no way to subdue, cure, quarantine, or remove this pervasive part of him. His condition had become an integral component of his very existence, insinuating its way into every muscle and tissue and organ of his body. It was as vital and as omnipresent as blood cells or bone marrow. Milo could imagine Dr. McCoy positioned over his body in sick bay, warning Captain Kirk, “Removing the demands might kill him, Jim.”
“Look, Milo, I’m not saying that you need to see a doctor or change one damn thing about yourself. You’re sitting next to a girl who has refused to confront her own fears for more than twenty years. My therapist says that I have post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s why I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for literally my entire life. I go to bed late and wake up early just to avoid being in bed any longer than necessary. I sleep with the lights on and the bedroom door locked. I can’t remember a night when I didn’t wake up from the same goddamn nightmare with my sheets soaked with sweat. It’s why I couldn’t go to my mother’s funeral and why I start to shake just thinking about how close we are to Connecticut already. My therapist tells me that I need to desensitize myself to all the stuff that happened to me when I was a kid. I have to talk about it and write about it and think about it until it isn’t so … I dunno. Awful, I guess. But I can’t. Twenty years later and I can’t, and even if I could, I think she’s nuts to suggest that it could ever go away. That it could ever stop being awful. My mom is dead and my dad is in prison and still I’m stuck in a corner like a frightened mouse. So I’m the last person on earth who’s going to tell you to go see a doctor and get yourself fixed. I just want you to know that you can, if you want to.”
Milo was silent for a moment, thinking first about all that Emma had shared about herself, and then standing in awe of her acceptance of his insanity. What could you say to a person who had heard your deepest, darkest secret and declared you to be fine just the way you were?
“Okay, then” was all that he could manage.
“So we start with the tires?”
“Sounds good.