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Part 1
It was once upon a morning in November or December. The first class was standing with their teacher in the pouring rain in front of the school, waiting for the bus. It was to be the first school trip for the little ABC shooters. Umbrellas were spread everywhere, and the few who did not find a place under them just put on their caps. Only a small boy stood unprotected in the rain. Slowly, his hair got wet. His mother had given him a woolly hat, but it was stowed somewhere deep down in the backpack he was carrying on his back. Well, hopefully the bus would be here soon.
‘Don't you have a hat? You're getting all wet,’ he suddenly heard a voice behind him. It was the voice of his teacher.
‘Yes, over there,’ the little boy replied, pointing with his index finger over his shoulder towards his rucksack.
He had actually expected his teacher to open the buckles of the rucksack, but she seemed to have misunderstood something, because suddenly he felt her hand close behind his neck.
‘Stop! No! Stop!’ he wanted to scream, but it was already too late. The teacher already had the thin hood in her hand, which was sewn into the inside of his winter jacket, and pulled it out. Hey, he didn't want to put that on! His friends didn't have any weird hoods either! Unfortunately, he could already feel the teacher pulling the thin piece of fabric over his head. Somehow the whole situation made him feel terribly uncomfortable. He would have liked to have sunk into the ground. Where was that stupid bus?
It seemed to take an eternity for the little boy before the big vehicle finally turned the corner and stopped in front of the group. After the driver had opened the door, the boy was one of the first to push his way onto the bus. He took off his hood with relief as he climbed the first step. Now he felt better. Well, at least until later during the journey, when one of his classmates threw up on the bus two rows of seats behind him. Man, that was disgusting! But that has absolutely nothing to do with the following story.
Chapter 1 – The Arrival
We had already been on the road for about an hour and had covered about 100 kilometres when my father pointed to a sign on the left-hand side of the road through the windscreen and informed me that we had now reached our destination. I had been sitting huddled up on the passenger seat the whole time and now sank even deeper into the soft, fine leather. My father indicated and brought his big BMW to a halt to let the oncoming traffic pass. I looked past his head through the left-hand side window. Some rows of trees lined the roadside. The white building looming in the distance behind them was only dimly visible from the road through the dense planting, although the deciduous trees were bare at this time of year. Once the cars in the opposite lane had finally passed us, my father turned into the cobbled driveway and after a few metres we reached a generously laid out car park. Between the individual rows of parking spaces, there was a profusion of trees and bushes, all of which were now ugly brown in winter. It was only after we had passed some of the trees and approached the building that I was able to get a closer look at the expansive four-storey structure. A three-storey side wing bent at a slight angle from the main building. The balconies in front of the windows indicated that these were probably mainly patient rooms.
‘Psychosomatic Clinic Bad Neuheim’ was written on the sign by the roadside. So here I was. During the journey, I had repeatedly asked myself what had happened to me that I now needed to be admitted to this clinic. It was the most depressing Tuesday of my life. I felt like crying, and if my mother had come with me, I might have thrown my arms around her and, despite my age of 19, sobbed uncontrollably. So I was glad that I had convinced her to stay at home. My father would have to go back soon anyway, because an important business appointment had come up at the last minute. I wasn't supposed to be at the clinic until 2:00 p.m., but a lunch with an important client forced my father to drop me off at ten in the morning. His job as the owner of a renowned advertising agency often made it difficult for him to reconcile work and family life. I had rarely held that against him, as he was otherwise a very kind and understanding person and had been incredibly helpful to me, especially since the beginning of my problems. So today, too, I accepted without complaint having to leave my familiar surroundings four hours earlier than planned. I would be here for a few weeks anyway, so a few hours more or less didn't matter.
My father steered his car into an empty parking bay near the clinic's main entrance and turned off the engine. He looked encouragingly over at me and patted me on the shoulder.
‘You'll see, it'll probably be quite nice here,’ he said.
‘That's easy for you to say, after all, you don't have to stay here.’
We unbuckled our seat belts and got out of the car slowly. The cold January air immediately penetrated my thin shirt and made me shiver. There were still some patches of snow in places. I quickly opened the rear door and retrieved my thick black down jacket from the back seat, while my father reached for his overcoat from the other side. As I slipped into my jacket, I spotted two small trolleys under the roof in front of the large glass double swinging doors of the main entrance, which were probably intended for transporting luggage to the rooms.
‘There are trolleys for luggage,’ I said. ’I'll go get one.’
I ran the ten metres over to the entrance and grabbed one of the trolleys. I took the opportunity to take a first look through the large glass windows of the entrance hall. On the right-hand side, behind the large glass door, was a kind of reception, similar to a hotel. Opposite, I saw several seating areas and tables with neatly stacked magazines. A few mainly older gentlemen were sitting at one of the tables, facing each other and appearing to be engaged in a lively conversation. At nineteen years old, I immediately felt a bit out of place here and fervently hoped that there were others my age here as well.
When I returned to the car with the trolley, my father had already opened the boot and taken out two large suitcases. I hoped I had packed enough clothes for the next few weeks. I heaved the suitcases onto the luggage cart. My father added a few more bags and sacks.
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ he asked after he had slammed the boot shut again.
‘Oh no, never mind,’ I replied. ’You'd better make sure you're not late for your appointment.’
He smiled encouragingly again and held out his hand. As we shook hands, I had trouble holding back the tears. He seemed to notice this and took me in his arms. We stood there for half a minute, hugging each other. A few tears ran down the corners of my eyes, but at least I was able to avoid sobbing. When he let me go again and saw the tears running down my cheeks, he smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder in a buddy-like way.
‘You'll be fine here, David. It's not that bad.’
I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand and smiled back in agony.
‘I know,’ I replied. ’It's just a shitty situation at the beginning.’
He squeezed my hand again and then got back in his car, saying, ‘Take care, David.’ As he steered the car out of the parking bay, he waved at me again with a smile. I waved back and watched as his car slowly disappeared behind the trees and bushes and the sound of the engine grew fainter.
When the vehicle had finally disappeared completely from my field of vision, I took a deep breath, grabbed the luggage trolley and pushed it slowly in front of me towards the entrance. The door swung open automatically when I had approached it to within a few metres. A second swinging door a few metres behind the first prevented the cold winter air from entering the large entrance hall. This door also opened automatically, allowing me to pass with my luggage without difficulty. I stopped in front of the reception desk. A young lady with black hair and glasses, who had been sitting at a table a few metres behind the desk in front of a screen, looked up and came towards me, smiling warmly.
‘Good morning, you're here early,‘ she greeted me.
I returned her greeting and responded to her comment with a helpless shrug.
‘What's your name?’ she asked politely.
‘David Kranitz,’ I replied.
She scanned a list and quickly spotted my name.
‘Ah yes, Mr Kranitz. I'm glad you're here. Then let me first of all give you a warm welcome here at the clinic in Bad Neuheim and wish you a pleasant stay.’
‘Hmm, yes, thank you,’ I murmured back.
She handed me a key.
‘This is your room key. You have room 213, which is on the second floor. When you come out of the lift, turn right, it's quite far back in the side wing.’
‘Okay, I'll find it,’ I replied.
‘The patient who shares the room with you has not arrived yet. So you can unpack in peace for now.’
She then explained the rest of the daily routine to me and gave me a note with the relevant times. The first meeting of my therapy group was at 3 p.m., followed two hours later by a welcome address from the head physician. The dining room was open for dinner from 6 p.m. I could have had lunch as well, but was happy to do without. My appetite had been thoroughly lost for the time being.
I grabbed my luggage and pushed it to the lift. For some time now, lifts had also made me nervous. My anxiety and panic attacks had nothing to do with lifts or other confined spaces, but I now knew that this was the case for many other anxiety patients. In the last few months, I had dealt intensively with anxiety disorders and read a few books on the subject. Many situations that triggered panic attacks in other people were therefore very familiar to me and now reminded me of my own problems every time.
I pressed the lift button and heard the lift descend. After a few moments, the door opened and I pushed my trolley in. A petite elderly lady had meanwhile stepped next to me and entered the lift behind me.
‘So you're one of the newcomers,‘ she said when I pressed the button for the second floor. I guessed you were in your late 60s or early 70s.
‘Yes,’ I replied curtly.
‘You'll love it here once you've settled in,’ she continued.
‘Well, I'm not so sure about that yet,’ I replied shyly.
She laughed and said, ’Oh, when I first arrived here, I felt the same way.’
We had now arrived on the second floor and the lift doors opened.
‘I have to go up one more floor,’ said the woman, stepping aside so that I could pull my trolley past her out of the lift. We gave each other a brief nod as the door closed again.
I took another deep breath and set my luggage in motion again. The wheels of the small suitcase transporter immediately emitted a sickening squeak.
There was a larger anteroom in front of the lift. Voices could be heard behind one of the few doors on the opposite wall. Apparently a group session was taking place here. The anteroom led into a narrow corridor that seemed to go on forever. It made a slight bend at the transition to the side wing. There was also a niche with a seating area here, which was, however, empty at the moment. Several windows offered a view of the area behind the clinic. I paused briefly and looked out. On the left side there was a forest area, on the right side there was a small, frozen lake. A few hundred metres behind it, the first houses of Bad Neuheim could be seen. The clinic was located just outside the small spa town. A few people were walking around on the spacious area in front of the clinic, probably patients. Most of them were wrapped up in winter coats, scarves and hats. After looking out for a while, I heard a voice behind me: ‘Hi, are you one of the new ones too?’
I turned around with a start. In front of me stood a young woman, well, more of a girl really. It was easy to see why she was here. She was almost all skin and bones. I had never seen an anorexic in the flesh before. At first, I was speechless at the sight of her.
‘Hello! Yes, I just arrived,‘ I replied after a conspicuously long pause.
She gave me her hand.
‘I'm Nadine,’ she said.
‘I'm David.’
‘Look at your note to see if we're in the same group,’ she suggested. “I'm in group 2C.’
I rummaged in the inside pocket of my down jacket for the note I had received at the front desk.
‘Yes, I'm also in 2C,” I replied after glancing at the sheet.
‘Hey, that's great. Finally a male being in a group with me.’
‘Have you been through something like this before?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘Yes, I think this is the fourth time I've been to a clinic like this. I've been here for an hour already. This way I get to know everyone as soon as they arrive. Isn't that great?’
I didn't know what to say, and smiled back sheepishly. For Nadine, staying in this clinic seemed almost like everyday life, but for me it was completely new and somehow frightening. I felt even more insecure now than I did before I met her.
‘This is your first time in a psycho-clinic, isn't it?’ she asked.
I just nodded. She grinned at me.
‘Don't worry, it's quite fun here,‘ she said cheerfully.
I still didn't know what to say.
‘Well, I'm going to go unpack first,’ I finally managed to say, reaching for the luggage cart.
‘Well, see you later,’ she called after me and continued on her way towards the lift, while I pushed my luggage in the opposite direction down the corridor.
My room was on the left and was the penultimate one in the corridor. I unlocked the door and looked inside. The room looked quite cosy and resembled a hotel room more than a hospital room. Well, this was a health clinic after all. The floor was covered with a plain grey carpet and the walls were painted white. Behind a door on the right was the white tiled shower room with a sink and toilet. In the room, one bed was positioned against the wall facing the shower, the other was placed at a 90-degree angle against the right side wall. On the left side were two large closets. A table and two chairs completed the furnishings. The entire front of the room was taken up by a large window and the door to the balcony. I missed a TV or at least a radio, but both were not wanted in the rooms. At least the rooms were equipped with telephones.
I took my suitcases and bags off the trolley and put them in the middle of the room. As my eyes fell back on the now empty luggage trolley, I groaned quietly. Of course, it had to be returned to the clinic entrance. At the moment, I had had enough of encounters with fellow patients and their clever comments and just wanted to hole up in my room, at least for a while. The thought of having to walk all the way down to the entrance and back again did not appeal to me at all. Nevertheless, I had no other choice. After all, I didn't want to be responsible for other new arrivals having to drag all their belongings around without this ear-piercing squeaking aid. So I just left my luggage and threw my down jacket on one of the beds. Then I locked the room again and pushed the trolley back to the lift. I was grateful that I didn't meet anyone, at least not until I got back down to the entrance hall. I spotted Nadine in the seating area in front of the window, attentively watching the car park and looking for other new arrivals.
‘Well, has anyone else arrived yet?’ I asked as I pushed the car past her to the entrance.
‘Nope, not yet. They'll all arrive just before two, I bet,‘ she replied.
I took the car outside. When I came back, she had got up and was waiting for me right in front of the inner swinging door.
‘Why don't you stay down here with me? We can chat a bit and check out the other newcomers,’ she suggested.
‘I have to unpack my things first.’
‘Oh come on, you can do that later.’
‘I'd rather do it while I'm still alone in the room.’
‘All right,’ she finally gave in.
As I was about to turn around and leave, she asked, “How old are you, anyway?’
‘19,” I replied.
‘I'm 17, but I'll be 18 next month. Then we can party here.’
Her cheerfulness was somehow in stark contrast to her emaciated appearance and confused me. I felt completely insecure around her. Her body seemed so weak and fragile, yet she was bursting with energy. I, on the other hand, had a reasonably well-built body, was not completely unsportsmanlike and did not look bad either. Nevertheless, at the moment I felt like a picture of misery.
‘I'll see you later,’ I said, waving at her. This time I took the stairs. With quick steps, I reached the room again, which I would soon have to share with another patient. Actually, I could have had a single room and was now a little annoyed that I had ticked “double room” on the registration form. At the time, the idea of sharing a room with a handsome boy had seemed very tempting. My homosexuality was still a well-kept secret. Actually, I still wasn't one hundred percent sure if I was gay at all. I knew for sure that I wasn't interested in girls, but somehow it was a bit more complicated for me. Ever since I was a child, I found items of clothing with hoods somehow exciting, although I had no explanation for why that was. At some point, I found out that this was called fetishism and that I was not the only person on this planet to have such strange feelings. However, this realisation didn't necessarily help me either. So, okay, I had a fetish for hooded clothing. Somehow, it made me feel a bit abnormal, but in the end, I had no choice but to simply accept my strange inclination. Besides hooded sweatshirts, I particularly liked winter and rain jackets made of nylon, with thin hoods hidden in the collar. The sight of handsome guys with their hoods up always triggered quite intense feelings in me. My down jacket was also made of black, slightly shiny nylon fabric and had a thin hood behind a Velcro fastener in the collar. It was still lying on the bed where I had carelessly thrown it earlier. Now I picked it up and hung it on the coat rack next to the room door.
After that, I listlessly set about unpacking my suitcases and bags. I opened one of the two wardrobes and gradually piled the contents of my suitcases into the individual compartments. When I was finally finished, it was almost noon. I hoped to have some time to myself before my roommate arrived. I lay down on the bed against the wall facing the shower and took it over for me. I tried to relax as much as possible and listened to the noises in the hallway. Right now there was a lot going on. Apparently, many patients left their rooms to make their way to the dining room. After a few minutes, finally, silence set in. Now everyone was probably down eating.
Chapter 2 – Kevin
After a good quarter of an hour, I suddenly heard voices approaching, accompanied by a rumbling and squeaking. Someone was pushing one of the baggage carts down the aisle. Was this my roommate? If so, he was also here quite early. I listened as the people approached and finally stopped right outside my door.
‘Number 213. This is it,’ I heard a muffled male voice in the hallway.
‘Knock, maybe your roommate is in the room.’
This time it was unmistakably the voice of a woman I heard. I sat up nervously and expectantly. There was a knock on the door several times and after a few seconds I heard the handle being pushed down. I jumped up and looked around the corner of the room door. I felt a shiver run through my body as I caught sight of the boy, who was gently pushed into the room by a hand on his shoulder. He was about my age and about 1.80 m tall. This meant that I towered over him, if at all, by at most one or two centimetres. Long, curly dark hair fell on his pretty face as he bent down to put a travel bag on the floor. He looked at me shyly and held out his hand.
‘Hello, I'm Kevin Winter,‘ he said hesitantly.
‘Hi, I'm David Kranitz,’ I replied as I shook his hand.
He pointed to the two people who had entered the room after him and said quietly, ‘My parents.’
I was so captivated by the sight of Kevin that it took me a moment to take proper notice of the woman and man, who smiled kindly at me. I shook hands with both of them and introduced myself.
‘My, but you have a nice room,‘ the mother said after she had looked around for a while. Kevin just shrugged. He seemed to be just as unhappy about his situation as I was. His parents’ presence probably only made things more uncomfortable for him.
‘Do you mind if I take this bed?‘ I asked to break his silence. I pointed to the bed I had just been lying on. The imprint of my body was still clearly visible on the bedspread.
‘No, it's okay,’ he murmured, hesitantly sitting down on the other bed. He was wearing blue jeans and a light beige sweatshirt. He wasn't wearing a jacket. It was probably somewhere among his luggage. Meanwhile, his father carried two large suitcases into the room and put them down in the middle of the room. I took a step to the side to make room. He had left the luggage cart in front of the door; it wouldn't have fit past the bags that were already next to the wardrobe anyway. The tension in the room was palpable, even for Kevin's parents. No one seemed to quite know what to say. I decided to leave the three of them alone. Surely they still had a lot to talk about.
‘Well, I'm going to go down to the hall. Then you can say goodbye to your parents in peace, okay?’
His parents smiled gratefully, while Kevin just gave me a brief nod and then stared at the floor again. I squeezed past the parents and their luggage and went out through the still-open door into the hallway. I took the now-empty baggage cart downstairs with me. At the transition between the two wings of the building, I discovered a second lift that took me back to the ground floor.
The entrance hall was now full of people. Some were coming from the adjoining dining room, others were already sitting at the seating areas. Nadine was nowhere to be seen this time. I wouldn't have minded her company now. I sat down at the only free table and took one of the magazines from the stack. Without really noticing the content, I flicked through the pages. After twenty minutes, some calm finally returned. The dining room had now emptied and many patients had returned to their rooms or disappeared to various therapy sessions. I was glad that no one had found it necessary to address me the whole time.
I was still leafing through the magazines with little interest when a white VW bus pulled up in the car park. The clinic's logo was visible on the door. The sliding door opened and four young women got out. The driver had meanwhile opened the tailgate and the four of them took their suitcases and bags out of the car. They all seemed to be in their early 20s. I wondered if they were also part of my group. They must have come by train. The nearest town with a train station was about 15 kilometres away, and the clinic picked up patients who came by train from there with the minibus. I watched the newcomers as they endured the obligatory welcome phrases at the reception and then disappeared in pairs with a completely overloaded luggage cart in the elevator. By now, I was almost alone again in the hall. I looked at my watch; it was now 1:15 p.m. Kevin's parents were hanging around with their son for a long time. Well, maybe they were still helping him unpack. I was just about to get up and take a walk around the clinic when the lift doors opened and the two of them stepped out. Only now did I take a closer look at them. The man was probably around 50 and wore a suit and tie. He gave me the impression of a successful businessman. His wife seemed a few years younger. She was wearing an elegant suit that was certainly not cheap. The two of them spotted me immediately.
‘Heinz, there's the young man who's in the same room as Kevin,’ she said to her husband. She spoke just loud enough for me to hear her words. “Maybe we should talk to him.’
Her husband nodded and the two of them came over to me.
‘May we sit down for a moment?” she asked.
‘Of course, please do,’ I replied.
The two of them took a seat.
‘You know, we've been through a lot lately and we're very worried about Kevin. We're not even sure if this clinic is the right place for him. Actually, they didn't want to admit him here at all.’
It was visibly difficult for Kevin's mother to talk about it. Her husband reached for her hand and held it. Then he continued: ‘A few months ago, Kevin's younger brother, our second son, was killed in a bicycle accident. The two of them were on a bike ride together and Kevin had to watch his brother die.’
‘Oh, I'm sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I mean for you, too,’ I added helplessly.
The two nodded gratefully.
‘They were both riding downhill and Marco, Kevin's brother, was apparently going too fast. Kevin was about 50 metres behind him and called out to him to slow down. Marco must have looked back briefly, lost his balance, and fell off his bike. He hit his head very badly and then died on the way to the hospital.’
Kevin's father paused again and sighed deeply.
‘Kevin couldn't cope at all. He withdrew completely in the weeks that followed. He wasn't even at the funeral. He just lay in his room, stared at the ceiling and hardly said a word. We couldn't persuade him to go to school or see his friends.’
Mr Winter shook his head in despair. The memories seemed to trouble him greatly. His wife continued: ‘After a few weeks, Kevin seemed to be getting better slowly, he went back to school and even met up with friends now and then. We thought that the worst was over now. You know, it was already so hard for us to lose Marco. After that, all the worries about Kevin, it was almost unbearable. We were so happy that he seemed to find the courage to face life again.’
She began to sob and opened her handbag to take out a paper handkerchief. While she wiped her eyes, her husband continued:
‘When Kevin was so ill at the beginning, we hardly dared to let him out of our sight. We were always afraid that he would do something to himself. When he seemed to be doing better for a while, we accepted an invitation from friends and went out for the evening. We just wanted to get our minds off things for a while. When he was then alone at home, he must have swallowed all kinds of medication from the medicine cabinet. He was unconscious when we came home. We can be glad that we came back so early and still saw his room. Otherwise he would probably be dead too.’
Mr Winter also had tears in his eyes now. After a long pause, the two continued. Kevin's stomach had been pumped in hospital. When he was physically better again, he had been transferred to the closed psychiatric ward. That had been an additional shock for him. He hadn't been able to cope there at all and had blocked out every form of therapy. His parents had therefore looked for another clinic and had found what they were looking for in Bad Neuheim. But they weren't really geared up for patients who were suicidal, which was still the case with Kevin. Only with a few tricks and good connections was it possible to get him admitted here. He had to promise his parents, on his honour, that he wouldn't harm himself. Only then did they allow him to be transferred here.
‘We thought it would be good if you knew right from the start,’ Ms Winter finally said, ending her speech. “Please keep an eye on him.’
‘Yes, of course, I'll be happy to do that,” I replied. I didn't know what else I should have said. Actually, I felt that the situation was completely overwhelming me. Kevin's father seemed to sense this.
‘We realise that you probably have big problems yourself and can't take responsibility for Kevin as well. We don't expect that. But maybe you could let a doctor or psychologist know if you notice something about Kevin that worries you. You know, a doctor from Kevin's old clinic said that someone who really wants to kill himself can do it in the closed ward. At least there are people here his age, with whom he hopefully gets along better. We believe that he will feel more comfortable here and make faster progress. And he promised us firmly that he won't harm himself while he's here. We believe him.’
His parents finally got up and said goodbye to me. Outside in the car park, they got into a big Mercedes and set off back home. I felt tremendous sympathy for the two of them, and even more so for Kevin. My mood was now completely down in the face of this sad story. I was just about to get up and go to the stairs when Nadine came towards me. At her side was a young girl. She couldn't have been more than 14 or 15.
‘This is Christina, she's in the room with me,‘ Nadine said cheerfully. Her cheerfulness was not at all suited to my current mood.
‘This is David, he's also in our group,’ she then introduced me to her roommate.
‘Hello Christina,’ I said, shaking the girl's hand. Despite my troubled mental state, I couldn't help but immediately find her likeable. She was at least a head shorter than me, had long brown hair and a face that was still almost childlike. She smiled shyly at me and said, ‘Hello.’
‘Are you coming with us to the cafeteria?’ Nadine asked me. ‘We're just on our way there. We still have a good hour.’
‘I have to go back to my room, my roommate is already there.’
‘Why don't you bring him down with you?’ she replied.
‘I don't know if he wants to.’
‘Just ask him.’
‘Okay, I'll see.’
We parted again. I watched the girls enter the cafeteria next to the dining room and went back up the stairs to the second floor.
Kevin wasn't in his room. Maybe he was exploring the clinic. I waited for him for a while and then decided to go down to the girls. I could look for Kevin on the way.
I wandered through all the corridors on the different floors, but couldn't find him anywhere. Somehow I was worried about it. The words of his parents still sounded in my ears. Well, he would surely turn up again. I also had to think of myself and finally get my mind off things so as not to go crazy. So I sat down with the two girls in the cafeteria. Christina had an already half-empty cup of cocoa in front of her. Nadine sipped a glass of fruit tea.
‘Hi, you two,‘ I greeted them.
‘Hey, we thought you weren't coming anymore,’ said Nadine. ‘Where's your roommate?’
I shrugged.
‘I don't know where he is. He wasn't in his room.’
I sat down with the two of them.
‘I don't think he feels particularly comfortable here,’ I added. “I spoke to his parents earlier, and he seems to be pretty miserable.’
‘Oh man, the poor guy,” Nadine remarked sympathetically. ’What's wrong with him?’
‘I think he'd better tell you that himself. Anyway, he's been through some terrible things lately.’
I got myself a coke and then listened to Nadine as she told me about her previous stays in the clinic. She had apparently suffered from eating disorders for several years and had already undergone all kinds of therapy. Christina hardly said a word the whole time. She seemed to be exceptionally shy. Perhaps that was one reason why she was here. At the moment I could only speculate about it.
‘Why are you here, anyway?‘ Nadine finally asked me.
I had always found it uncomfortable to talk about my problems. I would have preferred to avoid the question.
‘Well,’ I said hesitantly, staring at the table top, ‘I'm here because of panic attacks. Anxiety disorder.’
Nadine reacted as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
‘I see. Well, a lot of people have that. I've met quite a few people with it too.’
Actually, I didn't feel like telling her more details about it, but somehow I started to tell her about my first anxiety attack during a math exam. I described how the panic had increased so much that I finally just ran out of the classroom. Afterwards, I told everyone that I had suddenly felt sick. I was allowed to retake the exam a week later. To avoid panicking again, I studied harder than ever before. I was absolutely sure that I had mastered the material one hundred per cent. Nevertheless, after some time, this fear arose again during the make-up exam. At least this time I had been able to control myself enough not to run out of the room again. Nevertheless, I had failed the exam. The feeling of having received a bad grade was far less bad than the memory of the feelings of fear and panic during the exam and the fear that these would occur again during the next exam.
‘That's how it started for me,’ I ended my report. I really didn't want to say more at the moment. I would have to talk about it here often enough in great detail. I was amazed that I had had so few problems telling them both about it without shame. I had never been able to talk about it properly with my parents, and certainly not with friends. The latter had just been wondering what was suddenly wrong with me when I had suddenly missed more and more exams and then sometimes didn't show up at school at all.
‘The group starts in a quarter of an hour,‘ Nadine suddenly said.
I was surprised how quickly time had passed and remembered Kevin.
‘I'm going back to my room quickly,’ I said.
When I got upstairs, Kevin was still missing. The room looked exactly the same as before, apparently he hadn't been here at all. I was starting to get really worried. I went to the front to the large room where our therapy group would meet in a few minutes. It was the room opposite the lift from which I had already heard the voices of another group when I arrived. Maybe Kevin was already there.
The door was wide open and I looked inside. Eight chairs were arranged in a semicircle. In the middle was the chair where the psychologist who led our group would probably sit. So far, I had not met her, I had only read her name on the note. A floor-to-ceiling window allowed a view of the clinic car park. In front of one of the windows, a young woman stood and looked out. When she heard me, she turned around. She asked me uncertainly, ‘Are you here in this group too?’
‘Yes,’ I replied and walked up to her. She was not one of the women who had arrived in the VW bus, and I was seeing her for the first time. She seemed to be in her early twenties, maybe even 25.
I held out my hand and introduced myself: ‘Hello, I'm David Kranitz.’
‘Stefanie Jungbauer. Nice to meet you.’
She had shoulder-length, slightly wavy blonde hair and wore glasses.
‘You just arrived today, too?’ she asked me.
‘Yes. Have you met any of the others in the group yet?’
She shook her head.
‘I have a single room and I only arrived about an hour ago,‘ she explained.
‘Well, I've already met a few of us. As far as I know, the patients here are on first-name terms with each other.’
‘Ah,’ she replied.
For a while, there was an awkward silence and I was glad when Nadine and Christina came through the door and greeted Stefanie. In Nadine's presence, the mood immediately relaxed a little. A little later, another woman came through the door. She had medium-length, straight black hair and was wearing jeans and a wool sweater. I guessed her to be in her early to mid-30s.
‘Oh, good, some of you are already here,‘ she said cheerfully, looking us over one by one. Then she looked at the clock on the wall.
‘Well, the other two should be here soon, then we can start.’
So that was our psychologist.
‘You are welcome to take a seat,’ she invited us, taking a seat on the chair in the middle herself.
I sat down on a chair in the middle of the semicircle, Stefanie on the very outside near the window. Nadine and Christina sat down next to each other on the two chairs between us, moved a little closer together and held hands. The two seemed to have become quite good friends. But with Nadine's open-mindedness, this was no wonder.
A few minutes passed before another person entered the room. I recognised one of the young women from the VW bus. She seemed quite agitated and was a little out of breath.
‘My roommate isn't coming, she wants to leave again,’ she stammered.
‘Yes, she has already informed us of that,’ the psychologist replied calmly. ’Why don't you just take a seat. It looks like we're going to be a small group.’
The young woman followed the instructions and chose the seat right next to me from the four remaining free chairs. She was considerably overweight and was the exact opposite of Nadine. A few beads of sweat ran down her face.
‘Phew,’ she groaned wearily as she sat down. Then she leaned forward a little and smiled at me and the rest of the group. Still a little out of breath, she said, ’Hello, I'm Gudrun.’
Despite her overweight, she actually had a pretty face and seemed quite personable. We told her our names in turn.
‘Well, one is still missing,‘ the psychologist finally said, after silence had fallen again in the room.
The hands of the clock on the wall now showed 3:02 p.m.
‘Kevin wasn't in the room just now. I don't know where he is,’ I said hesitantly.
‘Well, then we'll wait another minute,’ she replied.
We sat in silence for a while, until Kevin finally turned the corner and entered the room with his head bowed and a quiet ‘Hello!’ He sat down without another word on the outermost chair near the door, leaving two seats between him and Gudrun. I was relieved that he was finally there.
The psychologist got up and closed the door.
‘Wouldn't you like to move closer to the others?’ she asked Kevin. ’There's no one else coming.’
Kevin shook his head. I wanted to get up and sit next to him, but then I left it. Apparently he preferred to sit alone.
‘So, let's get started,’ the psychologist cheerfully began her remarks.
‘My name is Fröschl. I am a psychologist and will lead your group. First of all, I would like to welcome you here and hope that you feel comfortable here.’
I looked over at Kevin, who was still staring at the floor and seemed to be anything but comfortable here.
‘As you have already noticed, there are only six of you in the group at the moment,’ Ms Fröschl continued.
‘One patient wants to leave again, she doesn't seem to like it here.’
There was a slightly mocking, almost contemptuous undertone to the last half-sentence. Immediately, my sympathy for our psychologist sank. I could understand only too well why the patient didn't want to stay here, as I had similar feelings.
Ms Fröschl continued: ‘Another patient has not arrived yet and unfortunately we have not heard from him either. At the moment we don't know whether he will arrive later.’
She then explained the therapy process. Groups were always formed from patients of the same age. This was supposedly more effective than grouping according to the type of mental disorder. From now on, the group would meet four times a week from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. here in this room. Thursdays were free. In addition, there were special forms of therapy that were determined individually for each patient and tailored to the clinical picture. In the next few days, Ms Fröschl would find out in one-on-one meetings which therapies were suitable for each of us. She also set the dates for these meetings right away. I was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. the next day, and Kevin was an hour later. She was obviously more curious about the men in the group. Or what other reason did she have for this decision?
Finally, she asked us to introduce ourselves in turn and tell her a little about ourselves.
Stefanie started. She was 24 and married. Since the birth of her daughter a few months ago, she had been suffering from depression.
After her, it was Christina's turn. She said her name in a quiet voice. She was 16 years old, which I found hard to believe. I would have guessed you were 15 at the most. Hesitantly, she explained that she was afraid of all kinds of things. For example, dogs and spiders scared her. She could only fall asleep at night with the door open and the light on in the hallway. She only mentioned a few of the things she was afraid of. There seemed to be many more.
When it was Nadine's turn, she provided the first laugh.
‘Well, you can see why I'm here, can't you?’ she said cheekily.
The psychologist had to grin too and said, ’It's nice that you see it so lightly. You seem to be doing quite well here.’
Nadine briefly repeated her medical history, which she had already told in the cafeteria.
When it was my turn, I gave my name and age, just like the others. I said a little about my family, that I was an only child, and then briefly said that I suffered from exam anxiety with severe panic attacks and that I suspected I had taken my high school exams a little too seriously.
Gudrun was 21 years old and here because of her weight and the problems associated with it. She had not yet found a steady boyfriend and was often depressed because of it. Out of frustration, she ate even more. She also had big problems at work because of her weight.
Finally, it was Kevin's turn. He nervously fidgeted with his hands and you could tell that he would have liked to have stood up and run out.
‘I'm Kevin Winter and I'm 18 years old,‘ he said.
He paused and took a deep breath.
‘Do I need to say more now?’ he finally asked quietly.
‘It's your decision what you want to tell us here,’ replied Ms Fröschl. “I'm not forcing you to do anything.’
Kevin looked down again. The psychologist waited a moment and then addressed the whole group: ”You should also meet as often as possible outside of the group and talk to each other. That way you'll get to know each other better and it'll be easier for you to talk about your problems here.’
After that, she answered any remaining questions and dismissed us shortly before 4:30 p.m., not without reminding us of the head physician's welcome address, which would take place in a basement room in half an hour.
Kevin was the first to get up and immediately disappeared through the door.
‘What kind of guy is he?’ Gudrun asked in amazement as she watched him go.
‘He's in the room with me. He hasn't said much to me either,’ I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
‘Strange,’ she said. She seemed to be relatively extroverted and I found her quite nice. It seemed easy to start a conversation with her. After the psychologist had left, we stayed in the room together for a while. While Nadine and Christina chatted with Stefanie, I told Gudrun that I had talked to Kevin's parents and that I could understand why he was acting the way he was. I didn't reveal any details, but also told Gudrun that Kevin himself had to come out with it. I decided to keep it that way. It was probably best for Kevin that way. It was enough to tell the others only enough so that they at least had some idea of an explanation for Kevin's behaviour and didn't exclude him from the group from the outset because of his behaviour.
When I came back into the room, Kevin was lying on the bed.
‘Where were you earlier?‘ I asked him.
He just shrugged his shoulders. Apparently he didn't want to talk to me.
‘Are you coming downstairs? It's almost five,’ I tried again.
‘I'll be right behind you, go ahead.’
At least he said a few words for a change.
The four girls were already waiting in front of the lecture hall door. Besides us, there were about 20 other people here who had apparently also arrived today, but belonged to other groups. They were probably all between 25 and 40 years old. The room seemed to offer enough space for all the clinic's patients. The five of us sat down in the front row, right next to the centre aisle. As time went on, the two rows behind us also filled up, although there were still large gaps everywhere. When the door closed with a loud noise after a while, the chatter in the room stopped. I turned around. The head physician, whose face I already knew from a glossy brochure of the clinic, came down the aisle, followed by a tall man in a blue coat and a petite young woman in a white apron. I spotted Kevin on the other side of the aisle, two rows of seats behind everyone else.
The introductory session began. The head physician, Dr Höfling, introduced himself and the other two people. The man in the blue coat turned out to be the caretaker, and the petite woman was the clinic's dietician. Dr Höfling gave a comprehensive report on the various therapies offered. In doing so, he repeated much of what we had already learned from our psychologist. I soon got bored with his lecture and kept looking around at Kevin. He sat quietly in his chair, looking at the floor. I was slowly getting annoyed by his behaviour.
After about 45 minutes, the head physician finally came to the end of his presentation and handed the lectern over to the caretaker. With the help of an overhead projector, he projected the floor plans of the individual floors one after the other onto the wall and explained the location of the most important rooms, lifts, stairwells and entrances. He explained when the individual entrances were opened in the morning and closed again at night, where smoking was allowed and when the night's rest began. I found his lecture much more interesting than the head physician's talk about the various forms of therapy. Unlike the head doctor, the caretaker seemed to have a sense of humour. He occasionally lightened up his explanations with witty remarks and told the story of a patient who once stood in front of the only entrance door, which was open around the clock, at one o'clock in the morning. The patient still could not get into the building. He had repeatedly tried to push the door inwards, but apparently hadn't considered trying the other direction. He had stood helplessly in the cold for half an hour until a group of patients who had returned to the clinic even later than he had, had simply pushed the door open outwards and stepped past the perplexed man into the clinic. With this story, the caretaker caused uproarious laughter in the room. Only Kevin remained seated with his head bowed.
Finally, the dietician gave us detailed information about meal times, the food available at the clinic, vegetarian food and special diets. When the event finally ended, it was already 6:20 p.m. The dining room had been open for dinner for 20 minutes.
When we went to eat, Kevin had already disappeared again. The dining room was already teeming with patients when we entered. Our group's table was right to the right of the entrance. It was square, with two chairs on each side. Since there were only six of us, two of them would remain free. Well, at the moment there would probably be three, since Kevin had once again left. At a large buffet, you could fill your plate to your heart's content. Various types of bread, sausage and cheese, as well as a range of salads, made the choice difficult. Nadine and Gudrun were spared this difficult decision from the outset. They had already been served filled plates. The calories of their dishes had been carefully counted by the staff.
As we sat at the table together, the conversation immediately turned to Kevin and his strange behaviour. The others didn't seem to find him particularly likeable. Although my own annoyance at Kevin's behaviour grew steadily, I defended him and asked the others to be patient. He would open up in time. When we had finished eating, he still hadn't shown up. I was about to make him a couple of sandwiches and take them up to his room when he finally turned up. He filled a plate at the buffet, then sat down wordlessly next to me and started eating. Meanwhile, the others were discussing how we could spend the evening. You could borrow a wide variety of board games from the reception, and the girls decided on a games evening in the cafeteria. I was in immediately, but Kevin once again said nothing. Christina, of all people, dared to speak to him.
‘Are you in too, Kevin?’ she asked quite shyly, looking at him anxiously. No normal person could have resisted her request.
Kevin was chewing on a leaf of lettuce and took a while to swallow. Then he looked over at Christina briefly.
‘We'll see,‘ he mumbled indistinctly, while he speared the next leaf of lettuce.
‘Oh come on, please!’
Christina didn't give up. She actually managed to get Kevin to give her a brief smile.
‘So will you join us?’ she asked one last time.
Kevin shrugged his shoulders while he cut a piece of his bread with a knife and fork and put it in his mouth.
We waited until Kevin had finished eating. Christina had already got up and gone to the reception to choose a game. She had taken Nadine with her. She didn't seem to dare to go alone. All the more I admired her courage to speak to Kevin. I had already taken the little girl into my heart.
When we finally went over to the cafeteria, Kevin actually came with us. We sat down at a free table and played a board game that everyone except me seemed to already know. My initial ignorance of the rules caused some laughter. Even Kevin couldn't help but grin from time to time. Meanwhile, we only talked about trivial things. Christina and Kevin remained silent most of the time. It was already past 10 p.m. when we finally disappeared to our rooms.
Kevin and I went to the bathroom one after the other. When I came back to the room, he was already in bed. A physical examination of the new patients was scheduled for the next morning between eight and nine o'clock. Reason enough to fall asleep as early as possible. I undressed except for a T-shirt and boxer shorts and lay down in my bed as well. From there I could reach the light switch and turned off the lamp on the ceiling.
‘Good night, Kevin!‘ I whispered over to the other bed.
‘Good night,’ came the quiet reply.
I never normally went to bed before midnight. The new environment also made sure that I couldn't fall asleep. Kevin seemed to be having a similar experience. He tossed and turned restlessly in bed. I kept glancing at the fluorescent hands of my alarm clock. It was 11 p.m., 11:30 p.m., midnight, 1:30 a.m., 2 a.m. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next time I looked at the hands, they were at 3:35 a.m. Strange noises were coming from somewhere. It took me a while to orient myself. It was only slowly that I realised what was going on. The noises were coming from Kevin's corner. He was crying. Startled, I sat up.
‘Kevin?’ I whispered.
I heard him turn around in bed. The next sob was muffled.
‘Kevin?’ I whispered again.
When there was still no answer, I switched on the reading lamp above my bed. The room was only dimly lit by the bulb behind the smoked glass. The chairs and the table cast large shadows on the wall. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the light. I had to blink a few times. Kevin had buried his face in the pillow. His body jerked under the duvet with every sob. I flipped back my duvet and sat up.
‘Hey,’ I whispered a little louder.
No reaction again.
I got up, walked slowly over to him and leaned over his bed. As I was about to put my hand on his shoulder, he quickly turned away.
‘Leave me alone,‘ I heard muffled through the pillow.
‘Haven't you slept yet?’ I asked hesitantly.
He shook his head slightly.
‘Do you want me to get someone?’ I asked him. ’They can certainly give you a sleeping pill or something.’
He shook his head again.
‘Hey, I can't just leave you here like this.’
No answer.
‘I'll call the control centre downstairs, okay?’
Again, he didn't react. At least there was no more rejection. I had the feeling that he needed help urgently. The phone was on a small cabinet between the two beds. I picked up the receiver and scanned the list of internal numbers lying next to the phone. ‘Medical Centre: 20’ was written on it. I pressed the two number keys and waited for someone to pick up.
‘Hello? This is room 213. David Kranitz,’ I said into the receiver. “Kevin's not feeling well, I don't think he's slept yet.’
The voice on the other end of the line assured me that someone would be up in a moment.
‘Someone's coming,” I whispered to Kevin after I had hung up. He still had his face buried in the pillow.
I went to the door, opened it and looked out into the corridor. Only the emergency lighting was on. I heard the lift doors open at the junction between the two wings of the building. A few moments later, a woman came down the corridor. She was in her forties, quite small, had short-cropped hair and was dressed normally. The medical personnel here generally did not wear white coats. As she approached, she smiled at me.
‘Well, are there problems?’ she asked quietly when she reached our room door. I pointed over to Kevin's bed. She entered the room and approached Kevin.
‘I'm Dr Ballheim,’ she introduced herself. “Can I help you?’
I closed the door again and sat down on my bed.
‘When I woke up earlier, he was crying. I don't think he's slept at all,” I said.
Kevin sat up slowly. His eyes were red. There were several damp spots on the pillowcase.
‘Can't you give him something to help him sleep?’ I asked. I was shivering, partly from the cold, partly from excitement, and pulled the blanket up over my thighs.
The doctor asked Kevin if he wanted to talk to me. Kevin just shook his head.
‘It would be better if you told me what is going on inside you,‘ she said sympathetically. Kevin couldn't utter a word. He seemed completely exhausted and I felt incredibly sorry for him. Finally, the doctor pulled a strip of pills out of his pocket and pressed out one of the tablets.
‘Could you please get a glass of water?’ she asked me.
‘Yes, sure.’
There were still two unused glasses on our table. I took one of them and filled it with cold water at the sink in the shower. I handed it to the doctor. She gave Kevin the tablet in one hand and the glass in the other.
‘I'm going to give you something to help you fall asleep. But you should start talking about your problems as soon as possible, okay?’
Kevin nodded, put the tablet in his mouth and drank some water.
‘Thank you,‘ he said quietly and crept back under his bed covers.
Dr Ballheim turned to me.
‘Well, you look pretty shaken up too,’ she said.
‘I'll be fine,’ I replied quietly.
‘He'll be asleep in a minute. The tablets work quickly. Thanks for letting us know.’
‘Well, I couldn't just leave him lying there.’
‘Feel free to call me if anything else comes up. I'm on night duty until next week.’
I locked the door behind her and went back to bed.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked Kevin before turning off the light again.
He nodded.
The incident had pumped a good amount of adrenaline into my veins and it took me quite a while to fall asleep again. Kevin had long since been in a deep sleep. The pill had actually worked quickly.
Chapter 3 – Confessions
It was just after half past seven when I woke up on Wednesday morning. My alarm clock hadn't rung yet. I felt like I'd been beaten up. My fitful sleep in the second half of the night had been anything but restful. Kevin was still fast asleep. I wholeheartedly allowed him his rest. Quietly, I took fresh clothes from my wardrobe and stood under the shower. I stayed under the tingling jet of water until I felt reasonably fresh and alert again. When I came back to the room wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, Kevin was already dressed. I wished him good morning.
‘Morning,‘ he replied quietly. He still seemed quite depressed and down.
‘I'm sorry about last night,’ he said after a while.
I had put on socks in the meantime and was just slipping into my jeans.
‘Hey, don't be sorry,’ I replied. ’Really, don't be.’
‘I'm sure I'm no fun to have in a room with me.’
Actually, I couldn't disagree with him. I felt completely overwhelmed by the situation. On the other hand, I felt the urge to stand by him and help him as best I could. Besides, I still thought he was incredibly sweet.
I patted him on the shoulder and said encouragingly, ‘It's okay.’
While Kevin went into the bathroom, I took one of my hooded sweatshirts out of the closet and slipped into it. My mental state seemed to be slowly improving, because I really enjoyed feeling the thick hood on my head. The day before, I would hardly have enjoyed it. I only took off the hood when Kevin opened the bathroom door again.
Then we both went down to the medical centre. Some of the other newcomers were already waiting in front of the door, but I didn't see anyone from our group. When it was finally our turn, they first took the cups with our urine samples from us. Then we were weighed and measured. After measuring my blood pressure and taking a blood sample, the tiresome procedure was finally over. Kevin had finished before me and was waiting for me outside the door.
‘Shall we go and get breakfast?’ he asked when I came out.
I was pleased that he hadn't disappeared again straight away, as he had done before, and I was happy to come with him. We were the last of our group to arrive in the dining room that morning. Only Gudrun was still sitting at the table, but she had also finished already. The others had already gone back to their rooms. There was a breakfast buffet again. I returned to the table with two rolls, some butter, cheese spread and veal liver sausage. I wasn't a big fan of jam and honey. There was already a pot of hot coffee on the table. Gudrun had filled it up for us at a container in the middle of the dining room. I actually prefer drinking tea for breakfast. But since she had gone to all the trouble, I enjoyed a cup of coffee for a change.
Gudrun had some bad news for us. Stefanie had decided to leave the clinic. She felt guilty about leaving her young child alone with her husband and his parents. She had hardly slept the night before, wracked by feelings of guilt for abandoning her child. She had announced her decision to the others at breakfast. Her husband would pick her up later.
I wasn't particularly sad to hear it; after all, I hardly knew Stefanie. She was a few years older than the rest of us and I had had the impression that she didn't really fit into the group anyway.
We took our time eating and Gudrun kept us company until we had finished. Kevin was still not particularly talkative, but at least he said a word or two. Gudrun, on the other hand, was becoming more and more likeable to me. It couldn't be that difficult for her to find a man somewhere who would like her just the way she was.
I had only a short time left before my one-on-one with Ms Fröschl, which I used to get drinks and some sweets from the clinic's kiosk. Kevin had come with me and took my purchases, along with his own, to our room, while I marched straight to the psychologist.
Our conversation lasted a full hour. She wanted to know my entire life story in great detail. When the subject of sexuality came up, I told her that I thought I was gay. She was the first person to whom I had ever revealed this. However, I did not mention my fetish. Of course, she also wanted to know everything about my anxiety attacks. She finally assigned me to an anxiety management group and prescribed autogenic training for me.
When I left her room shortly after eleven, Kevin was already waiting outside the door.
‘It's not that bad,’ I encouraged him. He seemed to need some cheering up.
‘I'll wait for you in our room, okay?’
He nodded at me and hesitantly entered the psychologist's room.
Half an hour later, he was back. He seemed quite distraught and looked downcast. Apparently, the conversation had not gone particularly well. I refrained from saying things like ‘That was quick!’ or ‘Back already?’
He sat down on his bed and I went over to him.
‘Do you mind if I sit next to you?’ I asked him.
He looked up briefly and then shook his head. Then he hung his head sadly again.
I sat down on the bed next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. I had no idea what to say to cheer him up a little. I silently ran my fingers through his long, curly hair and then massaged his shoulder for a while. He didn't seem to have any objections to this. We sat in silence for a while.
‘You haven't told her much, have you?’ I asked cautiously at some point.
He shook his head slightly. I felt helpless. I just couldn't think of the right words. After all, I wanted to help him and not make the situation even more difficult for him.
‘I just can't talk about it,’ he finally said himself. His voice sounded desperate. I would have loved to take him in my arms, but I didn't dare. I had no idea how he would react to it.
‘If there's anything I can do to help, just say so, okay?’ I finally managed to say. Again, I wasn't sure how he would take my words. I tried desperately to make him understand that I was always there for him if he wanted to talk or needed help, but I had no idea how to build a real relationship of trust with him. It seemed endlessly difficult to get through to him.
When he finally nodded and stammered, ‘Okay,’ I was relieved.
‘Are you coming downstairs? It's almost time for lunch,’ I asked him.
He shook his head.
‘I can't eat right now.’
Actually, I wasn't hungry yet either. I didn't usually eat two rolls for breakfast. I usually contented myself with a cup of tea and a piece of dry cake, if I ate anything at all.
‘We can also go into town,’ I suggested. ’It's time I got out of here. Maybe then you'll get other ideas too.’
He didn't seem particularly enthusiastic and shrugged indifferently. I got up and tried again.
‘Hey, come on. I think it'll do us both some good.’
He sighed deeply, but then got up. While he took out a dark green and light beige snowboard jacket with a hood from his wardrobe, I was already slipping into my shoes and down jacket. I spread the hood of my thick grey sweatshirt over the collar of my jacket. After he had also dressed, we took the lift down to the cellar. This is where the entrance to the back of the building was, which was open 24/7. From here, a footpath ran past the small lake directly to the centre of Bad Neuheim.
‘Wow, pretty cold,’ I said as we stepped outside. The air on this January day was icy and there was a light but unpleasant wind. We zipped up our jackets up to our chins and started walking.
‘Do you know how to ice skate?’ I asked him as we approached the lake. Earlier that morning, I had seen two people skating on the opposite side of the lake, so the ice seemed to be strong.
‘Yes, but it's been a few years. And you?’
‘No, but I've got inline skates. Maybe you can rent skates here somewhere. Then I could give it a try.’
When we reached the lake, I climbed down the embankment to the ice. There were footprints everywhere and the grooves of countless skate runners could be seen. Kevin followed me and we slid around on the ice for a while. As time went on, we approached the houses of the village. To be on the safe side, we always stayed close to the shore. The water here could hardly be deeper than a metre. Kevin's mood seemed to be slowly improving. When we had reached the opposite side of the lake, the first house was only a few hundred metres away. We had become quite warm from romping around.
The town had a population of about 5,000. It was still quite a way to the town centre with the shops. As we walked side by side, I got to talk to Kevin for the first time. I told him about my family. About my father, whose advertising agency always kept him on his toes, and about my mother, who worked in the freight company that my grandparents had built up after the war. In a year or two, my grandfather would finally retire from the business. Then he would sign over 50 percent of the company to each of my mother and my uncle, and the two of them would run the business together. Since my anxiety disorder had become more serious and my grandparents had also become more aware that something was wrong with me, my grandfather had even considered transferring a share of the company directly to me for a while, so that my future would be secure. It had taken a lot of effort to convince him that this was not necessary.
Kevin's father was a lawyer and notary, not the managing director of some company, as I had initially assumed. His mother ran a boutique with a friend. After briefly telling me about his parents, he became silent.
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?‘ he asked quietly after a while.
I was startled. Did he want to tell me about his brother now?
‘No,’ I said curtly, shaking my head.
I didn't dare to ask him the same question now. Did he expect that from me now? After all, he couldn't know that I knew about his brother's death. Or did he suspect that his parents had talked to me?
We both remained silent for a while. Finally, I dared to at least indirectly broach the subject with him.
‘Kevin?’ I began hesitantly.
‘Yes?’
‘I think I should tell you something.’
‘What?’
‘I met your parents yesterday in the entrance hall before they left.’
Kevin suddenly stopped. He seemed to suspect what I wanted to tell him.
‘Did they tell you something?’ He asked. He seemed a little frightened.
I turned to him and nodded.
‘So you know, then?’
‘Well, they told me the most important things,‘ I shrugged.
I was afraid he would run away now. I still couldn't gauge his reactions properly. For a moment he just stood there silently and looked at me.
‘All right,’ he finally said, taking a deep breath.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘Have you told the others anything yet?‘ he wanted to know.
I shook my head.
‘Thank you,’ he finally said.
‘For what?’ I asked in puzzlement.
‘For not blabbing everything right away.’
‘Why should I have done that?’
He shrugged. We stood silently facing each other for a moment.
‘Come on, let's go,‘ he finally said.
We strolled through the town until we passed a small café.
‘I'm getting hungry,’ I remarked. ‘Shall we go in?’
Kevin agreed. I had become really cold again and was looking forward to the warm room.
At lunchtime, the café also offered a few simple hot dishes. I ordered a portion of fried potatoes with scrambled eggs and a glass of hot tea. Kevin opted for a slice of toast with ham and cheese and a coke. He seemed to have regained some of his appetite.
I rubbed my half-frozen ears.
‘Aren't you cold at all?’ I asked Kevin.
He just shrugged.
We didn't talk much as we sat at the table waiting for our food. Kevin didn't seem to want to talk about his brother anymore. Maybe I had already destroyed his willingness to do so with my confession. When the waitress finally brought our plates, we had completely run out of things to talk about. We ate in silence and paid as soon as we were finished.
‘Shall we walk a little further or do you want to go back?‘ I asked Kevin when we had left the café and were standing indecisively on the pavement.
‘We still have time, don't we?’ he asked back.
I looked at my watch. It was just 1:30 p.m. Still an hour and a half before the group meeting started.
‘Yes, enough,’ I replied.
‘Well, we don't have to go back earlier than absolutely necessary because of me.’
‘So you're quite happy that you came out, aren't you?‘ I asked, smiling.
He grinned, but quickly became serious again.
‘I'm not here in the clinic voluntarily. It was just the better alternative,’ he finally said.
‘I know,’ I replied quietly.
‘So they told you that too.’
I nodded.
‘Come on, we'll walk to the other end of town,‘ I finally suggested.
‘If you're not too cold?’ he asked back, concerned.
I took the opportunity to finally pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head.
‘I'm fine,’ I replied, burying my hands in the pockets of my down jacket.
When we finally started moving, he grinned at me.
‘You could have put these on earlier,’ he remarked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
He now reached for the hood of his snowboard jacket himself and put it on. I couldn't help but watch him out of the corner of my eye as he did so. With the hood on his head, I thought he looked even cuter than usual. A few of his long curls peeked out from under the hood. I found the sight of him extremely arousing and had to control myself not to stare at him.
‘Was it your decision to come here to the clinic?‘ He asked when we had walked a few metres.
‘More or less,’ I replied. ‘I hardly went to school at the end. I completely missed the last three exams. I could have written off my A-levels for good if it had continued like this.’
‘It doesn't really matter to you if your parents have so much money.’
I shrugged.
‘That's what my grandfather says: ‘Son, forget your A-levels. Come here to the company, you don't need A-levels for that. You won't learn anything at school that you can use here.’’
We both had to laugh. It was the first time I'd heard Kevin laugh out loud.
I told him more about my grandparents. My grandfather was the only one who had kept a cool head in the last few months. My parents had been just as unable to cope with the new situation as I had been, and they had also been just as desperate from time to time. The last few weeks in particular had been quite tearful at times. Without my grandfather, everything would have been even harder. He was the only one who had treated me like a normal person the whole time, but without taking my problems any less seriously. Time and again, he had shown me possible solutions; the work in his company was just one of many. Through an old friend, a retired psychiatrist, I had finally ended up here in the clinic.
We had really hit it off again, even though I mostly talked about myself and my life. But Kevin listened with interest and asked a lot of questions. We had just passed the last house and reached the town sign when he asked a question that I had anxiously expected for some time.
‘Do you actually have a girlfriend?’ he wanted to know.
Had the moment of truth arrived? Should I tell him that I was gay? How would he react to my confession? The clinic was a long way off. If he reacted angrily or uncomprehendingly, or was even horrified at having shared a room with a homosexual, the journey back would be sheer hell. Somehow, though, I didn't have the impression that he would react so negatively. I thought I knew him well enough by now. So I gathered all my courage and carefully formulated a question: ‘Would you have a problem if I told you I was gay?’
I didn't dare look at him, staring instead at one of the posts at the side of the road.
His reaction was immediate.
‘Really?‘ he asked. He didn't sound angry or horrified, but somehow curious or amused. When I looked at him furtively, he shook his head and grinned.
‘What?’ I asked in puzzlement. I couldn't make sense of his reaction. ‘Why are you reacting like that?’
‘Sorry,’ he said briefly, grinning the whole time.
‘What's so funny about that? Are you gay too, or what?‘ I asked, not understanding.
‘Nope,’ he said, stretching. ‘I'm not gay.’
I was a little disappointed. Secretly, I had had hopes, although of course the probability was low.
‘At most a little bit bisexual,’ he added. ’But I think that's what everyone is.’
He still hadn't told me what his strange behaviour was all about.
‘Then what's your reaction?’ I asked again. “Is it so funny that I'm gay?’
‘No, don't worry. I don't mind that you're gay, honestly,” he finally said. ’Two of my best buddies are gay. I've often stayed in a room with them and even went camping with them last year. So I really don't have a problem with it. I just think it's so funny because I somehow always meet people who are gay. And now you too. Actually, I should have guessed.’
‘Oh, I thought you were making fun of me,‘ I said, relieved.
‘Hey, don't worry, it's okay,’ he replied, patting me on the shoulder.
I was glad that he now knew. We made our way back. The subject seemed to be closed for him, because from now on we chatted about a variety of other more or less inconsequential topics. The closer we came to the hospital, the quieter Kevin was again. Silently, we finally reached the entrance down in the basement. We took off our hoods and entered the lift. We only had about ten minutes left until the group session.
After we had delivered our jackets to the room, we went together to the front of the group room. Kevin sat down next to me this time. Gudrun was kind enough to slide a chair closer to the door. Stefanie's seat remained empty. She had left in the meantime.
Nadine and Gudrun did most of the group session on their own. They seemed to be the most open and talkative in the group. Gudrun mainly talked about how she had been bullied by her colleagues because of her obesity. I got really angry when I heard what she had to endure, and I couldn't help but use a swearword or two about her colleagues. Nadine continued to talk about her past therapies. I was surprised that she never spoke directly about her anorexia and the reasons for it. She seemed to be hiding some kind of secret.
After Frau Fröschl had left at the end of the session, we remained standing in the anteroom in front of the lift for a while. Gudrun told me about some more experiences at her workplace. She gave vent to her pent-up anger about her colleagues and only stopped talking when she had let off enough steam and felt better.
I spent the rest of the time until dinner with Kevin in our room. We lay on our beds, dressed, and exchanged a few words from time to time.
‘Gudrun was really going at it, wasn't she?’ Kevin stated.
‘Yes, but I can understand her. If I were her, I would be just as angry.’
‘Somehow I think she's quite nice.’
‘Hey, she's totally nice.’
‘If only she wasn't so fat...’
‘Man, it's not her fault,‘ I defended her.
‘Yeah, I know, I didn't mean it like that either. She'd actually be quite pretty if... you know. If she lost some weight.’
I grinned over at Kevin.
‘Then you might even like her, right?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I don't know. I just kind of like her. Lately, I've just seen very few pretty girls.’
‘I wouldn't have a problem with that,‘ I remarked, grinning.
Kevin grinned back.
‘There aren't that many cute guys here either,’ he replied teasingly.
‘Well, you're here,‘ I replied jokingly.
‘Are you maybe hot for me, or what?’ he asked back, also jokingly.
I became a little embarrassed and looked at the ceiling.
‘And if it really were so?’ I asked quietly after a short moment without looking at him.
Anxiously, I waited for his reaction.
‘Well, as long as you don't rape me at night...’ came from Kevin's corner after a long pause.
When I looked over at him, he had sat up and was grinning broadly at me.
‘Oh man, you've got a sense of humour,’ I said, relieved.
For the first time, I could really imagine what Kevin must have been like before his brother's death. The accident must have completely changed his life from one day to the next.
For a moment there was silence.
‘Seriously, you think I'm pretty hot, don't you?’ he asked after a while.
I shrugged.
‘You are cute. What can I do?’
My voice sounded almost a bit desperate.
‘It's okay. I don't blame you.’
He smiled at me. I was amazed that he took it all so lightly. At the same time, of course, I was infinitely relieved. If I wanted to build a real relationship of trust with him, he simply had to know the whole truth. At some point, I would probably tell him about my fetish as well. But I wasn't ready to do that yet.
Chapter 4 – Nightmares
We spent the evening with the girls in the cafeteria. Christina chose the games for us again. When we came back to the room after 11 p.m., I was tired and exhausted. The little sleep the night before and the long walk with Kevin were slowly making themselves felt. I undressed and went to the bathroom briefly. Shortly after I fell into bed, I was already asleep. Kevin had been relatively cheerful and in a good mood all evening, so I hadn't worried about him anymore. As I fell asleep, I had no idea that another painful night lay ahead of him.
I woke up shortly after two o'clock. Normally, I would have just rolled over and fallen asleep again immediately if the room hadn't been illuminated by the moonlight. Somehow, I must have registered that while half asleep. It must have taken a minute for me to be halfway awake and orientated. When I finally opened my eyes properly and looked to see where the light was coming from, I saw Kevin's silhouette in front of the balcony door. He had drawn back the curtain in front of the door and was looking outside through the window. Apparently he hadn't yet noticed that I had woken up.
I quietly sat up in bed.
‘Kevin?’ I whispered to him.
He quickly wiped the back of his hand over his eyes, then turned his head to the side and looked over at me briefly. After a moment, he looked out the window again.
‘Can't you get to sleep again?’ I asked him quietly. I wanted to avoid at all costs that my voice sounded annoyed or even reproachful.
He shook his head slowly.
I threw back the bed cover, stood up and walked slowly over to him. It was cold in the room and I shivered without my warm blanket. Only when I was standing directly behind him did I notice that he was trembling all over.
‘Man, you're freezing,’ I said, quite shocked.
I quickly went over to Kevin's bed and got his blanket. His bed felt very cold. He had obviously been standing there for quite a while. I carefully put the blanket around his shoulders. He willingly reached for it and wrapped it around his body as best he could. I hugged him from behind and gently pressed him against me. His curls tickled my right ear. We stood there in silence for a while. Again and again, he wiped a few tears from his eyes with the corner of the blanket. Every now and then he sniffled. At least he stopped shaking over time.
‘The nights are hell,’ he finally said softly. His voice trembled. ’Absolutely horrible.’
He fell silent again and stared into the night. I was now standing right next to him in front of the window, my arm around him, stroking his shoulder. You could just see the outermost row of the clinic car park over the balcony railing. A few lamps cast ghostly shadows on the pavement. The silhouettes of the trees in the background were clearly visible in the moonlight. Occasionally, the headlights of cars still passed behind the thick trunks at this time of night. The moon was directly above our window in the starry sky. It was full moon.
‘Hey, I'm with you,‘ I whispered to him. I didn't know if my words could help him in any way. I felt helpless and completely overwhelmed by the situation.
‘As soon as I lie in bed, I keep seeing the images of the accident in front of my eyes,’ he continued after a while. ‘Every night.’
I gently stroked his hair. Again, he was silent for a while.
‘And when I finally do fall asleep, those damn nightmares come.’
There was so much despair in his voice that I now had tears in my eyes myself.
He slowly turned to me and looked at me with sad eyes. A few tears ran down his cheeks. They sparkled in the moonlight.
‘I don't know how I'm going to be able to bear all this,’ he said, his voice choked with tears. Then he sobbed, laid his head on my shoulder and began to weep uncontrollably. I embraced him and held him as tight as I could. Tears were now running down my face, too. I slowly guided him over to his bed and we sat down on the edge of the bed next to each other. I still held him tightly and let him cry on my shoulder. I don't know how long we sat there like that. Only slowly did he calm down again. At some point, he carefully extricated himself from my embrace and wiped away his tears.
‘Oh man,‘ he sighed deeply and shook his head.
Only now did I realise that my legs were ice cold and I was freezing. Although Kevin still had the blanket wrapped around his upper body, his feet and thighs had also been exposed to the cold in the room the whole time.
‘Are you cold?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘Come on, get back into bed.’
He obeyed and I helped him cover himself up. I wrapped the blanket tightly around his legs. Then I quickly got my own blanket, wrapped myself in it and sat down on the bed next to Kevin. Kevin lay on the pillow facing me and looked at me.
‘Should I call the doctor again?’ I asked him.
‘No,‘ he replied firmly, adding an almost pleading “Please don't!’
‘Why not?” I asked back.
‘Please,’ he said again. ‘I'm afraid they'll send me back to the psychiatric ward if I need help every night.’
He was close to breaking down again.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I don't know, Fröschl made a strange comment this morning. About last night and everything.’
I was completely at a loss. What should I do?
‘Do you think you'll be able to sleep now?’ I asked him after a while.
I saw him shrug his shoulders. The moonlight was still shining through the open curtain. Maybe I should have turned on the light earlier.
I didn't know how to act. On the one hand, I didn't want to go against his wishes, but on the other hand, it was clear to me that Kevin actually needed the doctor's help again. I found myself in a dilemma. I sensed that he was on the verge of opening up. If he went back to the psychiatric ward, this progress would probably be undone. Besides, I had grown fond of him and didn't want to spend time here without him. But my feelings didn't count now; it was only about what was best for Kevin. Unfortunately, I was anything but sure about that.
‘All right,’ I finally said. “I won't go and get anyone for the time being. Maybe you can go to sleep now.’
‘Thanks,” he said quietly.
I stood up. With the blanket around my shoulders, I walked over to the balcony door. As I was about to close the curtain, I heard Kevin say, ’Can you please leave it open?’
‘Yes, sure,‘ I replied and made my way back to my bed.
‘David?’ Kevin said quietly as I was about to lie down.
‘Yes?’
‘Can you stay with me?’
‘I'm here, aren't I?’
‘No, here by my bed,’ he whispered shyly. ’Can you lie down in bed with me? Until I fall asleep?’
‘If you want?’
‘Yes.’
I took my pillow and my blanket and walked over to him. He turned on his side and moved his pillow close to the wall. I put my pillow next to his and wrapped myself in my blanket. Then I lay down on the mattress next to him.
‘Try to sleep now,’ I whispered to him. I put an arm around his body and stayed as still as possible so as not to disturb him as he fell asleep. After three quarters of an hour, I could tell from his steady breathing that he had finally fallen asleep after all.
I rolled very carefully out of bed and crept over to my own. I didn't think I would be able to fall asleep again. The events of the night had been too disturbing. But sometime well after four o'clock I must have dozed off again.
Shortly after seven I was woken by a scream. I was wide awake in an instant. It was still dark outside, the moon had disappeared. It would soon begin to dawn. When I looked over at Kevin's bed, I saw the silhouette of his upper body in the dark. He sat upright in bed and breathed heavily. I turned on the light. He had put his hands behind his back and hung his head. I got up and knelt down beside his bed. He was sweating profusely. Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. His T-shirt stuck to his back.
‘Did you have a nightmare?’ I asked him quietly.
His nod was almost unnoticeable. He seemed completely distraught and barely seemed to notice me. He didn't say a word or even look at me.
‘I'm going to get help, okay?‘ I said. That was more of a statement than a question. He didn't answer me anyway. At the moment he seemed to be completely without willpower.
I picked up the phone and dialled the number for the medical centre.
‘Central, Dr Friedrichs,’ a male voice answered.
‘This is room 213. Can I speak to Dr Ballheim, please?’
‘She just left. She's only on duty until seven o'clock.’
‘I see,’ I said. “I need a doctor.’
‘Yes, what's wrong?” the voice replied.
‘My roommate had a bad nightmare. He's completely exhausted.’
‘Tell him to come down to the control centre.’
‘Can't you come up?’
‘Is he physically unable to come himself?‘ the voice asked.
‘Yes, I think so,’ I replied hesitantly. ‘He's just not dressed.’
‘Then he should get dressed and come down, okay?’
‘Yes, all right,‘ I said disappointedly and hung up again. I hadn't expected that reaction. The man on the other end of the line had sounded almost disinterested. I was a little angry at his indifferent attitude.
‘You're supposed to come down to the control centre,’ I said quietly to Kevin.
He still seemed completely apathetic.
‘So?’ he finally asked quietly, tugging at his sweaty T-shirt.
I hesitated for a moment. I felt helpless and alone. Why couldn't that stupid doctor come up?
‘Can you make it to the shower?’
He nodded. He slowly got up and absently stumbled into the bathroom. I was horrified by his condition and hardly recognised the cheerful boy from yesterday afternoon. He switched on the shower light, took off his T-shirt and boxer shorts and left them both lying carelessly on the floor. I didn't dare to leave him alone now. He stood next to the shower and waited until I had turned on the water and set the right temperature. Then I closed the shower curtain behind him, leaving a small gap open. Not because I was interested in his naked body. I lacked all sense for that at the moment. I was just afraid for him and didn't want to let him out of my sight for a moment. He stuck his arm through the gap and let me squirt a big dollop of shower gel onto his flat hand. Then he lathered up his hair and body with it and stood under the warm water jet until it had washed off all the soap by itself. At some point he finally turned off the water. As I was just drawing back the curtain to hand him his bath towel, he suddenly broke down crying. He slid down the wall with his back and remained sitting in the shower tray with his knees bent. He sat there sobbing loudly, wrapped his arms around his pulled up legs and put his head between his knees. I carefully wrapped him in his bath towel and then took his hand. He got up with difficulty. I held him in my arms for a moment and stroked his wet hair. He seemed to have regained some control over himself. When he looked at me, his eyes were no longer as empty as they had been a few minutes ago. He now pushed his wet curls to the side, which had been hanging in his face the whole time. So far, this didn't seem to have bothered him. He was no longer so apathetic and began to dry himself off. He wrapped the bath towel around his body and took one of the other towels to rub his hair dry. I had the impression that I could leave him alone again now.
‘Are you okay again?’ I asked him.
He looked at me and said, ’Yes, I'm fine.’
‘Do you want me to get you some fresh clothes?’
‘Don't worry about it, I'll get them myself.’
As I left the bathroom and was about to close the door, he called after me.
‘Hey, David.’
I turned around and stuck my head through the crack in the door again.
Kevin looked at me and tried to smile.
‘Thanks,’ he said quietly.
‘It's okay,’ I replied.
While he dried himself off, I finally managed to get fully dressed. When I was ready, he came out of the shower with his towel around his hips and took fresh underwear from his wardrobe. He sat down on his bed and slowly got dressed.
‘Do you always feel so bad when you've had a nightmare?‘ I asked him as he slipped into his socks.
He nodded.
‘I told you it was hell,’ he replied.
When he was finished getting dressed and blow-drying his hair, I went down to the medical centre with him. He had asked me to come with him. He still looked quite haggard and downhearted. I knocked and we entered. A counter divided the room into two parts. The space behind the counter was reserved for staff. Here, two men and a woman were busy going through patient files. There were no other patients in the room besides us.
‘Good morning,’ I said when none of the three noticed us.
One of the men looked up and came over to us.
‘Yes, please?’ He asked.
‘I called here earlier and spoke to a Dr Friedrichs. About Kevin.’
I looked at Kevin, who was standing intimidated and with his head bowed, a metre to my right, to get the man's attention.
‘Ah yes,’ the man behind the counter replied. “I'm Dr Friedrichs.’
He looked over at Kevin.
‘It took you a long time. I thought you weren't coming anymore.’
‘I had to take a shower,” Kevin replied quietly.
Dr Friedrichs came forward and asked Kevin to lie down on a couch.
‘You had a nightmare?‘ he asked. He didn't seem quite as indifferent as he had on the phone.
Kevin nodded.
‘Yes, it was pretty intense,’ he replied.
The doctor checked Kevin's pulse and blood pressure.
‘Well, you've calmed down a bit by now,’ he said after he had finished his brief examination.
‘He was pretty upset earlier, barely responsive,’ I chimed in. “Can you give him something to make him feel better?’
‘We avoid medication here as much as possible. He seems to have recovered quite well by now.’
The doctor didn't seem to take the whole thing very seriously.
‘At least give him something for the next night,” I urged him.
Dr Friedrichs turned back to Kevin.
‘All right, I'll make a note in your file. If you like, you can get something here tonight to help you sleep. Come by before you go to bed. But be sure to talk about your nightmares in group.’
‘We don't have a group today, Thursday,’ I answered instead of Kevin.
‘Yes, then tomorrow. This is really important. We can't keep giving you medication here. If you want drug therapy, you've come to the wrong place.’
I immediately wished the doctor hadn't said the last few sentences. They had only put Kevin under unnecessary pressure. When we were back in our room, I immediately noticed the effect the doctor's words had had on Kevin. He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Again I got to know a new side of him. He seemed more angry than depressed. When I asked him after a while if he wanted to come to breakfast, he barked at me aggressively.
‘Hey, go down alone and leave me alone, okay?’
So I went down without him. The girls were already discussing how they could spend the day off. Not only was there no group therapy that day, but the five of us had no other obligations either. Many individual therapies wouldn't start until next week anyway. Board games were on the programme for the morning. If we continued like this, we would have gone through the entire range of games in the clinic by the end of our stay. After lunch, the girls wanted to go into town.
Before I went with the three of them over to the cafeteria, I checked on Kevin again.
‘We're playing Risk in the cafeteria. Do you want to come down?’ I asked him.
‘No, I don't feel like it,‘ he replied curtly. It seemed that his mood had not changed.
‘You can come later,’ I tried again.
‘Yeah, all right,’ he replied, annoyed.
I gave up and went back downstairs to the girls.
After almost two hours, he finally showed up at our table. It was already just before eleven. He approached us shyly.
‘Can I still join?‘ he asked hesitantly.
‘Sure,’ Christina and Gudrun replied almost simultaneously, smiling at him.
He smiled back, looking pained. He still seemed to be in urgent need of some encouragement.
‘Come on, sit down,‘ I invited him kindly.
He took a seat on the chair next to me.
‘Sorry about earlier,’ he said quietly.
‘It's okay,’ I replied.
At least he seemed to have overcome his bad mood. I hoped that his mental state would also improve over the course of the day.
Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed. He spent the whole day with our group, but remained mostly silent and uninvolved. When we walked into town after lunch, he just trotted silently behind us. Every attempt to strike up a conversation with him failed miserably. He gave a pained smile to anyone who tried to include him, but that was about it.
After dinner, he went to his room, while the rest of our group sat down in the cafeteria again and tried out another game from the shelves behind the reception. I soon lost interest in it. Kevin was on my mind. I was afraid of the next night. He would be given a sleeping pill, but would that prevent the nightmares? And what about the night after that? How should this go on?
I said goodbye to the girls and went up to my room. Kevin was lying on his bed, dressed, staring at the ceiling. A paperback lay open next to him, the pages facing down.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked. I didn't know what else to say.
He just nodded.
‘What are you reading?’ I wanted to know. I only asked because I was hoping to finally start a conversation with him again.
He shrugged.
‘I don't know. I can't concentrate on it.’
‘Oh.’
It seemed hopeless. So I lay down on my bed as well and picked up one of the novels I had brought with me. When I got to the third page, I realised that I couldn't remember anything of what I had actually just read. So I started again from the beginning, but again what I had read got stuck in some of my brain convolutions where it didn't really belong. Exasperated, I put the book aside. I remained lying on my back and observed the structure of the whitewashed woodchip wallpaper on the ceiling for a while.
‘Shit, Kevin, say something,’ I finally blurted out. “I'm really worried about you.’
‘I'm okay,” he replied quietly. His voice sounded anything but convincing.
‘Don't you want to talk at last?’
‘To you?’
‘Yes. Or to whoever you can talk to here.’
‘And what should I tell you?’ he asked helplessly.
I thought for a moment. Actually, I didn't know what I was doing at all.
‘Well, what's going on inside you. Why you've been so down all day.’
‘That's obvious, isn't it?’
‘Because of last night. The nightmare and all that,‘ I stated.
‘Not only that.’
‘Then talk already,’ I urged him desperately.
‘Damn it, I just don't know how to go on. I'm just at the end of my tether,’ he finally said. His voice trembled.
‘I'm scared shitless of the next night. And the night after that. And the one after that.’
‘Hey, you're getting something today so you can sleep.’
‘And tomorrow? And the day after?’ he asked desperately. ’At least in the psychiatric ward they pumped me full of medication. But here it's just like at home. Why do you think I wanted to kill myself? I couldn't stand the fucking nights with all the memories and those shitty nightmares anymore.’
‘Do you want to go back to the psychiatric ward?’ I asked anxiously. I sat up and looked over at him.
He shook his head.
‘They can't stuff me full of medication forever either. But in the end it will still come down to them sending me back there.’
He seemed resigned.
‘They can't help me here anyway,’ he said.
‘Hey, just wait and see.’
He shook his head again.
‘When I first arrived here, I really thought that I would be able to get my life back on track once I got out of here. But now? You heard what the doctor said this morning. I'm in the wrong place.’
‘He didn't mean it like that,’ I objected.
He shrugged.
‘Do you know how much effort it took me to come to the group room with you on the first day?‘ he asked after a while.
‘No, why?’ I replied in puzzlement.
‘You were all sitting there so relaxed. And me? I've just come from a psychiatric ward. From the locked ward. And I've tried to kill myself. I felt like some kind of leper, like a total freak.’
I looked over at Kevin's bed. He was still lying on his back, looking at the ceiling. Now I could vividly imagine how he must have felt on the first day here. His strange behaviour became clearer to me now.
‘Hey, that's not you,’ I said.
‘But that's how I feel, man.’
He paused for a moment and shook his head in despair.
‘Man, I asked you to sleep in my bed because otherwise I can't fall asleep! And this morning you even had to help me take a shower! How am I supposed to feel normal?’
I didn't know what to say, and just shrugged my shoulders helplessly. He was still staring at the ceiling and could only see me out of the corner of his eye at best.
‘But I liked doing it,’ I said after a while. What a totally stupid answer.
‘Yeah, I'm really lucky to live in a room with a gay guy who's hot for me. Anyone else would have probably asked to be moved to another room long ago.’
If I hadn't known how desperate Kevin was at the moment, that sentence would have hurt me.
‘Hey, I did this because I like you, not because I want to sleep with you or because I'm hot for your naked body in the shower,’ I replied.
He looked guiltily over at me, then, sighing, put his hands in front of his face and shook his head.
‘Man, I'm sorry, I'm really a complete idiot,’ he said after a while. ’You're burning the nights here because of me and you're barely getting any sleep, and then I talk such bullshit.’
‘It's okay.’
‘No, it's not. You're the only one here for me. I'm really glad you're here.’
‘Hey, the girls like you too. They would definitely be there for you too. You just have to finally tell them what's going on with you.’
‘Oh come on, they must think I'm a total nutcase by now, the way I've been acting in the last few days.’
‘Just tell them about your brother's accident and how you've been since then. Then they'll surely understand you.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, sure.’
‘I just don't know if I can talk about it,‘ he said after a while.
‘Why don't you try it tomorrow at the group meeting?’ I suggested.
Kevin shrugged.
‘You can do it,’ I encouraged him. “I'll be there too. And maybe you'll feel better afterwards.’
‘Okay,” he finally said.
Chapter 5 – Changes
The night went without a hitch this time. The sleeping pill that Kevin had picked up at the centre before going to bed may not have been entirely innocent. I was finally able to make up for the sleep deficit of the last two nights. If Kevin had nightmares during the night, I didn't notice any of them. I slept soundly the whole time and Kevin couldn't remember any bad dreams in the morning.
Until therapy group in the afternoon, the day seemed to drag on endlessly. I took every opportunity to encourage Kevin to open up in the group today. But when the time finally came, everything turned out quite differently. To make a long story short, the group session was incredibly tough. This was not least due to our psychologist, who could only with difficulty hide her bad mood from the group. After she had made some comments about the previous session that none of us could really relate to, the mood in the room seemed somehow tense. None of us really knew what was going to happen, and we looked at each other shrugging our shoulders more than once. Ms Fröschl's recurring question of who would like to say something led only to more or less inconsequential comments from the group. It was only too understandable that Kevin was unable to open up in this atmosphere.
At some point, the hour and a half was finally over.
‘That was pretty tough today,’ Frau Fröschl said at the end. ’Hopefully it will be better next week when there are six of you. Your missing group member will arrive at the weekend after all. Maybe you can pick him up from the train station on Sunday so you can get to know him a little better right away. Otherwise it will be just as slow here on Monday as it was today.’
She told us to let the reception know if we wanted a lift to the station in the VW bus. When she had left, we stayed in the room for a while. Kevin hung his head and was annoyed with himself.
‘Hey, then on Monday,’ I tried to cheer him up.
‘Great, if there's a new guy there that I don't know as well as you guys, it's guaranteed to be a bust again,‘ he replied dejectedly.
‘What's going on?’ asked Gudrun, who had heard us.
‘Oh, Kevin actually wanted to talk today,’ I replied.
Gudrun looked sympathetically at Kevin.
‘And then, of all times, Fröschl has to come here and spread such a bad mood,‘ she said sympathetically.
Nadine and Christina had joined us by now.
‘Somehow I don't like Fröschl,’ Nadine said.
‘Not only you,’ I replied. ’I have the feeling that we all feel that way.’
I received nods of agreement.
‘Do you think you can talk if it's just the five of us together?‘ Gudrun asked Kevin after a while.
He shrugged his shoulders.
Without further ado, Gudrun took the initiative.
‘Are you all coming with me?’ she asked us.
Without knowing exactly what she had in mind, we followed her out to the lift. We went to the top floor. There was only one large room with several seating areas and a large glass front that offered a view of the flat roof of the clinic building. A door led out onto a roof terrace. In winter, hardly anyone came here. Only occasionally did a few smokers come up to satisfy their addiction on the terrace. Since it was cold and uncomfortable outside, they also preferred the two lounges where smoking was allowed today. Apart from us, the room and the terrace were therefore completely deserted.
We sat down at one of the tables. Kevin took a seat between Gudrun and me on a reasonably comfortable sofa, while Nadine and Christina settled down on two armchairs.
‘Make yourself comfortable first,’ Gudrun said. “Take your time, Kevin, you don't have to start talking right away. And if it doesn't work, it's okay, okay?’
Kevin nodded gratefully.
‘And tell us if there's anything we can do to help, okay?” Gudrun continued.
‘I'll be fine. I just don't know where to start,‘ Kevin replied.
‘Do you want me to take your hand?’ Gudrun asked him.
He nodded and stretched out his right hand towards her. She clasped it with both of her hands and Kevin smiled gratefully at her. When I put my hand on his shoulder as well, he seemed to be ready to start.
‘My brother died recently. His name was Marco and he was 16, almost two years younger than me,’ he began hesitantly with his account. He talked in detail about the bike ride. The two brothers had been very close and often did things together. After the accident happened, Kevin had immediately administered first aid. Just a few weeks earlier, he had completed a course for his driving licence. Marco had only been conscious for a short time. Kevin reported how he had then desperately waited for a car on the road with little traffic and how he had finally stood in the middle of the road to force a driver to stop. The driver had immediately called the emergency doctor with his mobile phone, but then stood around rather uninvolved while Kevin continued to take care of his brother. The time until the ambulance arrived must have seemed like an eternity to Kevin. When the paramedics finally arrived, Kevin initially felt an immense sense of relief. He then travelled in the ambulance and at some point on the way to the hospital, the emergency doctor informed him that his brother had succumbed to his serious injuries. At that moment, Kevin's world must have completely collapsed, because from that point on, he could hardly remember anything clearly. He only had a hazy memory of his parents' arrival at the clinic.
When Kevin had finished this part of his report, tears ran down his face. I stroked his shoulder and Gudrun gently stroked the back of his hand. The other two looked at him sympathetically. Christina also had tears in her eyes.
It took Kevin a while to compose himself again and continue his story.
He hardly said anything about the time immediately after Marco's death. I had the feeling that he could hardly describe the state he was in after his brother's death with words anyway. Instead, he talked a little about his suicide attempt and the time in the psychiatric ward. When he was finished, he sat with his head hanging.
‘Hey, you did it,‘ I whispered to him and gently brushed the hair out of his face.
He looked at me and managed a pained smile.
‘Do you feel better now?’ I asked cautiously.
He shrugged.
‘Kind of. Well, I don't know yet.’
I patted him on the shoulder.
‘Come on, get up,’ I said quietly. ’There are a few people who want to give you a hug for now.’
We all stood up and hugged Kevin in turn. That seemed to do him a lot of good. He was really touched and didn't know what to say. After that, we sat together for quite a while and felt like a real group for the first time, with everyone there for each other.
We also spent the whole evening together. Although we spent that evening playing board games again, this time the feeling I had was completely different. For the first time, I had the impression of sitting at the table with real friends.
When I went back to our room with Kevin, it was already past midnight. I was a little worried about how Kevin would survive the night without a sleeping pill. The day had been quite upsetting for him, though it had a happy ending.
‘Are you afraid of the night?’ I asked him as we sat on our beds.
He just shrugged.
‘Hey, I'm here if you need help, okay?’ I said. “You can wake me up if you want.’
‘Okay,” he replied. Nevertheless, he seemed a little down again.
So while he was in the bathroom, I made a decision. At first I had planned to push our beds together, but I found that they were bolted to the wall. So I cleared the table and chairs to the side. The free floor space was large enough for our two mattresses. When Kevin came out of the bathroom, the two mattresses were lying next to each other on the floor. He stopped in amazement.
‘What do you think?‘ I asked him.
He couldn't help grinning.
‘Come on,’ I urged him. I wasn't sure if I had done the right thing.
‘If you have to get the doctor for me again tonight, we'll have a problem,’ he replied after a while.
His sense of humour had returned, if only for a brief moment.
‘If you don't like it or it makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, we won't do it,‘ I said.
‘No, it's fine,’ he replied.
After I had also been to the bathroom, we lay down on the two mattresses, close to each other, but of course each under his own blanket. It wasn't long before we were both asleep.
Sometime during the night I woke up. My alarm clock was still lying next to my bed. From where I was lying on the mattress on the floor, I couldn't see it. Kevin was sleeping restlessly. I heard him quietly call for his brother in his sleep. He seemed to be having a nightmare again. Should I wake him up? Or just let him sleep and hope that he wouldn't remember anything when he woke up? I decided on the second alternative. Anxiously, I stayed in bed and watched Kevin's movements under the duvet. After a while, he seemed to calm down a bit. Just when I thought he would soon be sleeping peacefully again, he opened his eyes with a loud sigh.
‘Are you okay?’ I whispered to him.
He turned to me and looked at me in the darkness.
‘I'm fine,’ he said quietly.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it wasn't so bad this time.’
‘You were calling for your brother in your sleep.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, a few times. I thought you were going to wake up. But then you calmed down a bit.’
‘I can hardly remember the dream.’
‘Be glad!’
‘I am.’
‘Do you think you can go back to sleep?’
Kevin shrugged.
‘What time is it?’ he wanted to know.
‘I don't know, I can't see the alarm clock.’
‘It doesn't matter.’
‘Try to go back to sleep, okay?’
I saw him nod in the dark. He turned on his side and turned his back to me. I was about to close my eyes again to try to get some sleep too when he slid his back closer to me. He came to the edge of his mattress. Without saying a word, I moved over to him and put an arm around his body. I felt him snuggle up close to me. Eventually, we both fell asleep again.
When we woke up in the morning, it was already just after nine o'clock. Kevin didn't seem to have had any more nightmares.
‘It's time we put the mattresses back in the beds,’ was one of the first things he said. Was he a little embarrassed about the whole thing by now?
Normally, the cleaning staff came to the rooms sometime after nine. You could hang the ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the outside of the door handle, but we had forgotten to do so. So, before we even got dressed, we tidied up the room and put the table and chairs back in their usual places.
Chapter 6 – Thomas
The weekend was uneventful until Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, Kevin seemed to be doing better and better. I had the impression that he now felt really comfortable in the group. At least he no longer made any effort to withdraw. The girls had taken him into their hearts anyway since our private therapy session on Friday. He could hardly escape consoling hugs and various other displays of affection if he looked downhearted for even a moment.
On Sundays, after lunch, we all went to the reception desk together. There, they informed Mr Schwarz, the caretaker, that we wanted to go to the train station to pick up our new group member. The train would arrive shortly after one o'clock. We waited on one of the seating areas until the caretaker finally showed up.
‘Do you all want to come?’ he asked in astonishment when he saw us.
‘Well, I can't possibly take more than two or three of you with me. I haven't installed the back bench yet.’
The decision as to which of us should come with him was not difficult. Since the new group member was male, Kevin and I would form the first welcoming committee.
‘Well, come with me then, you two,’ said the caretaker. He was the first clinic employee to simply use the informal “du” form of address. I wished the rest of the staff were as relaxed and not so professionally aloof. We squeezed into the wide passenger seat next to Mr Schwarz in the VW bus and drove off.
‘Normally, our patients don't arrive almost a week late,‘ he said after turning from the car park onto the main road.
‘We don't know why he's only coming today either. Do you know what happened?’ I wanted to know.
‘No idea, they don't tell me things like that. All I know is that I'm supposed to pick someone up from the station at 1:07 p.m.’
The rest of the way, the caretaker entertained us with not-quite-house-trained jokes. He seemed like a really nice guy. Well, maybe I would have to change my mind if he ever started making jokes about gays. Fortunately, he spared us that. I estimated him to be in his early 50s. When I addressed him again formally, he said, ‘You can call me “Du”. I'm not particular about that. My name is Ludwig.’
After about 20 minutes we had reached the city and the train station.
‘Do you know which platform the train arrives on?’ I asked the caretaker before we got off.
‘No, you'll have to check for yourselves. But there are only three platforms anyway. And on a Sunday like today, there's hardly anything going on. You can't really miss it. Just go in. I'll wait here.’
Kevin and I got out and entered the station building. It was indeed just a typical small-town train station. The saleswoman in the small newspaper kiosk sat bored at the checkout. Only a few guests had found their way into the small station bar. However, these seemed to be more regulars than travellers. The station as a whole gave a somewhat rundown impression. Obviously, the Deutsche Bahn AG station modernisation programme had not yet reached this far. We stepped out onto the platform through a creaking swinging door. There was not a soul in sight far and wide. You almost got the impression that a train only arrived here every few weeks. There was a timetable on a board. The train would arrive here on platform 1 in about ten minutes. At least if it was on time.
‘I'm curious to see what kind of guy he is, the new one,’ Kevin said.
‘We'll see soon enough.’
‘I'd really like to know why he's only coming today.’
I shrugged.
‘Maybe he'll tell us.’
We paced up and down the platform for a while. It was quite windy in the open. At least it wasn't as cold as it had been a few days ago. A hood would have been nice now, not just because of the cold. I hadn't worn one of my hooded sweatshirts since Wednesday. Somehow I had never been in the right mood to do so and today I just hadn't thought of it. At some point we actually heard a train coming. Half a minute later, an ancient diesel locomotive pulled a four-car local train into the station. The brakes squealed and the first car came to a halt right in front of our noses. A few doors opened. It was hard to believe, but several people actually got off in this wasteland. Right in front of us, a couple with two small children got off the train, and a little further back, an elderly gentleman with a cane struggled out of one of the other doors.
‘Do you see a boy our age anywhere?’ I asked Kevin.
‘No, maybe this is the wrong train.’
‘There won't be another one for an hour.’
Kevin craned his neck and looked past the people getting off to the end of the train.
‘Hey, look over there. That one could be it,’ he suddenly shouted.
I turned around and saw a boy who was just lifting a travel bag and two bags out of the rearmost door of the last carriage and putting them down on the platform.
‘Yes, that must be him,‘ I said.
We started to move and ran towards the boy. He had put his luggage down next to him and was lighting a cigarette.
‘A smoker, too, what a shame,’ I murmured, somewhat disillusioned. Fortunately, our group had so far only consisted of non-smokers.
‘I bet he's gay,‘ Kevin suddenly said.
‘Hey, how would you know?’ I asked back, somewhat annoyed.
‘Just a feeling.’
The newcomer looked at us as we approached him. He was about 1.75 m tall and had short, light blonde hair. He had a piercing in one eyebrow and was also wearing earrings. He seemed to be our age, maybe a little younger. His face looked quite feminine. Somehow he looked a bit like some people imagine a gay man to look like. But he wasn't necessarily my type.
‘Hey, are you here for me?‘ he wanted to know.
‘If you want to go to the clinic in Bad Neuheim, then yes,’ Kevin replied.
‘Yes, that's where I'm supposed to go.’
He took his cigarette in his left hand and then held out his right to us one after the other.
‘Hi, I'm Thomas,’ he said with a friendly smile. ’Thomas Hübner.’
We shook his hand and told him our names as well.
‘Well, come with me,‘ I finally invited him.
‘Hey, take it easy,’ he replied. ‘Let me finish smoking first.’
I took a look at his luggage. The duffel bag wasn't particularly big and the two plastic bags weren't exactly full either.
‘Is that all your luggage?‘ I wanted to know.
He shrugged.
‘Yes, why?’
We smiled at him involuntarily. That seemed to embarrass him a little.
‘Well, I don't have much more clothes,’ he said a little shyly.
‘Hey, it doesn't matter. There are washing machines in the clinic,’ I replied.
Apparently he didn't come from as wealthy a background as Kevin and I. It wasn't a problem though. After all, neither of us could help having such rich parents either. I hoped that he didn't think I was arrogant because of my careless question.
Even though he didn't have much clothing in his luggage, he at least seemed to have good taste in fashion, although it didn't completely match my own. He was wearing light grey cargo pants, a dark V-neck sweater and a fashionable winter jacket, the latter, to my disappointment, without a hood. Well, he wasn't my type anyway.
When he had stubbed out his cigarette, he reached for his bags and we walked along the platform towards the station building. I offered to take some of the luggage from him, and he handed me the two bags.
‘Why are you only coming today?’ Kevin asked curiously.
‘Oh, it's a long story, I'll tell you later, okay?’
‘Yeah, sure. Get to know the rest of our group first,‘ I replied.
‘What group?’ he asked in puzzlement and stopped.
‘We're in a group with you, and there are three girls in our group too. We have a therapy session together four times a week and often hang out together,’ Kevin explained.
‘Ah so, I have no idea how this works here.’
‘Well, you'll see. It's not that bad,’ I said. “Now come on. Ludwig is waiting.’
‘Who is Ludwig?’
‘The caretaker,” Kevin replied.
We had now reached the exit of the station building and I pointed outside through the glazed swinging door.
‘He's in the VW bus,’ I said.
Ludwig had already spotted us and was getting out of the car. He opened the sliding side door. Without wasting any time on empty greetings, he told Thomas to put his bag behind the bench seat. I put the plastic bags next to it and then got on the bus behind Thomas. I sat down next to him on the back seat, while Kevin got back in on the passenger side.
‘Is it far to the clinic?‘ Thomas wanted to know.
‘About 15 kilometres, we'll be there in 20 minutes,’ Ludwig replied from the front.
During the journey, we prepared Thomas a little for what awaited him from now on. He didn't seem to have informed himself much about the clinic and what went on there. When he finally stood in front of the entrance door with us, holding his bag, he looked a little helpless.
‘What happens now?’ He asked uncertainly.
‘First to reception,’ I replied.
While the caretaker set the VW bus in motion again behind us and steered it to its usual parking space, Thomas, Kevin and I hesitantly entered the entrance hall. We saved ourselves the trouble of having to get one of the luggage trolleys for his meagre belongings. At the reception, Thomas was immediately greeted warmly by a clinic employee. I looked around for the girls and spotted them around the corner in the cafeteria. After I waved at them, they came over curiously. Thomas had meanwhile received his room key. Since he had not arrived on the normal day of arrival, he was spared the rest of the welcome programme.
The girls examined him curiously and shook his hand one after the other. At the station and on the way here, Thomas had made a very self-confident impression, but now the unfamiliar situation seemed to intimidate him quite a bit. Uncertainly, he introduced himself to the girls. He seemed really frightened by Nadine's appearance. It was all too clear to see that this was not his world. Well, it hadn't been any different for me at the beginning either.
‘Let's take your bags upstairs first,‘ I said to Thomas after he had shaken hands with the girls.
‘Okay,’ he replied gratefully.
‘We'll be in the cafeteria if Thomas wants some company,’ Gudrun told us, and then she went back to the table with Christina and Nadine, where various cups and glasses were still waiting for the three of them.
Thomas entered the lift with Kevin and me, and we went up to the second floor.
‘Man, what's up with that one? What was her name again? Nadine?‘ Thomas wanted to know after the lift doors had closed and we were alone. Nadine's appearance seemed to have shocked him.
‘Never seen an anorexic before?’ Kevin asked in return.
Thomas shook his head.
The lift doors opened again and we stepped out into the corridor. I pointed to the door on the opposite wall.
‘This is where our group therapy always takes place. It starts for you tomorrow at 3 p.m.’
Thomas nodded thoughtfully. He now seemed to have completely lost track.
‘Man, show me my room first. It's all getting too much for me here.’
We walked down the corridor. Thomas‘ room was diagonally opposite our own. It was the last one in the corridor. He unlocked the door and entered. The single rooms, all on the right side of the corridor, were not quite as spacious as the double rooms. They also lacked a balcony.
‘I need a cigarette first,’ Thomas groaned after putting down his bag.
‘Smoking is not allowed in the room. And unfortunately you don't have a balcony,‘ I replied.
‘So where can you smoke here?’
‘Hmm, I think there are smoking rooms on the ground floor and in the basement.’
‘Or up on the roof, outside, on the terrace,’ Kevin added.
‘Great,’ Thomas groaned, annoyed.
‘Come on, we'll go upstairs, at least it's quiet there,‘ I suggested.
Thomas just left his luggage in the middle of the room and locked his room again. Then we walked back to the lift.
‘Normally half a pack a day is enough for me, but today I think I've already smoked a whole packet,’ Thomas told us on the way.
‘Shall I get the girls? Then we can make ourselves comfortable upstairs later,‘ I asked him.
He seemed a little embarrassed.
‘Well, uh, if you don't mind... uh, well, I'd be quite happy to stay among ourselves for now, the three of us, I mean,’ he stammered.
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘As you like,‘ I replied.
‘Somehow it's all getting to be too much for me at once,’ he said apologetically.
‘It's okay,’ Kevin appeased him.
Since the lift was not there at the moment, we walked up the two flights of stairs. Once again, we were the only ones who had come up here. The three of us stood at the front of the roof terrace. From here, there was a fantastic view over the clinic car park and the adjacent area. Well, to be honest, there really wasn't anything particularly interesting to see. Thomas lit a cigarette.
‘Do you want one, too?‘ he asked us.
We both shook our heads.
‘Non-smokers,’ I replied curtly.
‘Maybe I should finally quit, too,’ Thomas said thoughtfully. ’These things cost a pretty penny.’
‘Yes, and then we wouldn't have to be out here in the cold either,‘ I replied.
‘Oh, I'm really sorry,’ Thomas said, almost feeling a little guilty. ‘You can wait for me inside if you're cold.’
‘Hey, I was just joking,’ I assured him with a grin.
He grinned back, relieved. We waited in silence until he had finished smoking. Then we went back inside.
‘So, what now?‘ he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘If you want, we can sit here for a while,’ I suggested, pointing to the abandoned seating areas in front of the wide glass front.
He seemed to agree. We took off our jackets and threw them over each other on a chair. Then we sat down at one of the tables. I took a seat on the couch opposite Thomas and took a closer look at him now that he was no longer wearing a jacket. He was quite slender, but not unusually thin either. As my gaze fell on his left wrist, I saw a bandage peeking out from under the sleeve of his sweater. He must have noticed from my expression that I had noticed it, because he reflexively pulled his arm back a bit. I looked at him in shock. He shrugged sadly.
‘Cut the wrist,’ he said quietly.
He raised his left arm a little, supporting his elbow on the armrest of his chair, and pushed back the sleeve of his sweater with his right hand until the bandage around his wrist was fully visible. He turned his hand a few times to the left and right. Apparently, he wanted us to be able to see the bandage from all sides.
‘Well, I just tried. I didn't quite succeed,‘ he added with a sigh.
I didn't know what to say and was grateful that Kevin was responsive.
‘I tried pills, but that didn't work either.’
Thomas looked at him in amazement.
‘Really?’ he asked.
Kevin nodded.
‘And did you really want to die?‘ Thomas cautiously followed up.
‘I think so,’ Kevin replied quietly. ‘And you?’
Thomas just shrugged.
‘Actually, I'm quite glad that I didn't make it after all,’ he said after a while.
‘Meanwhile, I am too,’ Kevin said.
Somehow, Kevin's last sentence had a strange effect on me. I felt my lacrimal glands wanting to produce a few drops of liquid. Subconsciously, I had probably worried the whole time whether Kevin still had suicidal thoughts. His comment just now had sounded so incredibly honest, almost solemn, to me that a huge weight fell from my heart. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hold back the tears. The fear I had felt for Kevin in the last few days was apparently much greater than I had realised. Before I could wipe away my tears, Kevin and Thomas had noticed my emotional outburst.
‘Hey, David, are you all right?‘ Kevin asked, somewhat alarmed.
‘Yes, sure, what's wrong?’ I replied unconvincingly and wiped away the tears with the sleeve of my sweater.
‘Well, it looks like you're crying,’ Kevin replied with a sympathetic smile.
Thomas just sat there, shocked, and had not the slightest idea what was suddenly wrong with me. Kevin came over to me on the sofa, sat down next to me and gently put his arms around me. I laid my head on his shoulder and sobbed. Now, for a change, it was Kevin who stroked me and tried to calm me down. When I had more or less regained control of myself, he wanted to know what had suddenly happened to me. I didn't really know what to answer, but then decided on the truth.
‘I don't know. When you said to Thomas that you were also glad that you were still alive, I just started crying.’
‘Man, you were really worried about me, weren't you?‘ Kevin asked in amazement.
‘I was scared shitless for you,’ I said loudly, looking him in the eye.
He held me again.
‘Hey, you don't need to worry anymore,’ he whispered in my ear.
I don't remember how long Kevin held me in his arms. It was probably only a few seconds. It felt like an eternity. I savoured every single moment. Was I falling in love with him? Even though I knew he wasn't gay? Yes, I loved him. One hundred percent. But somehow more like a brother. As an only child, I had always missed having a sibling. In Kevin, I seemed to have found something of a brother. Nothing more, but nothing less either.
When I finally looked over at Thomas, he looked at us quite taken aback.
‘Are you two a couple?‘ he asked cautiously.
‘Nope, don't worry,’ Kevin replied quickly. ‘David is not taken yet.’
His sense of humour and quick wit surprised me once again. This time, however, I didn't find Kevin's comment particularly funny. After all, he had basically outed me to Thomas. Thomas seemed to have understood Kevin's comment right away.
‘You're gay?‘ he asked me.
‘Yes, and?’ I replied.
‘Wow, I'm really relieved,‘ Thomas replied. “I've been wondering how to tell you guys that I'm gay.’
‘Well, I knew it,” Kevin said, grinning at me.
‘What?’ Thomas asked in puzzlement.
‘Well, when you got off the train, Kevin immediately suspected that you were gay,‘ I explained.
Thomas looked at us, disturbed. His expression suggested that we must have hurt him somehow.
‘Yes, that's why my father hates me so much, because you can tell just by looking at me,’ he said quietly after a while, his head bowed.
‘Hey, I'm sorry, we didn't mean to hurt you,‘ I apologised, shocked.
‘It's not your fault. I actually kind of like the fact that some people immediately think I'm gay. It's just my father...’
He broke off.
‘Is your father to blame for you trying to kill yourself?’ Kevin asked hesitantly.
‘Well, he's definitely not innocent in all of this,‘ Thomas replied. There was almost a hint of hatred in his voice.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘Then come over to the sofa with us, okay?’
Thomas got up, came over and sat down between us. Then he began to tell his story.
He was 17 years old and came from a small village of 2000 people. He went to secondary school in the city 20 kilometres away, when he wasn't skipping school and just hanging around in the city. He didn't seem to get along particularly well with his classmates, which was not least due to his feminine appearance. He was currently repeating the ninth grade and seemed to have been left back earlier as well. He often took the last bus home in the evening. This was because he wanted to avoid his father as much as possible. Gunther Hübner was a master butcher. In contrast to Thomas, he was a rough, muscular guy. Until a few years ago, he had run his own small butcher's shop in Thomas‘ hometown, a long-established family business that Thomas’ great-grandparents had built up. When a supermarket chain opened a branch in the town, business had gone from bad to worse. Eventually, his father had to close the shop. Since then, he had been working a few towns away in a meat-cutting plant. The decline in his career probably took its toll on him. He took his frustrations out on his family more and more often, and not just verbally on Thomas. When he came home drunk from the pub, he sometimes beat him black and blue. Only Thomas' little sister was their father's favourite. She was four years younger than Thomas, and although her father favoured her, Thomas adored her. Thomas' mother was a petite woman who didn't know how to defend herself against her husband and therefore couldn't protect Thomas. As long as Thomas could remember, his father had always found something to criticise in him. Words like “loser” and “weakling” were the most harmless things Thomas ever heard him say.
Thomas had known for several years that he was gay. Three months ago, he had finally met a boy in town and the two had fallen in love. Stefan, that was his friend's name, was half a year older, trained as a nurse and lived in the staff dormitory of the hospital. Since he often had time off during the day due to shift work, the two could meet frequently. At some point, one of Thomas‘ father's regulars must have seen the two of them strolling through town arm in arm. In the presence of Gunther Hübner, he then trumpeted his observations in front of everyone at the regulars’ table, not sparing derogatory comments. When Thomas's father came home that evening, Thomas had received the worst beating of his life so far. He had denied everything and repeatedly insisted that his father's drinking companion must have been mistaken, but of course he hadn't been able to convince his father of this. The next day, Thomas ran away from home. Instead of going to school, he fled to Stefan's and stayed there overnight. This went well for three days, then his father tracked him down. Thomas still doesn't know how his father managed to do that. At some point, his father had been standing downstairs in front of the nurses' residence, waiting for the young lovers to arrive. Thomas still remembers the scene that followed with horror. First, his father had attacked Stefan, calling him the most terrible names and threatening to kill him if he dared to approach his son again. Intimidated and with tears in his eyes, Stefan had fled back into the house at some point, looking at Thomas helplessly and desperately. Then the butcher had driven his son to his car with kicks and punches and brutally pushed him onto the back seat. The next few hours had been one long hell for Thomas. After his father had beaten him black and blue, he locked him in his room. Thomas could hardly move because of the pain and dragged himself with his last ounce of strength to his bed. Hours later, in the middle of the night, in his desperation, he tried to cut his left wrist with his pocket knife. It was probably a half-hearted attempt. When his father finally fell asleep drunk, his mother checked on Thomas, saw the pool of blood and, despite her panic, quietly called the emergency doctor without waking her husband. He finally ended up in the hospital. In addition to the cut on his wrist, he had a broken rib and countless bruises and black and blues.
‘Oh man, you've been through quite a lot,‘ I said sympathetically when Thomas had finished his report. He looked at me with sad eyes and shrugged his shoulders almost indifferently, as if he had just told not about himself, but about someone else.
‘Do you know what's worst?’ he asked after a while.
Kevin and I looked at him, shrugging.
‘That Stefan doesn't want anything to do with me now.’
So far, he had told his story calmly and composedly, but at this sentence, tears welled up in his eyes.
‘I was in the hospital where he works for almost a week. He never came to my room once.’
Now thick drops were flowing down his cheeks.
‘Did he know you were there?‘ I wanted to know.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘No idea,’ he said softly.
‘Well, the way your father intimidated him, he was just scared,’ Kevin said. ’He could have run into your father.’
‘Didn't you try to contact him yourself?‘ I asked.
Thomas just shook his head.
‘You haven't seen him since the day your father ambushed you?’
More shaking of the head.
‘Not even on the phone?’
‘No,’ Thomas replied quietly.
‘Hey, how do you know that he doesn't want anything more from you?’
This time Thomas reacted with a helpless shrug.
‘What actually happened afterwards?’ Kevin wanted to know. ’After you were released from the hospital. Or did you come straight from there?’
Thomas shook his head.
‘No, I was with my grandmother,’ he replied. “At least my father has respect for his mother. He has no say with her.’
There was something of scorn in his voice.
‘She gave him a good telling off when he ruined the butcher's shop,” he continued, grinning maliciously. ’You should have seen him then, so small in his hat.’
He made a corresponding hand gesture with his thumb and index finger.
‘Well, my mother and I had to pay for it again,’ he added sadly. “But it was worth it.’
‘Couldn't your grandmother have helped you sooner?” I asked Thomas.
‘Oh, her...‘ he replied in a somewhat disparaging tone. “She never really took care of us, she just always complained about everything. But all the bruises on my body seemed to have shocked her quite a bit. My mother then said to her: ”Take Thomas to you, Gunther respects you. If Thomas is with you, he won't hurt him.’ Somehow that seemed to have worked.’
‘And how did you get here to the clinic?’ I still wanted to know.
‘Oh, they organised it in the hospital while I was still there. Somehow there's a waiting period before you can finally come here. That's why I had to go to my grandmother's for another two weeks. If it hadn't been for the waiting period, I would have come here straight from the hospital.’
‘Yeah, I had to wait too,‘ I replied.
‘Then why weren't you here on Tuesday?’ Kevin asked.
‘My father is to blame for that again,’ Thomas replied. ’I'm still on his health insurance. He must have terrorised the health insurance company so that they wouldn't pay for it here. At some point they called my grandmother and said that they wouldn't cover the costs. Then we told the doctor at the hospital and he somehow managed to sort it out. Don't ask me what exactly happened. I just know that someone called on Thursday and told my grandma that I could come after all.’
So now we knew the reason for Thomas's delay. And we had learned a lot about him in other ways, too.
Chapter 7 – Even more confessions
After Thomas had told us his story, it was now Kevin and my turn to tell him something about us. We did that outside on the terrace. Thomas urgently needed his next cigarette. We stood in front of the railing, one next to the other, and Thomas listened attentively to Kevin's story.
‘Oh man, I'm really sorry. I feel better about my father beating me up,’ he said sympathetically when Kevin had finished his short report. Then he looked at me.
‘And what about you?’
I shrugged and bowed my head.
‘Well, I have an anxiety disorder. Test anxiety and stuff,‘ I replied. I still had problems just saying these words.
‘But somehow I'm starting to wonder if it's all that important. When I hear what you guys have been through...’ I added quietly.
‘Hey, and I'm starting to get the feeling that you just need a real boyfriend,‘ Kevin suddenly said to me.
I looked at him in amazement and shock. My jaw dropped.
‘What makes you think that?’ I stammered.
‘Just a feeling.’
Ah yes, I had heard that sentence from him before today. Well, at least he was right about that.
‘You should get business cards printed: ‘Kevin Winter, amateur psychologist’,‘ I spat angrily.
‘Oh come on, David. I've already revealed my entire emotional life to you here, now it's your turn,’ Kevin replied.
‘Somehow it's not as easy for me as you think. I don't think anyone understands,’ I replied quietly. I leaned on the terrace railing with my elbows and stared straight down at the car park. I wondered how long it would take for the spit to reach the ground if you spat down here.
Kevin patted me on the back.
‘Come on, just tell me,‘ he said.
‘Man, you and the psychologist were the first people I told that I was gay. Do you know how hard that was for me? Not necessarily with the psychologist, who reacts professionally to such things, but with you.’
‘So what? I reacted pretty cool too, didn't I?’ Kevin replied with a grin.
I smiled at him painfully.
‘Yes, it was really funny,‘ I said angrily.
‘Okay, I promise I won't put on a show this time, no matter what you have to tell.’
‘All right,’ I said softly. Then I looked over at Thomas.
‘Would you rather be left alone?’ He asked.
I shook my head.
‘No, stay here, maybe then at least one of you will understand me.’
‘Don't keep us in suspense,‘ Kevin said.
I took a deep breath.
‘Okay, there's something I've never told anyone,’ I started.
The two looked at me expectantly. I had no idea how to start. After a while, I took a deep breath.
‘I'm really into hoodies,’ I just said. I wasn't sure if I had just thought the words or actually said them. Furtively, I first looked to the right at Kevin, then to the left at Thomas, waiting for some kind of reaction. I had completely lost track of time. How many hours had passed since I said that sentence?
‘Yeah, and is that all?‘ I heard from the right at some point.
I turned around and looked Kevin in the face.
‘Hey, did you not understand me right?’ I asked him. ‘I think clothes with a hood are cool! Not just cool, but really cool!’
Kevin shrugged.
‘Well, so what? What's so bad about it?’
‘Hey, that's not normal, is it?’ I said. ’I almost died of horniness when you had that hood on Wednesday.’
I pointed to the hood of Kevin's snowboard jacket. My pulse was racing.
‘Come on, calm down first,‘ Kevin said calmly and put his arm around my shoulder.
‘Do you want a cigarette after all?’ Thomas asked from the other side and held out his pack of Marlboros.
I shook my head without realising that he was just joking, of course.
‘Oh well,’ he said, taking another cigarette out of the pack instead.
We stood in silence for a while, with our backs to the railing. While Thomas inhaled nicotine-filled smoke with relish, I listened to the wild pounding of my heart. At some point, it was Thomas who turned to me.
‘Hey, David, there are others who like leather. Or dirty trainers. Or sweaty tennis socks. Or nappies,‘ he tried to reassure me.
‘You obviously know about that.’
‘Hey, everyone knows that.’
‘So what? It still makes me feel abnormal.’
‘What is normal?’ Thomas replied.
That seemed to settle the matter for him. There was a silence for a while.
‘David?’ Kevin asked cautiously at some point.
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you have any idea where it comes from?’
‘What?’
‘Well, the hoods.’
I shrugged.
‘No idea. Somehow it's been like that for as long as I can remember. Even as a small child, I always found it totally unpleasant when it rained and I had to put on a hood. But somehow I always found it pretty exciting, though. Oh, shit, I don't know how to explain it to you.’
Man, what a mess of nonsense I was talking.
‘Guys, can we change the subject again?‘ I begged.
‘Hey, you don't have to be so embarrassed about that,’ Kevin replied.
‘But I am.’
‘Come on, man, lighten up,’ Kevin urged me. ’You'd think you'd confessed something to us.’
Thomas had already lit his third cigarette. He must have thought he had landed right in the insane asylum. But actually he seemed quite calm and relaxed. Was I really the only one who found my weird tendency so strange? Or did the two of them just not take me seriously? I wish I had kept my secret to myself!
‘If you really like hoods so much, why doesn't your down jacket have one?‘ Kevin wanted to know. Couldn't he just leave the subject alone?
‘It does,’ I answered reluctantly. I turned my back to him and folded up the collar a little so that he could see the Velcro fastener behind my neck.
‘Ah, in there,’ I heard Kevin's voice from behind. “So you like emergency hoods too.’
So he called these things emergency hoods. Oh man, the situation was slowly getting completely out of control.
‘Yes, especially those,” I replied quietly.
‘That's gross!’
‘Man, that's what I've been saying the whole time.’
At that moment, I heard the typical sound that occurs when opening a Velcro fastener.
‘Hey Kevin, cut the crap,’ I shouted in shock, but it was already too late. Kevin was already taking the thin hood out of the collar.
‘Oh come on David, there's nothing wrong with it.’
With an annoyed expression on my face, I glanced over my shoulder at Kevin. Of course, I could have just turned around and given Kevin a harmless push in the ribs, and the game would have been over. So I just let him do it. Memories of a scene from my childhood flashed through my mind. Wasn't there something in first or second grade on a school trip?
Kevin pulled the thin hood over my head from behind and, to make matters worse, pulled the cord so tight that the hood almost covered my eyes. Somehow I found the situation quite embarrassing. On the other hand, I had to admit that I liked the game too. I guessed that Kevin knew that too. When he was done, he patted me on the shoulder. With the hood on my head, I turned to him.
‘What was that for?‘ I asked him.
He shrugged.
‘I thought you might like it,’ he said with a slight grin.
Well, he wasn't entirely wrong.
Thomas was just putting out his cigarette. He didn't seem particularly impressed by the whole thing.
‘Well, I think we can go back inside now,’ he said.
A little relieved, I pushed the hood off my head as we walked back through the door into the clinic. The subject was closed for now and we went down to the girls, who were still waiting for us in the cafeteria.