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Dad: This is manipulation, Mary. We’ve got to be the parents, here. Tell us the truth, Cameron. Who’s selling you the drugs?

Mom: Oh, Cameron. You’re not selling drugs, are you?Advertisement

Me: Mom. Dad. I’m not on drugs. Well, not this time.

Mom: Not this time? Oh, Cameron.

Me: Can you guys just chill for a sec—

Dad: (laughs) Chill? Chill?

Mom: Honey, we’re just …

Dad: That is rich. …

Mom: … worried about you.

Dad: Fine. You are officially grounded. The door’s coming off your room. You’ve lost your privacy rights for now. Do you understand?

Cut to close-up of teen boy as he stares at a spot on the wall.

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Me: Yeah.

Mom: Do you have anything you want to say, honey?

Extreme close-up of spot looming like a hole.

Me: No.

The camera angle goes wider and wider till it’s so out of focus we’re nothing but a blob of color on the screen.

Once I’ve had my ass handed to me Dad style, and it is determined that I will go see a drug counselor and a shrink, I sit at the kitchen table, reading, since that’s pretty much all that’s left to me, being that I am grounded for the foreseeable future. Jenna prances past me on her way to the fridge to look at food she won’t eat because she’s afraid it will make her fat, and fat is a big old black smudge on the storefront window of perfection.

“I hear if you even look at the ice cream for too long, it’ll turn you into a porker,” I say.

“I’m not talking to you.”

“I’m crushed.”

“You punched Chet!” Jenna’s so pissed she actually takes out a non-fat free pudding cup.

“Don’t take it out if you’re not going to eat the whole thing,” I say.

She slams the fridge door and pulls off the foil top with dramatic flair. “You know why you don’t like Chet?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but I can’t help answering anyway. “You mean besides the fact that he’s a self-involved blowhard?”

“You don’t like him because he cares about other people. I mean, his speeches at Kiwanis help save people’s lives! Have you ever done that, Cameron? Have you ever done anything for anybody else just because you actually cared about them? No. You probably don’t even know what that feels like.”

This is the part where I jump in and say, Why, that’s not true. I care about all sorts of people. And the environment. And endangered farm animals. Secretly, I’ve been working up a plan to give an endangered farm animal to every person I care about just so they will know the depth of my feelings. But the truth is, she’s got me on this point. Chet’s not the angel that she thinks he is, but I’m in no position to say shit about anybody.

Jenna takes my silence as a concession. “You will not wreck things with Chet and me. From now on, you are not to talk to me or acknowledge me in any way. Got it?”

“You. Me. No interaction. Me got.”

“Good.”

She takes one bite of the pudding, licks every speck from the spoon, puts the cup back in the fridge, and drops the spoon in the sink with a clank.

CHAPTER NINE

Wherein I Am Subjected to Visits with Two Therapists and an Epic Fail with an Ergo-Chair

THE VISIT WITH THE DRUG COUNSELOR

“Hi, Cameron, I’m Abby.”

Her office is a study in bland. Soothing green walls. Plastic chairs set in a circle. A messy desk that seems to say, “Hey, you can trust me—I’m busy and kooky just like you kids!” The obligatory, inspirational, cute-pet posters on the walls: STAY STRONG—STAY OFF DRUGS! BE HAPPY, NOT HIGH! There’s a half-finished fruit smoothie in the middle of the desk.

“So,” Abby says, with an I-already-know-the-answer-to-this-question smile. “Tell me, why are you here today, Cameron?”

“There was nothing but reruns on TV.”

Abby nods sympathetically, but her eyes say, Just You Try Me, Asshole. “Cameron, I’d like to help you with your treatment, but you’re going to have to start by being honest with me. Tell me about your drug intake in a typical week.”

I shrug. “The occasional joint.”

She makes a tsk sound in her throat like she doesn’t believe me, when, actually, I’m telling the truth. “No hallucinogens? Because I hear you really tripped out.”

“No. Nothing like that. I think I got some bad pot, though? ’Cause I’ve been seeing weird stuff lately.”

“Mmmm, flashbacks,” Abby says, nodding. “That can happen with hallucinogens.” pqdm.com