Rehabilitation - 8. Pins and Needles

I walked down the hallway at school and went into the empty bathroom. I stood at the urinal and waited, but nothing was happening. Then Brett walked up next to me and stood at the next urinal. He whipped out his cute limp dick and balls over the top of his boxers. He had no problem peeing.

“Don’t you know you’re supposed to leave a gap in the urinals when another guy is here?” I asked.

“Really?” Brett asked. “Is that some kind of law?”

“Yeah. You only stand right next to someone and show them your dick if you’re gay.”

“Well since you’re standing here with no clothes on I thought it’d be okay,” Brett replied.

I looked down, and sure enough I was completely naked. And worse than that, for some reason the urinals were not in the restroom, but in Miss Winston’s classroom!

“What the hell!?!” I cried. The class burst into roars of laughter.

“You know you’re dreaming, right?” Brett asked.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Yeah, you’re about to piss the bed…” Brett warned me.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed. I woke up and flung my feet out of bed and hurried out of the room and to the toilet. I pissed so hard I shuddered halfway through. But the important thing was, I didn’t wet the bed at age fifteen at my boyfriend’s house. Nope, not a single drop had escaped!

I slipped quietly back into the guest room and settled back into bed. I felt a hand slip into my shorts and I jumped out of bed with a start. I almost cried out, but Brett shushed me.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Brett whispered back. I could see in the darkness Brett laying naked on the bed.

“You about scared the piss out of me!”

“Yeah!” Brett laughed. “Dude, you literally jumped two feet out of bed.”

“Well you can imagine why I’d be having trouble sleeping when somebody was playing Metallica at full-blast until one o’clock in the morning,” I scolded.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s all your fault you know.”

“My fault? How is it my fault?”

“You took my pot. Remember? I told you I’d get grouchy if I quit using it. It kind of hit me all at once after church. I hadn’t used it since you got here and I guess everything kind of blew up. I really didn’t mean to be such a dick but I couldn’t help it. I’m kind of embarrassed about how I acted.”

“Kinda? Dude, you called your mother a cunt, said you hated her, and that you hope she dies in a car crash like your grandparents did.”

“She knows I don’t mean that stuff. I’m just a jerk sometimes.”

“Why do you do that shit to her, dude?”

“She started it when she slapped me,” Brett said.

“She barely touched you,” I scolded.

Brett smiled slyly. “Doesn’t matter. She hit me. She’s gotta feel terrible about it. This is like hitting the lottery. Bet I can turn this one into at least a cell phone or a puppy.”

I had to laugh at that. I couldn’t believe how ridiculously and brutally honest he was about how much of a jerk he was being. “You’re such a douche bag,” I said.

“I know. So what? She deserves it,” he replied.

“Okay… So what are you doing in my room and why are you naked?”

“Your room?” Brett asked. “This is my house. It’s my room. You’re just staying in it. Anyway, I’m here to apologize for being a douche bag today. And two, I’ve been naked since about three o’clock. I was getting in touch with my primal side, which is yet another reason why I ended up in here.”

“You’re going to apologize by grabbing my dick in the middle of the night?” I asked.

“No, I’m going to apologize by sucking your dick in the middle of the night.” he corrected. “Maybe more.”

“What makes you think I’m going to let you blow me after the way you acted?” I asked.

“Because I let you cum inside me,” Brett said as he pulled off my shorts. “So now you owe me. And besides, I think you want me to suck it.”

“Maybe I’ll let you. I wouldn’t want you to have come all the way over here naked for nothing.”

Brett pulled me onto the bed and laid me on my back. He began gently licking his way up and down the underside of my dick, taking extra slow licks on the v-shaped cleft of the head. My dick wasn’t particularly big or long. It was just about average in every way possible. It was slightly curved upward, but not by much of an angle. When I stood up, it stood up just slightly at an angle. It was just a shade over six inches from base to tip, and it was thick enough that Brett could easily put his hand around it, but not so thin that he could take me very deep into his throat. My balls were actually a little small for my size, I thought. Brett’s balls were bigger than mine. They were almost as big as Dustin’s balls, even though his dick was more my size. They had grown hairier than mine, though I wasn’t very hairy at all anywhere. I wondered if Brett’s big balls were part of the reason his voice had become slightly deeper than mine. It was a little weird to think back to the time when his voice was always being confused with a girl. He was definitely a baritone now. His voice was a little deeper than Dustin’s voice.

Brett sure knew how to make me feel good. He knew exactly what I liked and how much of it I liked! I struggled not to let out any type of sound that would alert his mother that her sweet little boy was blowing the boy she’d known for years and had welcomed into her home in the room across the hall. It occurred to me that now might be a good time to suck his dick at the same time he was sucking mine, so I maneuvered myself around and Brett quickly got the message. We each laid on our sides facing each other and had our second ever sixty-nine. Everything was great except for the big freaking cast on my arm which always seemed to be in the way. Brett gently ran his fingers up and down my back, slowly making his way to my ass. I maneuvered my legs a little, allowing him to explore all the way to my asshole, which he very gently teased, not wanting a repeat of the last time he’d messed around with me down there. If Brett’s mom wasn’t home, I probably would have fucked him again. But I knew we would make way too much noise. We were enjoying things as they were, however, and we weren’t in any hurry to remove our dicks from the warm wet confines of each other’s lips. I almost hated to see it come to an end, but I needed to shoot. I managed to stifle myself as I came, and Brett swallowed it all down his throat. He was getting a lot better at swallowing, but he still gagged a little bit. He pulled out of my mouth, got on his knees, and sat on my chest. Then he fed me his dick while I massaged his asshole with my finger until he let out a groan and filled my mouth. I swallowed the hot slimy goodness and then we rested in each other’s arms holding each other’s naked body against each other.

I never even realized that I’d fallen asleep until I woke up next to him in the morning. Our naked bodies were all tangled up together. His right arm was draped across my belly and mine was tucked under him. He nuzzled his head into my chest. I lay there for a while, enjoying my sleeping boyfriend snuggled against me. He was so beautiful when he slept. Some people just look awkward when they’re naked, but Brett was even more handsome without clothes. I admired the soft white skin of his chest, so delicate and tender. His dick lay limp on his thigh. He looked so innocent and vulnerable when he was sleeping. His soft brown hair was all mussed up and wild.

I felt his breath on my chest. It was a slow and steady rhythm that caused his chest to rise and fall gently. I could feel his heart beating in his chest as he rested against me. I moved my arm and felt him stir. I’d interrupted his sleep and soon he would begin to wake up. He snuggled even closer to me, as if I was a giant living teddy bear. He yawned and blinked his eyes open. It took him a few seconds to realize where he was.

“Oh shit, I fell asleep,” he whispered. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost eight o’clock. You think your mom knows you’re in here?” I asked quietly.

“Nah… She’s usually pretty good about leaving me alone in my room. And she wouldn’t open a door without knocking first. Could you imagine the look on her face if she found us in here like this? I wonder what she’d do if she found us naked together.”

“I don’t want to find out,” I replied. “You better get back over there before she starts looking for us.”

Yeah, I guess. The day’s going to come when we sleep together all the time. I can’t wait. Oh, you snore, by the way.”

“I know. It’s the allergies. My nose gets all stuffy and I breathe through my mouth.”

“Well, it’s cute in small doses.”

“Oh thanks.”

“Oh, by the way… You didn’t happen to keep the box I gave you the other day, did you?”

“Why? You want it back?”

“Oh no… No. I mean, if you still have it.”

“I have the box, I got rid of the pot.”

“How did you get rid of it?” Brett asked. “You didn’t throw it in the trash, did you?”

“I’m not stupid, I got rid of it yesterday when you were throwing your little tantrum. I flushed it down the toilet.”

“You did? Oh, okay… That’s cool. I just wanted the box back. It was kind of expensive.”

“Sure, no problem. Anyway, we better get dressed and get going. We’re going to get my stitches checked out today and they’re going to replace this big cast with one that will let me move my elbow again. Maybe I won’t be so helpless after that.” I could hardly believe it had been more than a week since everything had happened. What a week it had been! A lot had changed since I’d last been in that hospital.

Brett helped my put on a shirt and then he went back over to his room to get dressed. He didn’t even bother covering up his nakedness as he strutted out the door and across the hall. I spent some time in my room getting things organized and after I brushed my teeth I headed down the back staircase to the kitchen. On the way down, I could hear Brett and his mom arguing again. I paused. At least this time there was no singing.

“I’m telling you, I’m not going!” Brett insisted. “I don’t want to spend hours riding in a car with someone who hits me!”

“Brett, I’m sorry I smacked you, but you were being a hooligan.”

“I was a hooligan? I’m not the one who was hitting people!”

“Oh stop it! You need to stop projecting all your feelings on to me.”

“I am not projecting! And I’m not transferring or any other psycho-bullshit you can come up with! I swear, I can never have a real conversation with you. You just can’t accept that you were wrong! You are never wrong. It’s always somebody else!”

“I am wrong plenty of times.”

“No, your “analysis” was off or some bullshit excuse. We’ve never had an honest-to-God conversation, mother! I’m not one of your stupid freaks who needs you to hold my little hand and try to figure out what’s wrong with me so you can fix me! I’m not some problem you need to solve before my hour is up! I’m your son for God’s sake! I’m sick of all the phony psycho-bullshit! I don’t need analyzed!”

“I can see that you’re feeling very angry.”

“Oh fuck it! Did you even hear what I said to you? ‘You can see’ that I’m angry? Really? You can see that? Jesus Christ! I’m not ‘feeling very angry’ at some outside force. I’m mad at you! You’re not some outside observer in this! This is about you! You’re the reason I’m angry! I’m not projecting! You’re the one who’s projecting!”

“I’m sure whatever it is you’re angry about is something we can work through together.”

“Jesus Christ mother! Do you seriously get paid to help people with their problems? You actually charge money for people to come tell you how they feel and you just make up some bullshit and charge them a hundred bucks? You actually wrote a book full of this shit?”

“That book is the reason you have all of the nice things in your room that you feel like breaking when you’re angry.”

“Fuck your stupid book! You just love when people come to you and tell you how smart you are and how your book was ‘oh so helpful!’ ‘Oh, my little Johnny was such a little asshole until I read your boring old book, Doctor Reilly!’ ‘Oh! Doctor Reilly, my little Sally was such a little cunt until I read your book! Now she’s valedictorian!’ Yeah, that’s fucking great! People think you’re this brilliant expert on parenting and teenagers! What would they think about you when they find out that the great and perfect Dr. Reilly has me for a kid! Boy, I must really be an embarrassment to you!”

“The only thing embarrassing is the way you’re acting, Mister Reilly.”

“Oh sure, it’s all about me, isn’t it? You have nothing to do with it. Maybe you should title your next book, ‘When I Get Mad at My Asshole Kid I Slap the Shit Out of Him.’ I bet you’d have another best seller!”

Before things could get any more heated, I walked down the rest of the steps and into the kitchen.

“Good morning!” I said cheerfully, as if I hadn’t just heard everything that the two of them had said. It was a very quiet breakfast.

“So, are you boys ready to go?” Dr. Reilly asked. If she was trying to pretend everything was normal, she wasn’t doing a good job. I’d never seen her so frustrated.

“I’m not going.” Brett insisted.

“Brett, I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not going to let you have free reign over the house after what you did yesterday. I’m getting tired of your attitude.”

“You are? You’re getting tired? Am I starting to irritate you? Do I annoy you? Are you going to hit me again if I don’t go?”

“Brett, please!” Dr. Reilly sighed.

Once again, I interrupted. “Dude, lay off her. I need you to go with me. If you don’t go, I’ll be stuck with your mom the whole way.”

Brett smiled even though he didn’t want to. “Okay fine. I’m sick of this stupid house anyway.”

We loaded up the car and headed to the city. Brett sat in the back seat with his ear phones turned up so loud that I could hear his heavy metal music from my seat. Dr. Reilly and I didn’t talk all that much. I could tell she was trying to pretend she wasn’t angry with Brett. I could understand why Brett sometimes got so frustrated with her. I knew Brett enough to know that he was trying to get a reaction out of her, and she wasn’t giving it to him. Brett was the kind of kid who knew how to push people’s buttons to get a reaction, but his mom knew all his tricks. More than anything, he wanted her to just pay attention to him. If he had to be a jerk to get that attention, then that’s what he’d do. The fact that she wasn’t taking the bait was what was really making him mad.

After we’d parked the car and walked into the hospital, I was surprised to see mom waiting for us in the doctor’s waiting room. I didn’t realize until then how much I’d missed her. I hugged her and even let her kiss me without complaining.

“Now you see. That’s how a real mom treats her kid,” Brett said.

That was the last straw. Dr. Reilly snapped. “Anthony Brett Reilly, will you please quit acting like a selfish little brat and grow up!”

“I didn’t do anything!” Brett protested.

“Paula, I’m sorry. Will you excuse us please? I need to have a little talk with my son,” Dr. Reilly said. Even though she was as angry as I’ve seen her, she still wasn’t yelling or anything.

“That’s okay, Jen. We’ll go visit George after we’re done here. He’s in room 818.”

“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Brett whined as Dr. Reilly grabbed him by the arm and forced him out of the room. Brett had finally gotten his mom’s full attention.

“What did you do to them?” mom asked.

“Very funny,” I laughed. “Brett’s just being a jag off.”

It didn’t take long for a nurse to call for me. Mom and I went to a small patient’s room and she helped me take off my shirt. They took my blood pressure and temperature and then we were left to wait for a while. I swear, you spend more time waiting for a doctor than you spend waiting in line at Kennywood. I filled mom in on all the good times I’d had with Brett, leaving out the part where I’d had sex with him, of course. I even told her that Dustin had gotten into a fight with me, though I told her that he was just jealous because I was staying with Brett instead of him. I left out the part where he kicked me in the hand. Mom told me about how dad was getting better, and how she was staying with some friends she knew from Pittsburgh. She said it wouldn’t be long until she came home, maybe another week or so until they moved dad to a rehab center in Morgantown, West Virginia.

After waiting for about a half hour, the doctor finally came. He told me that he was going to cut my old cast off, remove my stitches, and replace my cast with a shorter and lighter one so I’d be able to bend my elbow. I was still going to be in a cast for most of the summer, but it’d be a relief to be able to bend my elbow again.

The doctor removed the cast with a saw type tool that tickled. Then he took me to get an x-ray. Mom had about a million questions for him when as he showed us the x-rays. I was just fascinated to see the insides of my hand on the screen. For the first time I could see all the pins that were holding my hand together. I had four of them holding my hand bones in place, and a plate was holding one of my wrist bones together. I never knew I had it in me to punch so hard. Fortunately, there was no additional damage from Dustin’s kick considering that my hand was being held together with pins and needles. The stitches they’d had to use to sew up where the glass from the mirror had cut me up had done their job, and the doctor removed them. I could see the ends of the pins sticking out of my skin, and that made me a little queasy. The doctor redressed the wounds and then it was time for my second cast, this one was blue. The new cast allowed me some very limited use of my thumb and the very tips of my fingers, and it only extended up to my elbow and not past it so I could bend it again. I would have to come back in six weeks, for more x-rays and to possibly remove the pins. I’d get to keep the plate for the rest of my life. Joy!

The doctor took a look at my hand and smiled. “Well, you may never be a star pitcher, but I think you’ll have a full recovery after rehab. That was much easier than last time you were in here.”

“Yeah, you didn’t have to knock me out this time,” I replied.

“You did a lot of damage, son. I hope you learned something from all this.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be punching anything again.”

“That’s a good start. Pain is the body’s way of teaching us not to do dumb things. I’m hope you’re in a better place now than when you did this to yourself. You were in a lot of pain even with the drugs. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I am. I haven’t even taken any pain pills,” I informed him.

“Well that is good news. They’re very strong and they can make you pretty loopy. You don’t want to take them unless you must. So, no more mirror punching, okay?”

I laughed. “Yes sir. Trust me, I never want to go through this again.”

The doctor shook my good hand and then gave my mom a few instructions before showing us to the pay window. For the first time in a week I was actually able to put my own shirt on. My hand was still useless, but at least I could bend my elbow again. Mom talked with the lady at the window and scheduled my next visit and then we were out the door. There was no sign of Brett or Dr. Reilly.

As we walked through the hall, I stopped at a bench and sat down. Mom sat down beside me and for a while neither of us said anything. Finally, mom spoke, “I know how excited your dad is to see you today.”

“Mom… Can I ask you something?” I hesitatingly asked.

“Of course, Billy.” mom replied.

“Why is all this happening?”

“I wish I knew,” she replied.

“I mean, first grandma got sick and died. Then dad got sick. Then I punched that stupid mirror…”

“Well, at least one of those things was preventable,” mom said.

“I think all of them were preventable,” I explained. “I should have been there. I could have saved them both.”

“Billy, you can’t stop someone from having a stroke.”

“But I could have been there with both of them. I was supposed to be with them and I wasn’t. I’m not saying I could have prevented them from having strokes, but I should have been there to help them. Why wouldn’t God have made me be there for them? Why would he let them suffer because of me?”

Mom sighed. I could tell she was trying to parse her words carefully. “Well, maybe it was for the best. If you had been with grandma, you might have been on the road when the stroke came and you might have been killed. And your dad has really made his own bed with the way he takes care of himself. If you had been there, who knows what seeing your father like that would have done to you. Look at how you reacted when all this happened. And you were already on the edge before everything happened. How do you think watching him have a stroke right in front of you would have affected you? Maybe God was working to make sure you weren’t there to see something like that.”

“Or maybe he could have stopped it all from happening if he really was God,” I complained.

“But that’s not his way. That’s not how he operates. We can’t always see how he’s working in our lives until years later sometimes. Sometimes it’s only after we look back that we can see how he’s placed us where he needed us to be. You’re only fifteen. You have a long life ahead of you, Billy. Try to be patient and wait upon the Lord.”

“Speaking of that, are we still Baptists or are you going to go to that other guy’s church?” I asked.

“Well, your father is a Methodist, I was a Baptist until I found Pastor Stevens. I am thinking about joining his church. He’s been a constant source of comfort through this time, and he’s not even our pastor. I haven’t even seen our pastor. The McKenzies and the Nicholsons have already switched to his church. We’ve been way too lax about going to church the last few years. I’d like to get back into it.”

“Do you think dad will be okay after this?”

“I think he’ll be a lot better off than grandma was. I think he’ll even be able to go back to work eventually. But I also don’t know how much time this has taken off of him. He’s not going to be around forever, Billy. We really need to make the most of whatever time we have with him.”

“I guess we should get moving then,” I said.

“I suppose I should have asked you if you want to see him,” mom said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I really do want to see him now.”

“I understand why you didn’t want to see him before. It’s hard to see someone you love in pain. I can barely stand to see you in that cast.”

“Well, I was really stressed out when I punched that mirror. Everything happened so fast. It’s all a blur now. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry about a lot of stuff.”

Mom put her arm around me and gently hugged me. “We’re going to get through this. We just have to be strong for your father now.”

The elevator opened and we walked down the hall toward dad’s room. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was sure surprised to see dad sitting in a chair. His beard had been shaved. He had an IV hooked into his arm, but besides that there were no other machines or wires hooked up to him. He smiled when he saw me.

“Well are you going to hug me or stare at me?” he asked.

I practically ran to his side and hugged him. I sniffled a little as I embraced him.

“Hey now… No tears today, boy. This is a happy day,” dad laughed.

“Well these are happy tears,” I admitted, brushing them away with the back of my hand. He invited us to sit down in the visitors’ chairs. “You look great,” I said.

“Well it’s easy to look good when you have a great nurse,” dad said, squeezing mom’s hand.

“When are you coming home?” I asked.

“Not for a while, unfortunately,” dad admitted. “I guess I messed myself up pretty bad before I got in here. They said my blood sugar was over 2,000 the night I had the stroke. So they had to get that fixed. And I really can’t get up out of this chair without help right now so we’re going to have to get me able to function again before I can go home.”

I was shocked by dad’s sugar number. It should have been in the low hundreds, not in the thousands. “How did your sugar get so high?” I asked.

“Stupidity, boy,” dad replied. “Stupidity and stubbornness. Kind of the same reason you have a broken arm.”

I grimaced at dad’s rebuke. “I guess mom told you about that...” I said sheepishly.

“Well, when the nursing staff talked about some kid busting a mirror with his hand, I figured if it wasn’t my boy he’d have had something to do with it,” dad replied.

“I guess so,” I said.

“Between the two of us, your mother’s going to have her hands full,” dad joked.

“Going to?” mom asked. “Have you been around for the last few years?” We all laughed.

“You see why we keep warning you about that temper of yours?” dad asked me.

“Yeah,” I replied. “It was pretty stupid.”

“Well it’s in the past now. Nothing you can do but learn from it and move on,” dad said. “So how are you doing at Brian’s house?”

“Who?” I asked.

“You mean Brett, honey?” mom asked.

Dad chuckled. “Yeah… Guess my brain’s still got some sorting out to do. I meant Brett.”

Just as dad said his name, Brett and his mom walked into the room. Judging from the redness and puffiness around Brett’s eyes, he had not had a good conversation with his mom. He smiled as best he could muster.

We stayed and talked with dad for about a half hour. Dad’s right arm and leg had been impacted by the stroke, but besides forgetting a name here and there his mind seemed as sharp as ever. Dr. Reilly explained that different areas of the brain control different functions and that dad’s stroke had mostly damaged his motor functions, while my grandma’s stroke had damaged her language and motor functions. With some rehab, he’d be up and around in a few weeks, but he’d need to use a cane from now on.

When a nurse told us it was time to leave, dad asked if I would stay behind with him alone for a minute. Everyone left and waited outside and dad asked me to close the door to the room. When we were alone, dad asked, “Are you really okay, boy?”

“Yeah, dad,” I replied.

“I don’t just mean physically. I know how hard this must be for you. And I know how hard you take things sometimes. You know that there was nothing you could have done to stop this from happening.”

“I could have helped,” I replied.

“No you couldn’t have. Your mother had already planned on letting you go to the party before we blew up at each other. She wasn’t going to wake you up until I’d left, so you wouldn’t have been with me anyway. It just happened that we didn’t discuss it until it was too late. I’m really glad you weren’t with me. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

“I still feel terrible. I didn’t help things by acting like a douche,” I replied.

“I could say the same thing about myself, boy. But trust me, this had nothing to do with you. You didn’t send my sugar up to two thousand. But there is one other thing I want to tell you. You know that coin collection I have, right?”

“The one in the gun cabinet,” I replied.

“Yeah. You know that’s yours. I don’t want your mother to sell it. I made that case and I don’t want anybody to have it but you. Okay? Promise me you’ll make sure you take it when I die.”

“You’re not going to die, dad,” I protested.

“I am someday. And when the time comes you make sure to keep that coin box. I’ve made your mother promise me too. But I want you to make sure you know about it.”

“Okay, dad,” I answered.

“Never sell it, boy. I mean that. You should probably let Brett mess around with it, I’m sure he’ll help with it.”

“Why is it such a big deal?” I asked.

“You and Brett will figure it out someday,” dad replied. “You’d better catch up with your mother.”

I gave dad one last hug and then I left him to meet with mom, Brett, and Dr. Reilly. Mom and Dr. Reilly got into the elevator, but Brett held me back and told them he wanted to take the stairs just before the doors closed.

“Why did you do that?” I asked. “I don’t want to take the stairs.”

“I wanted to get away from my mother for a while,” Brett replied as he walked toward the door to the stairwell. “Everything’s gone wrong! She blew up at me and said I need help! Can you believe that? She thinks I need therapy and she actually said she’s going to refer me to one of her stupid psychiatrist friends. Can you believe that shit?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I asked. “You’re the one who said you’re basically self-medicating your ADHD with pot.”

“Yeah, but that’s different. I don’t want to be a fucking freak.” Brett sulked. “Therapy is for fucking losers, not for someone like me! I don’t want to end up like some stupid freak!”

“Well you shouldn’t have stayed up until two o’clock singing about how much of a bitch you think she is.”

“She is a bitch!” Brett replied. “She’s a fucking cunt!”

“She’s also your mother, and I’m glad she’s finally seeing that she needs to get you help,” I said.

Brett stopped on the stairs and scowled at me. “I thought you were supposed to be on my side! I let you fuck me!”

The nurse walking up the stairs gave us quite the look.

“What the fuck are you gawking at?” Brett snapped at her. “Never seen two queers before?”

She hurried past us.

“Brett, I am on your side! And having sex with you has nothing to do with that!” I protested, trying to keep my voice down. “But I think you need help and that your mom’s not the one to give it to you.”

“So now my mom’s too stupid to do anything?” Brett asked.

“Are you just trying to start an argument with me because you’re mad at your mom?” I asked.

That really made him mad. “No! Just shut up! You’re supposed to be on my side, not hers! This is all your fault! I was just fine before you fucked me! Now everything’s all fucked up! I don’t need a therapist! I am not a stupid freak! I wish you people would quit trying to fucking fix me and leave me the fuck alone!”

Brett stormed down the rest of the stairs and would have angrily slammed the door when he reached the first floor, but it wasn’t the kind of door he could slam and he kind of bounced off of it. So he got even angrier and kicked it and then limped away. I followed at a much slower pace and met my mom in the lobby.

“Where’s Brett and Dr. Reilly?” I asked.

“He stormed through here and out the door so she went after him,” mom said.

“Boy, is he pissed,” I replied. “His mom thinks he needs therapy.”

“After spending a week with you who can blame him,” mom joked. I didn’t think it was very funny at that point.

I gave mom a hug and she told me that we would all be back to normal before too long. I managed to catch up to the arguing Reillys in the parking garage and we departed for a very long and quiet car ride home. Now Brett was mad at me as well as his mom. He sat in the back seat and spent the whole trip sulking and looking out the window with his arms crossed and tears streaking down his cheeks. Dr. Reilly turned on the radio and we listened to some oldies station. Every once in a while I’d turn to look at Brett, and if he was looking at me he’d quickly turn and look out the window again. I knew he was mad, but sometimes you can’t always get what you want. It seemed like ever since we had sex things had gone wrong. I was starting to regret what we’d done. I was starting to wish I could just go home.