Chapter Ninety-Five
"Lucky, I want you to help me construct a timeline. Let's sit down at the table."
Lucky glanced at Kevin with a quizzical look on his face and shrugged. "Whatever," he replied as he sat down in a chair and rested his chin in his palms.
Kevin placed a piece of paper on the table with two markers. He placed an "X" at the far left end of the sheet of paper and wrote "Return - April 2000." He gestured toward the paper with the capped marker. "I want to place some of your memories on a timeline," he explained, "Starting with the date of your return from your kidnapping. I placed a mark and a date there. Now, I want you to mark for me the date that you left home to move into your own apartment."
Lucky picked up a black marker and wrote "June 2000," making a "X" above it. He set the marker back down and impassively looked at Kevin.
Kevin nodded. "Okay, now the date of Stefan's murder."
Lucky jerked back and frowned. His left hand betrayed a tremor and he carefully sat on it, willing it to stop. "I don't know," he said hesitantly. "Sometime in 2000."
"Was it before or after June?" Kevin prompted.
"I'm not sure," replied Lucky. He chewed on his lower lip while he thought. "After?" he questioned.
"How much later?" Kevin questioned.
Lucky stared down at the table, seemingly memorizing the whirls and regular, circular patterning of the wood grain topping the table's surface. He sighed and rubbed his forehead with irritation. "I don't know," he admitted reluctantly. Lucky felt a twist of uneasiness rising within him, and his leg began a frantic dance under the table.
"What was the date of your father's arrest?" Kevin asked, his eyes searching Lucky's.
Lucky looked away and down at the floor. A small, apologetic smile flickered briefly across Lucky's face and disappeared quickly. He shrugged, but didn't say anything. A silent minute crawled by. Lucky's index finger rubbed along the wood grain of the table, tracing it over and over until the oil from his hand left a smudge on the shiny surface. He blinked rapidly, then held his head in his hands.
Kevin remained quiet, allowing Lucky to think and react.
Finally, Lucky spoke, "It was cold," he choked out in an emotion-filled voice. Lucky shook his head. "It was dark, so it was night. Night's cold," he said out loud to prompt himself. Lucky's face turned red, and he made small, choking sounds as his emotions threatened to run away with him. "I don't feel so good," he complained to Kevin in a soft voice. "My head feels dizzy." The piece of paper with the markings on it began to blur slightly in his vision as his focus began drifting away from the room.
Lucky suddenly jumped to his feet and staggered a few steps to the right. He frantically reached out for the books in Kevin's bookcase, trying to ground himself by rubbing them and feeling the varied heights and textures of the books. He heard a distant, murmuring sound as his right knee fell to the floor. Lucky's eyes glazed over as he began floating away from himself, becoming entombed in an endless sea of gray foamy clouds where there was no sight, sound or memory.
Kevin watched as Lucky raced from the table and rapidly fell into a dissociative state after his series of questions about the timing of Stefan's death and the arrest of Luke. Kevin rapidly walked over to Lucky, bending to lift him from his kneeling position on the floor and dragging him over to his couch. He sat an insensible Lucky down on the couch and squatted down in front of him, noting the faraway, glazed look that invaded the boy's eyes. Kevin waved a hand over Lucky's face, but the boy didn't flinch or react to the movement. He spent the next ten minutes talking to Lucky and holding his hand, trying to make the connection that would bring him back to the present reality, but was unsuccessful in eliciting a response. Kevin glanced at his watch. He had thirty minutes before his next appointment and decided to leave Lucky alone for awhile to see if he'd snap out of it on his own.
Kevin sighed as he sat down in his chair. He leaned his forehead onto his palm for a moment. Lucky's case was easily the most challenging one he'd had in his practice to date. There were so many layers to the mystery of Lucky's history and psyche, and they all refused to reveal themselves simultaneously. Sometimes Kevin felt like one of those Indian snake charmers, blowing in an instrument and waving it over the basket as the cobra slowly rose and revealed itself. Only, Kevin had no idea how many snakes were still left in the basket. It seemed like every time Lucky would stabilize and make good progress, there would be another mystery to unravel, like a puzzle with the crucial pieces missing in action, hidden in a wayward box or accidentally discarded into the trash. Kevin raised his head and glanced over at the couch when he heard a movement. Lucky was now resting on his side, protectively curled up into himself physically and mentally.
As difficult as Lucky's case was, Kevin was inspired by how hard Lucky had worked to get back to mental health and how brave he had been in facing multiple traumas. "I think you have one more trauma left to explore, Lucky," said Kevin sadly as he made a few notations in Lucky's folder.
~*~*~*~
Twenty minutes later…
Lucky sat up with a startled, strangled cry. "Where am I?" he asked breathlessly as his hands nervously explored the leather surface of Kevin's couch. Lucky shook his head to try to clear it and ran a weary hand over his tense face.
Kevin walked around his desk and sat down beside Lucky. "You dissociated about thirty minutes ago, and I wasn't able to break through to you, so I let you ride it out on this couch," he explained.
"What?" said Lucky with confusion marring his voice. "What happened?"
"We were constructing a timeline of events after you returned from your kidnapping. You were having difficulty in recalling important memories, grew agitated and then dissociated," said Kevin. Kevin remained silent for a minute to allow the information to absorb into Lucky's brain.
"I don't understand," said Lucky sadly. "I thought I wasn't supposed to do that anymore, that I was all better."
"You are better," agreed Kevin. "In this case I think you have some repressed memories that are coming through your dreams. Obviously, there is something that you're not comfortable looking at or talking about. Does that make sense to you?" Kevin's brown eyes explored Lucky's face, but Lucky showed no reaction and looked away, not meeting Kevin's gaze.
"I don't know. Maybe," Lucky conceded in a strained tone. His right knee shook repeatedly, and he started chewing on a torn cuticle on his index finger. His posture was slumped and defeated, attesting to his emotional uncertainty and disappointment.
Kevin rested his hand gently on Lucky's arm to gain his attention. "Lucky, I know it's a sore subject with you, but I'd like to use hypnosis again to access those repressed memories. You'll only be free of your dreams and other uneasy feelings if you expose them to the light."
Lucky shook his head as his eyes filled with tears of protest and fear. "And what part of me will be destroyed now?" he asked tearfully. "I've already had my…my… my innocence taken away. What am I going to do? What else did I lose?" Lucky spit out the last words and wrapped his arms around his body as he felt the hot anger that was generated from his last hypnosis session.
~*~*~*~
Lucky and Nikolas sat at an outdoor picnic table eating Kelly's chili and sipping on chocolate milkshakes. The sun was high in the sky and streamed down through the thick-leafed trees that surrounded the picnic area. The sunlight rested lightly on the top of Lucky's head as he bent it down to concentrate on inhaling his food. Nikolas watched his brother for a second and marveled at how blond Lucky's hair appeared in the sunlight. In a way, he couldn't look more different than his black-haired brother. Nikolas noted how child-like Lucky's features were even though he was nearly grown. Maybe it wasn't his physical features so much as the perpetual look of vulnerability that haunted him. Even though Nikolas knew nothing of Lucky's early experiences with being molested, he wondered if Lucky's vulnerability was the reason why he had been repeatedly victimized.
Lucky noisily sipped the last of his milkshake and sighed with satisfaction. "That was great. Thanks Nikolas. You're real thoughtful," he said as he shyly smiled.
Nikolas had a mouthful of Kelly's chili that he was working on, and he merely smiled and nodded slightly at Lucky's comment.
Lucky rubbed his fingers over a large knot in the wooden surface of the picnic table and began picking at it with his thumbnail, repeatedly making lifting and prying motions that eventually broke his nail. He glanced over at Nikolas as he played with the jagged edges of his torn nail.
"They want to hypnotize me," he stated with his usual lack of warning that he was going to bring up a sensitive subject.
Nikolas looked startled. "Hypnosis?" he asked. "Why would they want to do that?" His brow creased with concern and confusion.
Lucky shrugged. "Kevin says I have repressed memories. I can't remember things that I should. My brain is like Swiss cheese - all full of holes," he said bitterly.
"What does he think you're repressing?" Nikolas asked. He wiped his hands on his napkin and stopped eating so he could concentrate on his brother.
A look of pain seized Lucky's features for a brief moment and was quickly replaced by raw fear. Nikolas' heart tugged at the transformation in his brother. He felt a twist of apprehension in his gut as he processed Lucky's reactions.
"I had hypnosis one time before," Lucky admitted with a voice that was so soft that Nikolas had to strain to hear the words. Lucky's voice took on a mechanical tone as he began recounting his experiences. "Remember I told you that you were fortunate not to grow up with our mother?" he asked.
Nikolas nodded and his heart skipped a beat as he anticipated some devastating news.
"When I was six years old, my father went out of town on a long trip, and she started sleeping around with a bunch of different men, bringing them into our house and stuff."
"What?" Nikolas whispered.
Lucky continued. "That's not all," he said flatly. Lucky's face and voice became totally devoid of emotion. "Two of the men molested me and hurt me - beat on me and stuff," Lucky stated. "I first remembered some of it under hypnosis and then more later on." He shook his head and drew in a ragged breath. "Now do you understand why I'm afraid to be hypnotized again?"
Nikolas swallowed slowly as tears built in his eyes. He nodded wordlessly, allowing his brother to continue talking.
Lucky rubbed his face and turned away from Nikolas. "Faison's guards raped me, and then some guy attacked me in the GH restroom after you and I met in the cafeteria. That's partly why I tried to kill myself. The other reason is because our mother suggested that I do that very thing." Lucky's voice cracked. "She gave me a gift certificate to a shooting gallery and suggested that I practice my aim. My Aunt Bobbie had told her that I'd tried to kill myself earlier with a gun to the head. So she knew. She hates me." Lucky held his forehead in his hand and took in deep gulping breaths. "I can't remember much of what happened after I came back from Faison. I don't remember when Stefan was killed or when my father was arrested."
Lucky looked up at Nikolas. "Are you going to hate me, too?" he asked. "I'm sorry that my dad killed Stefan. But I'm terrified about what I don't remember. What if it's something real bad? Are you never going to talk to me again? What should I do?" he pleaded.
Nikolas blinked back his tears and rose from his side of the bench to sit beside Lucky. He drew Lucky into a hug and patted him on the back as Lucky shook with emotion. "You're my brother," Nikolas said plainly. "Nothing is ever going to change that. I don't blame you for anything that Luke or Stefan did. That's between the two of them. And if one of them manipulated you somehow, then I don't hold that against you either. Stefan should have respected Luke and our mother's marriage. He didn't and so he bore the fatal consequences of another man's anger. I accept that even though I love Stefan and miss him all the time. Do you understand?"
Lucky sniffed and nodded. He wiped his nose with a paper napkin and sighed. "You must think I'm a wimp, a real crybaby," he said.
"No," replied Nikolas. "Not at all. I'd say you've done well and have been brave for all that you've gone through."
"I want my life back, Nikolas," said Lucky as his jaw clenched tightly. "I want to leave this hospital soon. But if I don't have the hypnosis, I'm going to keep having weird dreams, feel creepy, throw up my food constantly, and crave heroin and booze. I need to deal, to get over it, you know? There are things I want to do. I want to go to school and work and date my girlfriend. I can't do that if I'm stuck in here. It's time to move on. I guess I've got to do it, like it or not. But I am afraid to find out, and I'm afraid that you'll hate me and leave me."
"Not a chance," replied Nikolas. "I'm here in Port Charles to stay. I want to be with my brother and sister. You're my family. Now when I turn twenty-five, I might have to live in Greece for awhile, but that's another story. And it's my burden to bear."
"Okay. I believe you," said Lucky. He picked up his spoon and began eating his Kelly's chili again.
Nikolas brightened. "Good," he said. "Whatever happens, we'll work it out. We're brothers - that comes first."
"Do you think I'll ever be normal?" Lucky asked bluntly.
Nikolas paused while he tried to think of an appropriate answer. He lay his hand on Lucky's arm and looked him in the eye. "I'd say that you and I sitting here having lunch and a serious conversation is pretty normal, wouldn't you?"
Lucky looked down at the table. "Nikolas, don't tell anyone what we talked about, okay? I mean, I wanted you to know. You've been visiting me a lot - I appreciate that - you need to know why I act so screwy sometimes. Only, I don't want other people to know. I'm embarrassed." Lucky's face heated up with his shame, and he diverted his gaze to a parking lot in the distance.
"Lucky, this is between you and me," stated Nikolas, who desperately tried to sound convincing. "I won't tell anyone else. You have my promise."
Lucky sighed deeply. "Good," he said wearily. "That's good."
~*~*~*~
Lucky was tired of keeping secrets. He felt like his whole life was riddled with the harmful secrets of other people, and he awkwardly carried the unwieldy burden on his own shoulders. He thought he'd feel better after talking to Nikolas, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on him. His worry about the hypnosis and its aftereffects began to cling on him with a smothering intensity. His mind raced out of control, and he looked around the recreation room with a quiet desperation. His eyes bounced rapidly from the untidy stack of reading materials to the bright sunlight flowing through the far window. The color of the green walls surrounded him.
He'd been working intensely on his algebra exercises, one of his daily attempts to renew his former abilities that he'd lost with the damage from his last concussion. Now, he couldn't concentrate at all. The math problems irritated him with their elusive complexity, and he aggressively ripped a page from the book, crumpling it dangerously in his closing fist.
Lucky took in a very deep breath, holding it for several seconds until he let it out with pursed lips in a slow, measured way. He counted to twenty-five, but the adrenaline steadily piled into his bloodstream, one step ahead of his efforts to calm himself. He tipped his chair and rocked it slowly at first and then faster and faster, the chair tipping dangerously in the direction of the wooden table in front of him. "It's over, it's over," he repeated to himself in a low, intense voice. "Nothing happened. Not really. Who cares what they find out? It doesn't matter." Even as he recited these words to himself, he knew it wasn't true. He wasn't exactly escaping from the past by being in the present. The past was him. It refused to go to sleep and leave him alone. His chest tightened, and he felt like he was choking on his own words. I'm falling, he thought to himself. I'm falling into a hole like that Alice in Wonderland - only I'm the Mad Hatter. I can't let go. It's over! Nothing's wrong.
The image of his mother's face flashed in his mind, her laughter refusing to leave the sanctity of his own head no matter how hard he tried to chase it away. "I hate you. You ruined everything!"
Lucky's last words were intelligible to John, the psych tech who was stationed in the recreation room. John had been watching Lucky closely for the last five minutes, alerted initially to Lucky's tense, jittery body language. He was the tech most regularly assigned to Lucky and grew to know the behaviors of this patient. He walked toward Lucky when he heard his mournful exclamation.
When Lucky heard the footsteps approaching him, he jerked harshly to the side, tipping himself over to the danger zone as his chair slipped, pitching him forward with his face rushing to meet the hard surface of the table. Lucky tried to right himself, clapping his right hand onto the tabletop. Too late, the side of his mouth roughly banged onto the surface, eliciting a surprised grunt from Lucky as he fell to the floor.
John walked rapidly over to Lucky and squatted down in front of him with a concerned face. "Hey, Lucky," he said calmly. "Do you need a hand to help you up?" Lucky was on his hands and knees, licking the blood off of his mouth. His head jerked up at the sound of John's voice. John stood up and took one careful step back as he regarded the dangerous look in Lucky's eyes.
As Lucky tasted the thick blood seeping into his mouth, he momentarily lost his grip on the present, and memories of past torture and beatings flashed across his face like a disorienting wave of déjà vu. He continued to look at John with dead eyes as he scrambled to his feet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lucky looked down at the streak of blood on his hand for several seconds. His eyes narrowed. "You want to fuck with me?" he sneered at John. Lucky balled his fists and advanced maliciously.
"Stay where you are," ordered John. "Let's talk about this. What is bothering you?"
As Lucky recognized John, his face lost its angry expression and deadened into a tight, defensive mask. He backed into the table and angrily pushed it away with a slapping hand and then strode over to the reading table, pushing off all of the books and magazines with a sweeping blow. He ignored John as he pounded on the table with his closed fists, grimacing harshly with his intense efforts at driving away his unwanted thoughts and feelings.
Lucky anticipated John's movements when the tech walked behind him and tried to grab his arms. He swung his fist wildly and forcefully towards this man who got in his way, but when John ducked, Lucky rapidly spun around, stepped to the side with his sudden imbalance and inadvertently slammed his right fist into the green concrete wall.
Lucky didn't make any sound as his eyes widened and mouth hung open with the intense, spreading pain. He slid down to the floor with a thud and sat there stunned and panting with his injured hand held protectively toward his body. John quickly sat down behind him and pulled him into a hold while another tech ran off to find Barb.
Minutes later, Barb walked into the recreation room with a sedative. She looked at John holding Lucky, preventing him from moving, talking gently to the boy to try to calm him down. Lucky was panting and moaning, trembling and pale with sweat dampening his hair, and his eyes glassy from pain and shock.
Barb knelt in front of Lucky and took his chin in her hand, catching his attention. "Let me see your hand, honey," she said. "I need to see how you hurt it."
Lucky shook his head, drawing the hand even closer to his body and hiding it under a fold in his sweatshirt.
"I want to give you a sedative so you can calm down, and then we can work on fixing this problem," Barb stated. She looked Lucky in the eye. "Will you let me help you?" she asked.
Lucky's terrified eyes locked onto Barb's kindly ones, and he said, "Uh-huh," while he nodded his head slightly.
Barb exposed an injection site, and Lucky closed his eyes tightly as the pain of the injection registered in his brain. After a short period of time, John felt Lucky's body stop trembling and his muscles loosen. "Are you okay? Can I let you go now?" he asked.
Lucky nodded slightly, and John released his arms, moving from behind the boy and helping him to lie down on the floor. Lucky lay there without moving, and Barb said, "I'm going to touch your arm now. Is that all right?" Lucky responded with a guttural grunt. Barb gently took his right arm and pulled it slowly away from his body to expose Lucky's hand. The hand hung limply from his wrist and was smeared with a small amount of blood. Barb lay the hand gently in the palm of her hand and noted the places with torn skin and bruising. One of Lucky's fingers looked odd, like it might be broken. "I'm going to go find Jim and have him look at this," she said.
~*~*~*~
When Jim walked into the room, Lucky was lying on an exam table, his eyes closed and his chest heaving with his rapid breathing. His hand lay carefully to his side. The sedative relaxed him to the point where he wasn't as agitated or looking for a fight anymore, but he was tense with pain and anxiety.
"Hi Lucky. I haven't seen you in awhile."
Lucky lay still, not responding to Jim's greeting.
Jim lightly shook Lucky's arm, and the boy slowly opened his eyes. "How are you doing?" asked Jim. "Are you in pain?"
Lucky opened his mouth and said, "Uh-huh."
Jim picked up his hand and lay it back down gently when Lucky flinched and tried to move away. "I'm going to give you some pain medicine so I can fix that hand," he said.
Lucky didn't reply.
After injecting Lucky with a local painkiller, Jim asked conversationally, "How did you do this to yourself? They told me you hit a concrete wall."
Lucky turned his head away and closed his eyes. Jim's grew serious with concern as he noted Lucky's unresponsiveness to his questioning, and he glanced over to John who shrugged. He picked up the hand and cleaned it off. "This might hurt a bit," he said as he manipulated Lucky's broken finger and placed it in a splint. Next, he wrapped a bandage around Lucky's torn knuckles. "You're as good as new," Jim announced when he was finished with the hand. "Just don't do the prizefighter routine anymore, okay?"
Lucky didn't speak, and Jim patted him on the shoulder before leaving the room.
~*~*~*~
"Kevin, you might want to check in on your favorite patient, Lucky Spencer - you know, the one who has as many medical problems as he does psychiatric ones?" Jim smiled as he spoke into the phone. "I was called down here to look at his hand that he tore up by hitting a concrete wall. Actually, he missed. He was taking a swing at one of the techs." Jim paused and listened to Kevin's questions. "He has one broken finger, that's it," he replied. "But I called you primarily because I'm worried about his reactions. He seems distant and unresponsive. He wouldn't talk or answer my questions."
~*~*~*~
Lucky was back in his room, lying in bed with his injured hand draped across his stomach. He was staring at the ceiling with a distant look in his eyes when Kevin walked in and called out to him. Kevin dragged a chair beside his bed and sat down. "Lucky," said Kevin as he gently shook the boy's foot.
Lucky scooted away and looked at Kevin with confusion.
"I heard you started an altercation in the recreation room. You tried to hit John and banged your fist into the wall instead," Kevin stated. "What's your excuse?"
Lucky's fingers brushed over his swollen, split lip where he'd fallen onto the table. His face took on a dreamy expression as he repeated the motion. "I fell into a hole," he said spacily.
Kevin sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I don't understand," he said. "Can you describe that for me?"
"Nothing happened," Lucky replied. "Nothing's wrong."
"Lucky, obviously something is wrong or you wouldn't have reacted the way you did," countered Kevin. "What were you thinking when you threw a punch?"
Lucky licked his lips. "I got lost for a minute when I tasted the blood in my mouth, but I came right back."
"John said that you were studying quietly, but then became agitated. What upset you?"
Lucky's mind went back to his picnic earlier that afternoon. He struggled to sit up on the bed and began talking rapidly. "I told my brother - everything, uh, that I know of, and he said that it was okay. He'd stick by me no matter what. I believed him, but I don't know. I feel worse after telling him, like I'm not safe now. And, I can't handle the idea of the hypnosis. I'm going to die."
Kevin frowned as he tried to take in the meaning and implications of Lucky's disjointed disclosure. "What exactly did you tell Nikolas?"
"About what my mother did - the men, the molesting, the abuse, Faison's guards, the GH restroom," Lucky shot out rapidly. "Everything."
"Why did you decide to do that?"
"I thought I could trust him," Lucky responded. "And I was trying to prepare him if something worse comes out."
"How did your brother respond to that disclosure?" asked Kevin.
"He gave me a hug and said he'd always be my brother," said Lucky. "He said I was brave when I told him I was a wimp and a crybaby."
Kevin's mind relaxed with gratitude. The kid has a good brother, he thought. He's responding exactly the way that Lucky needs him to. "It's obvious that your brother loves you. That was a good conversation," Kevin said. "Why were you upset later?"
"I don't know," Lucky replied. "I was worried about the hypnosis, and then I kind of got assaulted by a bunch of thoughts. Things about my mother."
"Why are you so worried about the hypnosis?"
"Remember the last time?" Lucky asked bitterly. "I came out of that one with another concussion, epilepsy and a new nose. I'm really afraid of what might come out. There's got to be a good reason why my brain is trying to protect me."
"Lucky, your mind might be protecting you in the short term if something distressing happens to you, but in the long run, it is better to have your full memories. You're strong enough now to handle whatever may or may not have happened to you in the past. If something affects you, it did happen. It doesn't go away because you don't remember it. That's why you have the dreams and other problems."
"Maybe it's better than knowing," Lucky retorted as he crossed his arms, then hissed when his broken finger rubbed against his arm.
"Are you saying that you're not willing to undergo hypnosis?"
Lucky looked Kevin hard in the eyes. "What do you think I should do?"
Kevin sighed and rubbed his forehead. "My professional opinion is that you should undergo the hypnosis so you can have the opportunity to deal with whatever issues come of it. My goal is to help you to leave the hospital as soon as possible, and this is a big step in that direction," he said plainly.
"All I want is to get out of here," Lucky retorted hotly. "I'll go through hell if I have to do it. So I guess that means yes to the hypnosis."
Kevin smiled at Lucky. "Nikolas is right. You are brave."
.