Anna Stilinski passes away when Stiles- Genim, back then- is just a few days shy of ten. Lung cancer. Mucinous bronchioloalveolar carcinoma.
Genim doesn't sleep much the first few days and while that could arguably be blamed on his constant headaches (from crying so much- hidden, away from his father's sad eyes), the ominous truth is that he is reluctant to fall asleep. Reluctant to find his mother alive within these realms fabricated by his subconscious.
He can't let go of the idea that maybe she's still alive, somewhere else. On a trip, visiting some of those nice ladies from her college days' pictures.
He saw her fade away, give him her last smile, asking him to come as close to her as possible so she could press sandpapery lips against his forehead for the last time; too weak to even attempt to card her thin translucent fingers through his messy short hair.
He knows the exact time of her death, even when the final feverish flutter of her eyelids had happened with him sitting outside of her room, engulfed by Ms. McCall's strong soothing embrace.
4:35 p.m. Monday, April 4. 2005.
There is a funeral, a constant flow of people either hugging him or keeping their politely jittery distances, paying their respects. Muttering 'I'm sorry for your loss' or similar formalities (his heart had ached, bled, every single time he heard the words); there is the stifling absence, the lack of warmth, the terrifying sense of loss. Everything screamed death.
But a little part of him still clings to the silly idea that maybe she isn't. Dead. That maybe her coffin is empty, that this is temporal.
So he doesn't sleep, to keep the dreams at bay, to not see her so vividly (still firmly imprinted in his memories), not feel her as if she were there.
He has to accept that mom isn't somewhere, anywhere, else. She's gone (as is a big chunk of himself). He has to believe this, and dreaming would only be a hindrance to that. It would only enable his illusions. Sleep doesn't help, therefore he doesn't.
Eventually he keels over, falls asleep with his head pillowed by his arms on the dinner table.
He dreams.
His own gross sobbing wakes him up. After he rubs some fat tears away from his face with the sleeve of his shirt, making himself stop crying through sheer force of will, he sees his dad. Sleeping on the same table, across from him, mimicking his former position.
He hurts so much. He looks at his dad and he hurts so so much. He can't believe it is possible to feel so much pain. He misses his mom, his father's lost her too, and they are alone.
"Dad." He puts his hand on his father's arm. Shakes him softly. "Daddy, wake up."
Dad opens his eyes, adjusts his eyes to the dimly lit room, runs his big hands over his face, sighs. Finally he looks at Genim, with a tired sad smile. He says, "Happy birthday, kiddo."
Friday, April 8. Genim is officially ten. This year his mom won't be around to bake him a cake.
"I know, son, I know."
It's only when his father's got him wrapped in the tightest hug that he notices he's started crying again, hands in fists against his dad's chest, face buried against his dad's shirt, soaking it.
That day Scott comes over with a handmade cake that his mom made for him before leaving for work. It's a strawberry shortcake, like his mom used to make him ever year.
Scott presents it to him with a little pained smile and the most earnest affection-filled eyes.
That moment right there is when he decides that Scott is always always going to be his best friend.
A few weeks go by. Things don't get better, they won't for some time, his dad says- but they do get easier, it gets easier to go on and put effort into getting to the 'better' part. Still, Genim plasters himself to his father's side. Whenever he isn't at school (and unless he's guiltied by Scott's soulful eyes and spending some time over at his house), he's in the station, making an excellent job of winning over the hearts of all of his dad's deputies with his incessant chatter and his innocently boisterous and lively nature, bringing out all of the protectiveness in them in those few moments when he goes quiet without noticing.
He's there and he's sunny; underneath it all, however, he lives in a nearly constant state of fear. He's scared when the door opens and someone he doesn't know comes in, when his dad has to interrogate someone or go to a crime scene or tend to any other business away. Or when he simply steps out of Genim's field of vision.
He's anxious all the time, hiding his constant stomach aches with words upon words upon words about this book or that class or the one comic book or TV show (everything to ever cross his mind with the exception of his mom). He's always holding too tight, never able to convince himself that his dad won't disappear the second his eyes stray elsewhere. That his eyes and his little hands aren't the only things keeping his dad from vanishing.
Genim's first panic attack hits him like a freight train on one of the days he's at Scott's. His dad is thirty minutes late in picking him up. Melissa tells him that it's the weather, forcing him to slow down on his way there, but his stomach is tied in knots either way. He's got a wild well fed imagination that takes over him, making him think of all the bad case scenarios, all the ways this could mean that Genim's now alone.
His fingers get colder by the second, and he's thrown into a well of darkness, a slick heavy something molding itself to his skin, smothering him. He needs to run, to escape, to take in huge gulps of air; to stand there, untouched, still, trying his best to block out the loud drums beating to a rhythm of despair, filling his ears. He feels like he is dying. Oh God, is he dying?
He comes back an hour later, to his own howls of pain, to the strenght of his dad encasing him, not even knowing how he got home.
The week after that, his father makes an appointment for him with Dr. Helen Moore.
She's a nice (if a bit stern) woman. Middle aged, with some greying hair on her temples, thin lips, big dark eyes half hidden by thick rimmed granny glasses. She reminds him of one of their neighbours (Mrs. Myers, who's sweet and makes him chocolate chip cookies now and then). She speaks to him with clarity, boldly, kind but firm. Listens to him with genuine interest, but always knows to bring him back from endless tangents or derailed trains of thought, knows to say 'Genim, that's not what we were talking about.' when he tries to run away from something particularly painful by way of his mouth.
They see each other once a week for the first year. Then on and off for the next two, on routine checks.
Then, at age fourteen, two things happen. The first one is the way he's no longer ever called by his birth name, by anyone. At some point along the line he simply decides to become Stiles. He ingrains the nickname into everybody's brain. Wears it like a second skin, a little like a shining and new beginning. It makes him think that by burying Genim, he buries some memories and those of others that revolve around him.
It obviously doesn't work. Doesn't change who he is or what he feels and wants or how he's perceived by others, doesn't make him rise to popularity. But the name sticks.
The second thing is how it starts getting impossibly hard for him to focus, how he starts getting these difficulties to control his impulsivity (how he convinces Scott to follow him in the less thought out plans in the history of ever in fits of it and gets them busted every single time) and with working with people other than Scott. His dad doesn't know what to do with him, he's always been a handful but never quite like this. And Stiles is just so damn frustrated, he's not supposed to be making his dad's life harder than it already is and-
He starts seeing Dr. Moore once a month, again.
The first time Dr. Moore (a psychiatrist, he realizes for the very first time, and is instantly ashamed because he is meant to be more observant than that and she's been in and out of his life for too long, really) broaches the subject of pills and prescriptions and this one condition called ADHD and the sporadic panic attacks he still gets and the very first symptoms of what could be heading into depression territory, he shakes his head no. Stays stubborn. Says, "no, dude. I'm not fu- not wrong enough to need pills. You know that."
She gives him information about everything on the subject, book titles, and links to websites, pamphlets. Everything she can think of about mental illnesses and conditions, brain chemistry, the DSM-V, psychostimulants and antidepressants. She knows that the way to him is through facts. That anything other than cold hard facts won't get her anywhere right now.
She gives him information, folds her hands over her lap and says, "What I know is that you are having a hard time and that it is a possibility that you could need medication. I'm not saying that it is a certainty, don't go around being an ignorant brat and rushing into things. If the need arises and you want to make a decision, however, I'd want you to make an informed one."
She knows him too well, knows to be honest, to occasionally treat him like the adult he wants to pretend he is.
It works.
He consents to Adderall, because every single test they have done hitherto, everything he has read, points to ADHD and he wants to function properly, even if it takes psychostimulants.
But that's it. He points out that there's still other ways to fight his panic attacks (and that he's just had two or three in the last two years) and the sadness weighing down his limbs a little. He does an exposition to Dr. Moore, talks the whole forty minutes. Presents charts, book passages, an entire folder of pages upon pages of careful research. Says that they haven't done any hormone checks lately, that maybe he is going through one of those rough patches of growing up, what with ranking lower than a rock in the social ladder that is high school, only ever hanging out in the regular with Scott because he is socially stunted and starting to notice how girls tend to not notice him. Tells her that he is pretty sure that if the sadness is -in fact- more than teenage woes, that cognitive behavioral therapy will work wonders; that there's also rational emotive behavior therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to try first.
Dr. Moore admits that he makes a good case, says that they've just reached a compromise. With a twinkle on her eyes, she adds, "there's been no patient of mine who's suffered depression that could muster enough energy, passion and tenacity to delve into anything in this way. Much less the presence of mind to argue their case with such ferocity. I think we are safe, right now."
When he relaxes into the chair, she smiles.
He feels like she's totally played him, somehow.
He schedules his appointment with her for the following month before going home, prescription in a shaky hand. He starts taking Adderall a few days later.
Some days are easier than others.
He starts paying the social games of school less attention, and thus is less down on himself, generally. That's a win. In regards to his other problems, well, some things get better, some don't. The pills aren't giving him any more hunger than normal (and that's good, too, since he's already got the healthy voracious hunger of a growing boy), or headaches or extra nervousness. He does get, for the first two days, a little dizzy when moving too quickly, but even that fades away on the third day or so. He is better able to put his mind to things, but every once in a while he still drifts away. At least it makes interacting with his classmates easier. The impulsivity diminishes a little, but still wins over his rational side one out of three times. He doesn't expect magic and fireworks from a drug, so he's pretty alright with the results, anyway.
Some days don't go as smoothly.
It's been six years since his mom's death. That's one of those facts his Adderall can't modify, quiet down like the other stray billion thoughts inside him. Six long years, and... well. There are days more difficult than others. Days where everything is a bitch and unfair. Days where he can't go over to Scott's out of fear of accidentally running into Melissa and being reminded that there's people out there who still have their mothers when his is long gone.
It's shitty of him to even think that way, knowing that Scott's also lacking a parental figure, yet the feeling persists, burning inside him. A little flame too close to his skin.
Those days he tries to remember the good things. He makes a conscious effort to stop tinging his mother's beautiful memory with death.
As time passes, some things start getting lost: the exact color of her hair, the timbre of her laugh, the curvature of her eyebrows, the complexity of her hand gestures. They get fuzzy, harder and harder to bring up to the surface.
One of those shittastic days he wakes up with no recollection whatsoever of the natural rhythm of her words.
That day he skips school, stays in with old scrapbooks of her. Clinging to the pictures there, to the one thing he won't allow himself to lose about her. The idea of her as someone corporeal, who set foot on this world.
Some days are harder than others, bring him back to his mourning.
Some days are harder than others, and then some days there's unexpected discoveries. Which is an understatement, really. Because some days he is broken, dome days he is distracted, some days he is annoyed or frustrated, some days he is plain happy.
But then some days he learns that werewolves are apparently real.
Holy shit.