seeing her look like someone smacked her with a board, and I have to get my kicks somehow in here.

“Mrs. Bancroft, I thought that I’d mentioned in our phone conversation that this is a slow and ongoing

process. We can’t even begin to work on anything in less than half an hour. Nick needs-”

“Nick needs? Isn’t that what I’m paying you for? To figure out what he needs and to fix him so that I

don’t have to do this again. Really, doctor, I’m very busy, and I just don’t have the time in my day to

drive down here and sit in a little room doing this. Why don’t you do whatever it is you do, I’ll pay for

it, no one else will need to know we went through this, and we’ll all be happy.”

She gets up and starts putting on her coat. I can see Doc working on a protest, but I don’t think it’s

going to do much good. I knew this wasn’t going to work.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me doctor, I need to go pick up my daughter, drop her off at the sitter, and

then get back to work. I can’t just sit here all day; I have better things to do.”

“Oh that’s right, mom. Run off and spend time with your perfect job and your perfect family and

pretend I don’t even exist.”

It’s the first time I’ve said anything since I walked into the room, and she finally turns and looks at

me, almost surprised that I’m even here at all. To be honest, I’m a little surprised myself, that I finally

decided to say something.

“Sometimes Nick, I wish you didn’t.”

No matter what I’ve been feeling myself, hearing her say it practically sucks the oxygen out of the

room. It’s a struggle to find the air to say anything else, and when I do, it comes out as a whisper.

“Well maybe if you wish hard enough, one of these days it’ll come true.” My breath catches in my

throat the second I get the words out, and I wonder if maybe we wouldn’t have all been better off if I’d

ended up taking a little more that night. My ears are ringing and I can only partially hear that Doc’s

trying to say something. My vision is fine though, and I can see mom picking up her things and walking

away.

On top of it all, I can feel that familiar nausea starting to build half way between my stomach and my

throat.

“Nick, calm down. Mrs. Bancroft, really, if we could just talk…”

But mom’s already out the door. I know she won’t be back again. Doc will have to figure out some

other way to fix me.

For now though, I have to go throw up and not think about what just happened.

Might be easier to forget if I had something around here to drink…

***

Our lights-out time is 10:30 every night, and even New Year’s Eve isn’t going to change that. So I’m

laying in bed when I should be out getting wasted and partying like everyone else is tonight.

New Year’s Eve.

A whole new year.

A whole new year with nothing that’s going to change. It’s going to be the same shit that the past

however many years have been, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

Doc and I were talking about it a little after the whole fuckup session with my mom, and Doc was

saying that I could make this year different if I tried. Like she wants me to, I don’t know, get clean and

stop screwing everything that moves, and go back to classes and apply myself or some shit like that.

She said it was a good time for me to be in here. That my resolutions can actually mean something

this year, instead of just making them out of habit because it’s what everyone always does. That it can

be a new life instead of just a new year. I don’t know what she’s expecting from me, though.

So I’m laying here in bed, and I’m thinking how they say what you’re doing at midnight on New

Year’s is going to set the tone for the rest of your year, and it just doesn’t seem worth it. I never asked

for this. I never asked to be trapped in here, forced to change everything I’ve become. What’s the point

of me changing if no one else around me is going to?

What’s the point of anything?

***

I’m in the TV room. Visiting hours, yeah, but the people that don’t get visitors get to watch TV during

that time. It’s where I always am during visiting hours. Sort of a consolation prize since no one loves me

enough to come and visit me. Or something like that.

“Keller!”

It takes me a second to even realize someone’s talking to me, because I don’t expect anyone to come

find me during visiting hours. It’s Jerome, the on-duty nurse. He’s probably my favorite nurse here,

actually. I vaguely remember him tackling me one night right after I got here, but it’s one of those

memories I’m not quite sure of. He’s pretty cool though, if you manage to redeem yourself after getting

tackled. Which I think I’m maybe managing to do.

I must have just been staring at him, because I don’t remember saying anything. It happens every

once in a while, I guess. Doc says it’s like I’m looking across the room at something, but my brain is

completely gone. She says it’s due to the meds, and it should stop eventually. I hope so.

“Keller, pull your head back to earth. You’ve got a visitor.”

A visitor. Me. But I don’t get visitors, and can’t even think of who it might be. But Jerome doesn’t

lie about shit like that, so I heave myself out of the chair I’ve been in for the past hour and go out to the

visitors’ room.

And there he is. Rizzo. Beautiful as always. It makes me stop and stare for a few seconds, just like it

always does. He even looks comfortable sitting there. Asshole fits everywhere, and makes me feel a

little smaller in comparison.

It’s a struggle to work up the courage, but I finally walk over and sit across the table from him. I

don’t really want him to see me like this, but I don’t have a choice now. Refusing to see him would

cause more trouble here than just going along with it. He looks at me, and it takes a few seconds for

recognition to register.

“You look…”

I can tell he’s searching for words, so I offer up a few.

“Like shit? Worse than usual? Like I need a bag to put over my head?”

He laughs. He’s always laughing at me. “I was going to say ‘different’.”

Different. Yeah. I’m sure I don’t look anything like he’s used to. None of the black, none of the

fishnet, none of the makeup, none of the piercings. None of the stuff that made me me. They took it all

away from me, saying I’m more likely to recover if I leave behind the things that link me to my old

lifestyle.

Right. All it does is make me feel worse most of the time. Or like I’m in some strange play that no

one gave me the script to. And I think it might be a comedy, only no one’s let me in on the punchlines.

I’m beginning to think maybe I’m the punchline.

Even my hair’s different. I haven’t dyed it in a while, and they gave me a haircut last week, so most

of the black is gone now, leaving the natural light brown behind. Not quite the “little goth boy” that

Rizzo’s come to expect. Plain jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt. And slippers. Because it’s always cold

in here.

“Different. That’s an awfully nice way for you to put it.”

We sit in silence for a while. After about two seconds I can’t look at him anymore, and can’t

stomach the thought of him looking at me like this, so I stare down at my hands instead. Pick at a scab

from a scrape that I’m not sure how I got. Every instinct I have is telling me that I should just tell him to

go, because I can’t imagine why he’s here in the first place. Rizzo always had better things to be doing.

Eventually I can’t handle just sitting there anymore. I have to say something. “Why are you here,

Rizzo?”