Justin was in a bad mood. He was trying hard to avoid heroin and other drugs, and he'd been succeeding for a while, but that didn't exactly make it easy. He never really knew how to manage his emotions. Drugs and alcohol and sex all made them go away, but he wasn't good at actually working through anything. It's not like he ever had anyone to teach him how. His mom sure as hell didn't have a clue as to how to deal with her own shit. So when he didn't have access to one of those easy ways to push everything aside, he didn't feel awesome. Guilt, stress, sadness, worry, anger, fear ... He would get stuck in a mood that he didn't know how to get out of.
In that kind of a state, unfortunately, it's not so easy to get along with other people. That would be fine if he could hide out and avoid them, but considering the Jensens did at this point know that he was living in their house (more than knew, they actually wanted it, like permanently, somehow), that wasn't a thing. They were the kind of parents (parents!) that made a specific point to know what was up with you. Mrs. Jensen kept peeking into his bedroom (because yeah, they even fixed him up his own bedroom), asking if he needed anything, how he was doing, all that parental stuff. He kept saying no thanks and mumbling that he was fine, but every time she showed up he got a little more irritated because he seriously wasn't in a place where he wanted to communicate with anyone.
So when Mrs. Jensen came to the door and asked if Justin was ever going to get up and leave the room and join the world, he snapped at her. Her joking tone got on his nerves more than all that annoying concern.
"Would you just shut up and leave me the fuck alone!?" He jumped up and went to close the door. It didn't have a lock but he hoped she would get the message.
Apparently the answer to his question was no. She held the door open.
"No, I will not. You don't get to talk to me like that. I'll grant you plenty of leniency for the situation you're in, but if you're going to live in this house – "
"I won't, if that's what you want!"
A confrontation was the the furthest thing from what Justin needed, but now that he was in one, his mess of negative emotions just flared up more. Guilt for screwing up the Jensens' lives, anger at Mrs. Jensen's interruptions, fear of ending up with nothing again. When he would fight with his mom or one of her boyfriends, his go-to was to get out. Whether he had anywhere to go or not, he would get out and deal with the rest later. What else was he supposed to do now?
"Just give me a goddamn minute to grab my things!" He reached in front of her to grab the doorknob and slammed the door shut while she jerked her hand out of the way.
He had a brief moment of quiet while he went for his bag, but then the door was open. He turned and saw not Mrs. Jensen, but Mr. Jensen. He came forward with a hand out, and Justin reacted instinctively. He swung at the man, but his fist was caught in Mr. Jensen's outstretched hand. Suddenly he panicked, backing away, aware of what he had almost done. He didn't even look at Mr. Jensen's face. He looked to his hand, which the man was now shaking out. It wasn't a successful punch but it seemed like he had caused some pain.
"Oh shit, shit shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, I wouldn't..."
He could feel his eyes growing wider as he shrunk in on himself, trying to be smaller. This was not a man he was supposed to fight with. A fight with him, Clay's dad, and he would never be able to come back.
But Mr. Jensen didn't come at him again. He put his hands up in a nonthreatening gesture.
"Hey, it's okay." When Justin looked up at Mr. Jensen, it must have shown on his face that the statement didn't make sense to him.
"I mean, it's not okay, we're gonna have to talk about this, but it's not the end of the world. We don't need any more fighting. Just take a couple of deep breaths, alright?"
Justin took that advice. This was new. Someone stopping a fight, and not rolling their eyes and walking away like his mom would do but sticking around and wanting to talk about it? He kept breathing, because it did actually seem to help calm him down a little. It felt like a long time to just stand there focusing on breathing, but Mr. Jensen didn't act impatient. After a moment, Mr. Jensen spoke again.
"Do you think you could come downstairs and sit with us at the kitchen table in a few minutes?"
"Yeah, uh, okay." Now that he could breathe a little easier, he didn't see a reason to say no.
Justin sat on his bed for a moment, trying not to go back into panic mode. After a few minutes of giving himself a little break and presumably giving the two of them time to talk, he headed downstairs and sat across from them at the table.
Mrs. Jensen began, "Now, we're done fighting, but we do feel there should be some sort of consequence for your behavior just now."
Mr. Jensen nodded. "We're not okay with being shut out like that, especially not with foul language and violence. We've been through that with Clay, and we're done with it, okay?"
Justin looked down at his hands and nodded, ashamed at having reacted like he did. He shouldn't have shouted at Mrs. Jensen for being nice to him, and he definitely shouldn't have swung at Mr. Jensen. He looked back up to apologize, turning to Mrs. Jensen first.
"Mrs. Jensen, I'm really sorry for yelling at you. You didn't do anything wrong, you didn't deserve that." Then he turned to Mr. Jensen. "And Mr. Jensen, I'm really sorry for hitting you. I swear I didn't mean to, I just saw you coming and you seemed angry and I went with what I knew, which was really stupid cause I know you aren't that kind of guy, but I wasn't thinking. If you don't want me here because of that – I can't say it'll never happen again, cause I didn't mean to and I still did it – I get it."
He hated saying that part, but he knew he had to. Yeah, they'd been through some shit with Clay, he wasn't exactly stable either, but he highly doubted Clay had ever physically attacked one of his parents.
But the Jensens both seemed a little shocked by that, and both responded with, "No."
Mr. Jensen continued, "Of course we don't want you to leave. We'll have to work on that response, because no kid should be scared enough to react like that. But we're going to adopt you. That's already been decided, hasn't it?"
Justin had to smile at that. His worst fear had so quickly been ruled out.
"Yeah, yeah, it has. Thank you." He had never been more thankful for anything in his life than he was when Clay informed him that the family wanted to adopt him. That they would do that in the face of deception, drug use, juvie, and now a touch of violence, would never make much sense to him, but he loved it.
"What we do want to do," Mrs. Jensen continued, "Is ground you for a few days."
"Ground? As in, I can't leave the house?"
"Yes son, that's what grounding means," replied Mr. Jensen, amused.
Justin laughed a little to himself, smiling at the absurdity of his situation. Both Jensens looked at him quizzically, so he explained.
"This is literally the opposite of every other kind of trouble I've had at home. Every fight with my mom or her boyfriends either ended in me being told to get out, or leaving on my own to get away to somewhere safer. Now you guys are telling me I can't leave. And I actually believe this is the safest place." He shrugged. "It's kind of funny."
That little tidbit of his usual life seemed to upset them, so he tried to lighten the mood.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm excited to be grounded or anything; it's a perfectly fine punishment. You don't have to add anything else!" He chuckled. "Promise!"
They smiled, but he noticed that they glanced at each other too, like they were going to talk about him later when he wasn't around. He didn't want to get into his issues any more if he didn't have to, so he asked if it was okay to go back up to his room, and they consented. As he made his way up the stairs, Mrs. Jensen shouted, "Three days!"
Three days grounding, instead of a black eye and a night of homelessness? He'd take it.