If my parents had known about Quinn, perhaps they would have been thrilled. They wouldn't know about Quinn, of course, because she was a girl and she was pretty and I definitely didn't want to explain my involvement in such a risky combination to them. 

The day after we talked on the phone, a Tuesday, I picked up my assigned reading book for my Literature class (Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea) and read it all the way through and two sittings. It was the most reading I had ever done at one time in my life and, frankly, I actually found myself enjoying it. I was sure there were far-reaching metaphors about man, the sea, and the vastness of the unknown that were soaring somewhere far above my understanding, but I enjoyed it for the simple tale of a man who stubbornly--or desperately--would not let go of his prize catch no matter what pain or struggle beset him. 

I impatiently anticipated the next Support Group meeting, hoping against hope that Quinn had already read the short book and we could talk afterwards so she could impart on me some wisdom about how our struggles with our various illness were like the sharks that had eaten the Old Man's fish, or something like that. Alas,when I arrived at the little room with the circle of chairs that Thursday, Quinn's seat was empty. It stayed that way after Dr. Frolland thanked us all for coming (as if we had a choice), and after he forced a few of the kids to talk about their various struggles during the week. I finally resigned myself to disappointment after half an hour, at which point Froland turned his attention to me and asked me if I could share something positive to help the other kids with their problems.

"I don't really have anything," I said. Without Quinn, the meeting seemed bland and predictable.

"Everyone has to make a contribution," Frolland admonished me, wagging a finger. "You've been quiet so far, I'm sure all of us would like to hear from you." I glanced around and saw that, actually, probably no one cared. Alice and Caleb were looking at the floor, Derek was messing with his shoelaces, Bethany and Cara seemed to be zoned out, and Jeremy was playing with the zippers on his cargo shorts.

"Fine," I sighed, and decided to give it a decent shot just to get the counselor off my back for the rest of the meeting. "I read a pretty good book this week, I guess."

"You guess you read the book, or you guess it was pretty good?" Frolland leaned forward with his knees on his elbows. I bit back a retort and shifted in my seat. "The book was pretty good," I answered. "It was The Old Man and the Sea, by, uh, Hemingway."

"Never read it," Frolland said somewhat dismissively. "What's it about?"

To my surprise, and probably everyone's surprise, it was Alice who answered his question. "It's about some old dude who catches a huge fish," she said quietly, looking up. All eyes in the room locked onto her. "What? I go to school too." She crossed her arms and looked back down at the floor.

"Interesting," The counselor said, though his body language indicated that he must not have thought so. "Well, Samuel, what makes the book 'pretty good,' and how can it help everyone in this room?"

"Well, it's about an old man and a fish, yeah, but it's about other stuff, too," I replied, feeling the gaze of the room shift back to me. "It's about, um, keeping on with the fight and not giving up, even when things look terrible." If there had been crickets inside the building, they would have been chirping away with abandon as everyone stared at me. "It seemed relevant," I mumbled, breaking the unbearable pause. I wished harder than ever that Quinn was there to crack a joke or say something angsty and ease the tension.

The rest of the meeting went by in a haze of wishing I were anywhere else in the world. When Frolland finally adjourned us I didn't wait around to be reminded that there would be no intellectual conversation outside by the low stone wall. I felt ashamed, for some reason, for trying to share something helpful to the rest of the group. That privilege, it seemed, was reserved for those who had been suffering from whatever-it-was for far longer that I had been. I groaned out loud and slumped in my usual spot, loathing my parents already for inevitably making me the last one left in the parking lot once again.

"Samuel!" The last voice I wanted to hear rang out across the concrete and I looked up to find Frolland jovially strolling toward me, briefcase clutched tightly in both claw-like hands. "I'm glad I caught you," he said airily, as if I were going anywhere anytime soon. "I've been meaning to catch up with you independently on your treatment as of late."

"Okay," I responded after an awkward break.

"So, how are you feeling?"

It was almost like the dinner time conversation with my parents all over again. "Fine," I answered, looking up at him and attempting to look the part.

"Honesty is key to successful recovery, Samuel," Frolland said in that not-quite-condescending tone that I'd grown to detest so much.

"Really, I'm okay," I said with a shrug, hoping he'd give up.

"Have you been taking the medication I prescribed you?"

His question threw me for a moment and I knew I'd never be able to lie through that hesitation. "Um... not really," I admitted finally.

"Come on now, Samuel, this isn't a game," The counsellor said, shaking his head at me and looking more disappointed than he should have been, or so I thought. "You have to treat your condition seriously, or you'll never get better."

"You think I'm not taking it seriously?" I repeated, feeling anger well up inside of me like a boiling red liquid. "Sorry, I didn't realize that it was you who had to live with a brain that, apparently, isn't functioning properly."

"Now now, no need to take out your frustrations on me," Frolland said, pursing his lips. "I understand that it's the illness that you're angry at, not me."

"Sure," I said sarcastically, and then added: "And it's not an illness."

"Alright then, Samuel."

If I were a fighter, maybe, and not a nerd, perhaps I would have punched him square in the face. But I was indeed a nerd, so I set my jaw and curled my fingers tightly instead, fighting the urge to blow up on him.

"I need you to be taking your medicine," Frolland said after a few moments' silence.

"Or what?" I asked, still pissed off but also curious to see if he had anything to say to that.

"Or I think that, professionally, the best decision might be to remove you from the stimuli that seems to be fueling your depression and unpredictable moods instead." He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at me.

"What does that mean?" I asked, daring to look back up at him.

"Institutionalization," He said confidently, shifting his grip on his briefcase. "Temporarily, at first, but perhaps long-term treatment options should be considered."

I was hearing the words, but they weren't making sense in my head. I felt a chill run up my spine and my brows knit together in disbelief. "At like, what, a mental hospital?" I cried, coming up off of the wall.

"If it comes to that, I don't believe the the notion should be ruled out," the counselor said with a sniff. "You're not a little boy, and I shouldn't have to treat you like one. Do me, yourself, and everyone else a favor, Samuel: just take your medications." With that, he bid me a nice night and strolled off across the parking lot to the last car sitting solitary under a streetlight. As soon as his door shut I let out an audible groan and a stream of the most colorful expletives I could come up with on the spot. I kicked the wall in frustration and instantly regretted it, slamming back down onto the wall with a grimace as my foot throbbed fiercely. 

Anti-depressants or a mental institution. This had to be the worst day of my life.

A horn beeped a little ways off across the parking lot and I found my mom's SUV pulling up far sooner than I expected. Usually both she and my dad picked me up from Group meetings, but she was alone this time. She pulled up to the curb and I did the best I could to hide my anger and my limp as I got in. Mom smiled at me and said nothing until we were out of the parking lot and back on the main road.

"Wow, it's hot out tonight," she said finally as she turned up the A/C. I could feel a tension growing in the vehicle and I wasn't too keen to find out where it was headed.

"It's Arizona, Mom," I said shortly. "It's always hot."

"Mhm." We sat in silence at a red light for a few more moments. "You know what I feel like?" She blurted suddenly. "Ice cream. Would you like to get some ice cream, Samuel?"

I looked at her like she had grown a second head; for one, she was always complaining about how she couldn't lose the ten pounds she (but no one else, really) could see, and for two, we had stopped doing mother-son bonding stuff when I was about eleven years old. I frowned, sensing an ulterior motive.

"Uh, sure," I replied as the light turned green, deciding to play along. She smiled at me once again and put her blinker on for an upcoming McDonald's.

"So, ahem, how was your meeting?" She asked after ordering two soft-serve cones. She pretended to be very interested in the bushes on the side of the drive-thru lane and wouldn't look at me directly. My suspicions were growing exponentially.

"Normal," I said in a light voice, watching her closely. "Boring," I added a moment later, to sound a bit more like myself.

"That's good," Mom deadpanned, and I could tell that's not what she was expecting. We got our cones from a kid I recognized from my high school and started on the way home. Mom held her cone near the A/C vent and didn't take a bite. "So, honey, did, ahem, Dr. Frolland say anything about your medication?"

Bingo.

I felt the knot twist tighter in my stomach but I forced myself to remain calm. "He, uh, he might have said something about it." My voice faltered a little bit and I clenched my fists again. "He also mentioned something about a mental institution, too. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Mom swallowed nervously and bit her lower lip. "Samuel, they aren't referred to as institutions anymore..." she began, but I cut her off.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I cried, looking at her in utter disbelief. "You actually think I'd be better of in, what, a padded cell, or something?"

"Samuel, it's not like that!" She pleaded, shaking her head at me. "Clearview is a very nice psychiatric hospital and you'll get all the help you need there!"

"Oh, so you've already picked out a place?" I couldn't seem to keep my voice down. "Were you ever going to tell me before you just shipped me off to the loony bin? If you think I'm going to--"

"Samuel Tyler Reynolds!" 

Mom never used my full name. 

I shut my mouth immediately and looked at her. She was gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white and her face red, a frightening sight indeed. "Samuel... Sammy..." She took a few deep breaths. "This is exactly why I called Dr. Frolland yesterday. You're unpredictable and depressed and... you're..." she blinked hard a few times and her voice broke. "You're scaring me, Samuel."

The words hit me like a sucker punch to the gut and a knife to the heart.

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I had never seen my mom looking so helpless before. I clenched my jaw and shook my head slowly, trying to figure out what to say to that. "I... I'm sorry, Mom," was the best I could come up with.

"I just want you to get better," she whispered, wiping her eyes with a finger. "I'm your mother, and I love you, and I just want you to get better." We drove in silence until we arrived back at the house. Mom put the SUV in park and started to get out. I reached over and touched her arm gently.

"I'll get better, Mom," I said weakly, finding my voice. "I don't need to go to a mental... psychiatric hospital," I corrected myself quickly. "I really don't."

"So you'll take your medication, then?" She asked hopefully, nodding slowly at me. I sighed. Everything inside me screamed at me to resist. Seeing my mom like that, though... It broke something inside me. Something that needed to be fixed.

"Yes, Mom, I'll take my medications."

She smiled at me and dropped her uneaten, dripping excuse of a soft-serve cone into the garbage can in the garage before we went inside. Dad was watching football highlights in the living room and Mom went to join him, so I headed upstairs to my room and dug the little orange bottle full of little white pills out of my dresser drawer, where I had buried them under my socks. I got myself a cup of water from the bathroom and placed both side-by-side on my desk before slumping down in my chair and staring down at the loaded gun, so to speak.

What would Quinn do?

The thought popped in my head suddenly, random and uninvited.

It doesn't matter, another thought countered. She's not here right now. She doesn't control you.

Yeah, but she knows what she's doing, the other part of me fought back. Besides, I like her.

But you love your mom, right? Quinn's just a girl, a girl who isn't helping you. You're sick; come on, what's important here?

I'm not--

Just shut up and take the pills. Yes, you're sick. Deal with it. 

"Stop! Fine!" I growled out loud, and before I could change my mind I swallowed two little white doses of the truth with a large gulp of water.