His eyes scan my collection of crystals as he takes a seat. I sit next to him.
I stay quiet. Not because I don’t have anything to say, but to see what he does with it.
Silence is delicate. It goes against how we’re wired. Most people rush to fill it. A joke, a comment about the weather, anything to make it stop feeling like a mirror.
I watch Tom. Is he nervous? Maybe. But if he is, he hides it well. It fascinates me because mastering the art of concealment doesn’t come naturally. It’s something learned through pain.
“How do you feel today?” I ask eventually.
“You have a lot of those…” he nods at the bookcase where I’ve arranged my crystals and gemstones in the order of the rainbow.
I take a purple crystal from the shelf and place it in Tom’s hands.
“This is an amethyst. It’s meant to calm the mind, bring inner peace. If you want, you can hold it while we talk.”
Tom’s fingers graze the sharp hexagonal edges.
“They’re beautiful.” There’s a trace of skepticism beneath his words. Still, he’s smart enough not to comment on it. His eyes are avoiding me. Maybe because he knows it’s time to talk?
No answer to how he’s feeling today. Fine.
I open my notebook, setting the pen to paper before I speak. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask,” he says. “I can’t promise an answer.”
“I read your file,” I say calmly. “It mentioned substance abuse. Alcohol. Drugs.” I give him a moment to process. “I know that’s something you’ve struggled with. Do you still?”
“You’re not really asking.” He grins. “You already know the answer.”
“Knowing and hearing it from you aren’t the same thing.”
For a moment, I think he won’t answer. He’s staring through the shutters now, watching the world outside of this room pass by. But then he turns back to me.
“I haven’t touched anything since… since my heart stopped.”
He presses his thumbs into the amethyst’s rough hexagon structure. Then he sets it down on my glass coffee table.
“Just get to the point, no need for the velvet gloves. Ask me if I’m an addict.”
“Are you an addict?”
He folds his arms defensively. “I don't know. I watched my father go down that road, and I did everything in my power to make sure I wouldn’t end up like him. I only drank and used on weekends. That was the rule. And yeah, it was fucking hard all those times I wanted to numb myself during the week. But I didn’t give in. I still won't give in.”
My fingers tense around my pen. How many times had I tried to hold on to that rule myself? And how many times had I failed? Too many to count.
“I get why you fight it. And I don’t know many people who can hold on to that kind of control. But the fact that you have to keep fighting the urge, over and over, tells me something isn’t right. You have this constant battle happening inside you, even when you think you’re in control.”
I watch him struggle with that realization.
“You said you feel the need to numb yourself. Why is that?”
“It’s this thing I callthe silence,” he whispers. “It comes in the middle of the night. Pain in my stomach, I can barely breathe, and my head feels like it’s about to explode. It’s like I’m so fucking trapped in that silence.”
He continues with a shaky voice. “During the day, I keep myself busy with work, family, the noise of Amsterdam. But right after midnight? It’s like playing the floor is lava in the depths of hell.”
That’s one way to describe a panic attack.
I hook my fingers over the edge of my notebook. He’s getting all honest now.
