Shame

short story

SOME PEOPLE PICK THEIR noses or bite their nails. I place one finger on my neck for a few seconds. Usually I just want to see if my heart is racing at all but when I’m feeling really anxious I have to look at the long dial on my watch and count the beats for fifteen seconds. My parents didn’t notice this quirk when I was a kid and by the time I got to middle school it was too late. The thing had fully metastasized.

My dad, a heart surgeon, kept his old medical textbooks in his office. Medical Diagnosis and Treatment was my favorite. I learned about things like congenital heart defects and atrial fibrillation. Ventricular, atrial, paroxysmal, persistent, I memorized it all. Soon enough I was experiencing the telltale signs. Shooting pains in my left arm, stabbing pains in my chest, heart palpitations, numbness in my face. They call it somatic symptom disorder. You focus too much on the sensations in your body and start to think that you’re sick. Common comorbidity: panic attacks. Let me tell you, not a good combo. Going to the emergency room feels like the only solution. I made sure my parents understood that.

Dad, I feel like I’m dying.

This only has to be real once dad. Please.

I’m not going to sleep. I can’t sleep. Let’s go.

Blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, EKGs, echocardiograms, full metabolic panels. My beloved ritual.

Every time we left the ER I felt high as a kite. Imagine the relief of finding out that you’re not going to die. Now squeeze it into a pill that you can take whenever you feel anxious. That’s what the ER was to me. I didn’t get some kind of twisted enjoyment from driving my parents crazy. I really thought that I was dying. They took me to all kinds of therapies and treatments. CBT, EMDR, equine therapy, hot yoga. Hot yoga with goats. My dad didn’t mind paying as long as I stopped embarrassing him in front of his colleagues. In the end only one thing ended up helping. Simple exercise.

In high school I joined track and field. I didn’t like it. Running raised my heart rate which made the panic set in. I had to learn to reason.

Max heart rate at 16, 200. Safety margin, let’s say 20%. 160. Stay at 160 and we’re good.

I did more calculations in my first week on the track than I did in math class. After a few weeks I was in tune enough with my body to know when to slow down. The rituals stopped. Needless to say I didn’t set any records. As painful and embarrassing as running was, it kept my compulsion at bay.

IN MY FIRST SEMESTER at UCLA I met this guy named Ethan. We had a lot in common, attitude and all. He was a pre-law major and I was a literature major. Then I was pre-law and he switched to literature. We spent long nights in the quad talking about what both of us wanted to do with our lives. He did most of the talking.

You’re obsessed with me aren’t you. It’s okay, just admit it.

Yes, I was obsessed. No, I’m not gay. I like women as much as the next guy. And, no, I’m not one of those repressed part-time gays.

We love putting each other in boxes, don’t we. As soon as you start letting others do that to you? Your life is over. Mark my words. Done.

There’s a lot of people who would agree with me. Some of them are the same people that put out your fires and make your laws and defend you in court. They do all these things knowing that one day someone like Ethan might wander into their lives and they’ll have to make a choice. The choice between being a bigshot lawyer and being a gay guy in a suit. I made my decision a while ago.

Ethan transferred to Stanford after our first year.

THE COMPULSION RETURNED FOR a while. Wherever I was, it was by my side. Waiting to talk to a professor. On the bus. Brushing my teeth. The next few years were rough. All the nurses at the nearby emergency clinic learned my name. Running didn’t help anymore. I started doing the things you aren’t supposed to do to keep your heart healthy. Binge drinking and smoking. These helped.

On my twenty-first birthday my dad called me and told me to come out to the parking lot. He was waiting for me with a brand new race bike. Carbon fiber wheels, fifteen pounds, wireless gear shifter. I told him that I didn’t need a new hobby and that he should take it back. He wouldn’t have it.

Are you kidding me? Do you know how much this thing cost me? You’re going to take it and you’re going to stop sitting inside all day.

As much as I hate to say it, that bike turned out to be the best gift I’ve ever gotten. There’s this trail that goes across our campus. White Lines, that’s what we call it. I go all the way down, take a ten minute break, and go back. My compulsion has been dormant for a while now but sometimes a headline flashes in front of my eyes while mid ride.

UCLA Cyclist, 23, Dead From Sudden Cardiac Arrest.

In the past I would pull over but now I just keep going. If I died, I think that people would say that I died doing what I loved and that thought makes me happy.

I know how all of this sounds. Heavy, right? I know. Here’s a question though. Can you do five miles in ten minutes? Let’s see it. Get on a bike. Any bike. Three gears, twelve gears, cruiser, whatever. How about five in twelve? Five in fifteen? You know why you can’t? Because you’ve never had to choose.