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I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending. You're not my homeland anymore, so, what am I defending now? You were my town, now I'm in exile.
I think I've seen this film before… so, I'm leaving out the side door.
Depersonalization-derealization disorder (DPDR) is a mental health condition characterized by persistent, recurring feelings of being detached from one's body/thoughts (depersonalization) or feeling that surroundings are unreal/dreamlike (derealization).
Patients with DPDR feel like they have been thrown into a dark abyss, unable to connect to friends, family, or reality. With depersonalization-derealization disorder the world can be lonely, and they will most likely never know that they’ve never felt love.
Josh’s life would make a terrible documentary.
He’d thought about it before, when people began to know his name, and his fame had grown past the borders of New York. He had thought ‘what if someone wanted to know more about me? What if someone wanted to know who I was under the white coat and sterile scalpels?’ His life had been long, and it had been full, but it hadn’t been happy. The documentary of Joshua Alexander Nichols’ life would be one of heartbreak, and brokenness. It would be a film chronicling pain and agony over and over, beginning when he realized he was gay in the fifth grade, and ending when he stepped into his boyfriend’s office so they could leave together, only to realize that he had been stood up.
The audience would probably be hooked when they realized he’d been the last baby born out of four boys. They would be interested when they found out he was the stereotypical youngest child. He was the youngest by a bit, his closest brother was still eight years older than him, but he was talkative and excited. He had a light in his eyes that he’d thought would never dim. It did dim though, when his eldest brother, Matthew, told him that he had been born out of wedlock. His mom was having an affair with someone from her work and had gotten pregnant. They’d all promised to never tell Josh, they’d promised to pretend he was their brother. He had been so upset that he went to school and unloaded all of it on his best friend, William. He had been so overrun with emotion that while William gathered his body up in a hug, Josh leaned forward and pressed his mouth against Will’s. It was just a peck, an innocent emotional kiss that only lasted a few seconds, but it had changed the course of his life. Much like finding out who’s blood was in his veins, finding out about the hormones in his body had thrown him for a loop.
Knowing he was an illegitimate kid and was attracted to the same sex made him fill with determination to prove himself. He studied endlessly, lost Will to the schedule he built into himself from an early age. He tried to fix himself, he joined the military when he was seventeen, got away from the suffocating house he’d grown up with. His parents stopped talking to him when a picture of him kissing one of his fellow soldiers made its way online. The military had worked tirelessly to clean up the scandal, but it was too late, Josh had lost his family. Matthew didn't even talk to him anymore. That would be the third-act conflict of the documentary, but it would be in the first twenty minutes of the film.
After the military, he’d gone on to be a doctor, a surgeon, still fighting to prove himself to those around him. Fighting to prove himself to his family. He dated casually, never letting it get out that he was seeing men, and when someone called asking for another night, he blocked them. He couldn’t afford another relationship like the one he’d had with Will. He’d lived in shades of white and grey, cut, stitch-up, repeat, with his house laid out perfectly in order, and his clothes organized by color and how frequently he wore them. He ‘spring cleaned’ on the eighteenth of every month, purging anything from his house that wasn’t acceptable. On the nineteenth was when he went to a bar two towns over and found someone worth a night. He never brought them home, he always went to their house.
That middle part of the film would be really depressing, the audience would probably need to go on some sort of medication, maybe the same one he’d been on when he’d left the military. At some point in those filler scenes, between the bad and the better, Josh would meet a doctor by the name of Oliver Wolf. The documentary would change to bright colors, it would be lit up by a man who argued non-stop with Josh. From the first day Wolf showed up on the Neuro/Psych floor in Bronx General, Josh’s life had been flipped upside down. For the first time since he’d first kissed William, he felt like he wanted to ruin his perfect, linear life and recklessly lose himself in another person. Except, they worked together, and no one knew Josh was gay, and Nichols would never risk losing the friendship they’d made.
Wolf kissed him in the street and Josh kissed him back and the documentary had a life again. Josh had a life again. The audience would probably be cheering at the screen, excitedly clapping and jumping up and down, screaming ‘yes, finally!’ or something else positive. For the first time in a long while he didn’t feel like the product of his mom’s infidelity, and he didn’t feel like the broken last child that couldn’t live up to his brother’s standards.
He didn’t feel like Joshua Alexander Nichols, someone who was called ‘Matthew’s little brother’ his whole life. He was Nichols, someone who deserved love, and to be cared for. He was wanted, by a man who felt so deeply, whose emotions were so raw, like his love hurt if he didn’t give it to someone. A man who took his patient’s drugs so that he could ‘understand’ them, a man who couldn’t see vanity and loved based only on the inside. All while the one thing that had always bothered Josh was what was inside of him, what lingering in the shadowed corners, the hidden places that Wolf barged into with a flashlight. Oliver kissed away all of Josh’s scars and stitched together the wounds that had been left open since he was a kid.
His documentary would be terrible, but after 47 years, it would be amazing. It would be something worth watching. He wouldn’t be someone who had lost to life over and over, he would be someone who had fallen to the ground and gotten back up again and was rewarded by life with a man who meant the world to him.
Who had meant the world to him… until he left.
When Nichols walked into that office and saw Wolf’s suit sitting on the chair, and his boyfriend nowhere to be seen, something in Josh broke, right along the seam that Oliver had stitched up. He sank into the seat, and threw the suit on the floor and he dropped his head into his hands, letting his tears fall into his palms. Time moved strangely in Wolf’s office, like how it had when they were learning each other’s bodies up against the wall, and when they were learning each other’s minds over takeout. At some point, after he stopped trying to call Wolf, he got to his feet, wiped his eyes and left, went to his car and drove to the stupid gala.
The gala that didn’t even seem important anymore.
The gala he’d invited his parents to, because he’d finally felt safe, and yet, now, as he drove his car, he realized he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to stand in front of everyone and be praised for being the man he was. The man he’d made piece by piece, but only realized was good when Oliver showed him. Now, he was going to be called out on every piece of himself, except this time he wouldn’t be able to see what was so special about it. Someone met him at the door and took his coat and apparently they had been looking for him for about twenty minutes. They pulled him onto the stage and he barely managed to get his speech out of his pocket before he was in front of everyone.
“Uhm, hello everyone.” His eyes flickered through the crowd and he saw Matthew standing by a table littered with hors d'oeuvres. His parents were beside him, and the only other brother that still lived in New York, Charles, was off to the side of the family, blue eyes that matched Nichols’ glaring back at him. Charles was a sous chef and he’d always run into problems with their parents. Being a chef was prestigious, and stressful, but they were hard to please, and all their sons knew it. He gripped the podium, took a deep breath, tried to force the morning’s events out of his mind, and released the air.
“Thank you for coming out tonight, and thank you to my friends and family for being here to support me. I was dwelling on my career earlier today, when I was trying to decide what I wanted to say tonight, in front of all of you. Many of you may not know, but when I was a child, I didn’t want to be a doctor. I wasn’t one of those kids who was born with a determination for something specific. I was like the wind, I went where I pleased and when I found something I was interested in, I would dedicate myself to whatever that was. My parents may remember some strange days when I was a teenager and came home with bruises all over me from different things. One would be from when I fell horseback riding, one was from a paintball fight, and another would be from a fencing sword. I tested every possible career I could until I joined the military and watched the medics at work in the tents. Seeing them put some of the most broken of humans back together made me want to do that too. It made me want to help people, but maybe in a more sterile workspace.” That got a laugh, a whispering murmur of chuckles through the audience that was currently hanging onto every word he said. He made eye contact with his mom again, and saw the look behind it, the shimmer of anger that he really had made something out of himself. Apparently, when she found out she was pregnant, she was going to get rid of him, but she was too far along. She hadn’t wanted him for his whole life, not even now, after he’d become someone great.
“Standing here, tonight, knowing that the path that got me here was all worth it, there are a few people I would like to extend a personal thank you to. The first being Dr. Landon, the chief of surgery at Bronx General, for taking a risk on me and letting me grow in my craft. As well as Carol Pierce for being a true friend on the Psych floor. Of course, I cannot mention the Psych and Neuro floor without mentioning Dr. Wolf.” He paused, eyes sweeping the crowd, and when his eyes met Carol’s, she frowned softly, gaze searching the audience for Oliver.
“Dr. Wolf and I have become good friends, even through many disagreements, and that one time he judged me for using a fork to eat Chinese takeout.”
Everyone laughed again and Carol smiled wide, because she knew, she knew what everyone else didn’t. Or at least she used to know, before… before-
“But through all of that, we’ve helped people, and I truly don’t think I could have done this without him.” He smiled, held up the plaque with his name on it, and when his eyes landed on Matthew, he saw an expression on his brother’s face that he hadn’t seen in years.
The look on his brother’s face was jealousy, and didn’t understand it. Until he realized a second later, with a strike to the ribs, that Charles had been looking at him like that too. Maybe they were thinking he didn’t deserve to be where he was, maybe it was because he was happy.
“I couldn't have done this without a lot of people, so thank you, to everyone. I… I love you all so much.” It hurt to say, maybe too much than it should, but Josh had always had one fatal flaw in him. He’d always been too weak to fight for the people he loved. He said I love you fort, and then cried when they left. But he let them go. He’d fought for the country, he’d fought for himself, but he couldn’t fight for relationships. He’d left his parents in the rearview mirror, he hadn’t been able to pull Oliver back toward him. For the rest of his life, his job would be the most important thing to him, because it was what gave him worth. He’d fought for it, he’d clawed tooth and nail to be a doctor so, goddamnit he was going to be a doctor, and a good one. He wasn’t going to let anyone step between him and the only thing he had that loved him back.
Finally, with his speech finished, and claps echoing in his ears, he glanced toward the door, hoping against hope that he would see his boyfriend there. He knew it was childish, stupid, naive, to wish that he would be there, especially after everything, but he still looked, and when he saw nothing, his face dropped to the floor as he stepped off the stage. When he was in the crowd again, people started walking up to him, patting him on the shoulder, smiling brightly, congratulating him, and when he reached his family, he froze awkwardly in front of them.
“Hi guys.” His voice sounded like someone had stepped on him, his confidence was shot now that he was standing in front of the people who had raised him to hate his own mind. “Thanks for coming out.”
“You did well, Joshua.” His father’s voice was clipped and professional, like he was talking to one of his clients. His dad was a lawyer, so Josh was used to the lack of emotion when he spoke, but it still threw him off. Josh nodded politely at his dad, and then pressed a kiss to his mom’s cheek.
“You did not thank any woman besides the doctor. Do you not have any female friends?” Josh’s mom smiled, but it looked like it hurt, and when she placed her hand on his arm, it was hard, not loving. It felt more like a punishing grip than a heartfelt hold from a mother.
He opened his mouth to explain to them for the millionth time that he was gay, but before he could start, someone pushed themselves through the crowd of people and yelled his name.
“Josh-!”
It wasn’t so much Wolf’s voice that caught Josh’s attention, as it was the use of his name. His actual name. For all the time they’d known each other, Josh and Oliver had stuck strictly to ‘Nichols’ and ‘Wolf’, like professional nicknames for each other, until now.
He turned, leaving his parents and brothers standing behind him, and then there was Oliver, standing in the middle of the gala in a pair of jeans and his black leather jacket, unzipped to reveal a plaid button-up underneath. His dark brown hair was thrown around his head, and his cheeks were flushed, probably a reaction to the heat of the room versus the coldness outside. Wolf stopped to huff for a moment before he took a step toward Josh, then stopped and looked down at the ground. He seemed to be trying to decide something, and Josh stood there, arms forgotten at his sides for a long moment, until Wolf moved. He moved forward, taking three determined steps into Josh’s space and his fingers wrapped around the tie on his chest, yanking it so their mouths fell together.
Josh gasped into the kiss, and he heard a few murmurs of surprise from the room around them, and he decided right then and there that he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care who was watching, or who was upset about what they were doing. If he was going to be a man-made doctor, pieced together by things of the past and things of the present, he wanted to be known for changing lives with everything in him. He didn’t want to fix lives and leave them in the dust of his insecurities. His fingers threaded into Oliver’s hair and the man bit his tongue in response, a small noise sounding from his throat and Josh broke the kiss with a smile.
“I got stuck with that DPDR patient.” Oliver whispered against Josh’s mouth, and it was quiet, intimate, even though there were hundreds of eyes on them. “She was asking me what love felt like, and all I could think of to tell her was… love feels like you.”
Josh was crying and Wolf kissed him again, like he meant it, like how he had kissed him that first time on the street. That was the first time Josh had felt what it was like to be wanted.
Josh’s life would make a wonderful documentary. Beginning, middle, and end, it would be scarred with loss, and fear, but it would be painted with love and compassion from Oliver Wolf. Or, eventually Oliver Wolf-Nichols.
I can see you standing, honey, with his arms around your body, laughing. I can see you staring, honey, holding all this love.