It had been a month ago that Matthew had yet another freak out that consisted of two to three months of hell. It was in the beginning of September when the latest freak out ceased. He hated summers. He despised them when he first realized that the freak outs prevented him from enjoying the summer with the rest of the world. Instead of pools and barbeque, he was injected with sedatives and received round-the-clock care, prison was no different. Though once it was all over, Matthew returned to normal as if he never had one in the first place. After the freak out he had at age eleven, he returned to school.

During the first three weeks of school, he noticed that Seth looked well-fed, but looked despondent. It took a few weeks before Seth could finally tell Matthew and Lucas what was going on. Matthew's ears perked when he heard Roy's name; Roy also spent the summer in a psychiatric ward at a hospital. The state psychiatric hospital Matthew stayed in the year before shut down in May and mental patients received treatment elsewhere, more suited to a patient's needs or so he heard.

"My mom was screaming something about bed sheets the night Uncle Roy was taken to the nuthouse. He had red marks on his neck." Seth explained while painting a sign for the booth of their scam of the week. "He just got back this morning."

"Bedsheets? What the hell did the crazy old man do to end up there? Pretend to be Casper? Woooo!" Lucas threw his hands up and did a poor imitation of a stereotypical ghost.

"Shut up, Lucas!" Matthew punched Lucas in the arm. "Is Roy alright, Seth?"

Seth shrugged, "he seems fine now. He had coffee with mom right before I got some cereal and went to school."

"I'm sorry to hear about your uncle." A meek voice chimed in from behind them. The three kids turned to see Sasha who was still bond by the jumping rope. "In the Nightmare on Elm Street movie, Freddy Krueger wrapped a sheet around one of the characters' neck to kill them. He hung him like a hangman and the cops in the movie thought the character did it to himself. Maybe that's what your uncle was trying to do to himself."

Seth turned three shades whiter at Sasha's words, nervously clenching and balling up the hem of his shirt. Matthew was the one to speak, "Shut up, Sasha! Nobody cares about some dumb movie. Mind your own fucking business!"

"Ah, what the hell is Sasha even doing here and who the hell put that little geek in a dress and wig?" Lucas asked with extreme displeasure, pointing at the boy who wore a green velvet mock-medieval gown – a dress Matthew took from the middle school theater department that was made for an upcoming school play on Romeo and Juliet. The dress was a couple of sizes too large for the average sized twelve year old preteen. The red curly-haired wig also came from the theater department.

"He's going to be the girl for our kissing booth scam. I figure that Seth can be the boy for the kissing booth and Sasha could be the girl for the kissing booth. I took my mom's red lipstick to put on him." Matthew explained. Due to the fact that Matthew was still trying to get over what happened with Misty, Matthew refused to kiss another girl at the moment. When Seth and Lucas asked him about what happened with Misty and what sex felt like, Matthew refused to answer them. Losing Misty left him in a state of shock that he had not recovered from.

"You've got to be kidding." Seth shook his head, grimacing, "even if you did put lipstick on Sasha, everyone would still know it's him. Let's be honest, would you kiss Sasha? Why not just get one of the girls at this school to do this scam and give her a cut of the profits?"

`Would you kiss Sasha?' Even though the question was rhetorical, Matthew could not help but ponder on the issue. The kiss they were forced to share to satiate Ted's twisted desires was one that Matthew could never forget. His eyes trailed down to Sasha's slightly parted chapped lips and instantly regretted it. He secretly would have kissed Sasha, but he was not going to privy that fact to anyone, "Fuck no, I was thinking that everyone else would be dumb enough to fall for it." Matthew cracked his knuckles, nervously, "Since one of Stacy's friends overheard the conversation my dad had with Misty's dad, every girl in school thinks that I'm going to have sex with them. It wouldn't bother me if it was like a music video where the girls would shake their tits, or mosquito bites in their case, at me, but they just act like I'm disgusting for doing it. I really don't get them."

"No way am I helping you with your scam!" Sasha yelled, "It's your fault, Misty was forced to leave town! You caused me to lose my best friend!"

Matthew clenched his fists and attempted to charge at Sasha, but Seth and Lucas stopped him. "We still need to do the scam. Calm down!" Seth gently chastised him.

"You're right," Matthew pouted, "You can be the booth person. We'll do it without Sasha. I'm too valuable to sell myself for such a cheap price."

Seth rolled his eyes and stood near the booth, waiting for a potential customer. Unfortunately, they met with Darcy and his goons instead. "Oh look, trailer trash is selling himself." Darcy remarked snidely, "I guess his mom's welfare checks that my daddy paid for out of his income tax wasn't enough for the lazy class."

"My mom works as a waitress, you ass!" Seth retorted, scowling.

Matthew immediately opened his mouth after Seth, "The kissing booth is for chicks, only, dumbass. Nobody gives a shit about your stupid dad. Either move out of the way or get lost!"

Darcy shifted his eyes from Matthew to Sasha, "Check it out, the loser's table is desperate to find their Smurfette, since that pig Matthew had sex with moved away."

Matthew charged towards Darcy, but Seth caught him before Matthew could throw a punch at Darcy. Sasha yelled at the boys, "Shut up! Misty was so much better than you idiots!"

Darcy and his crew just chuckled. "We better leave the losers here to cry about their girlfriend. That's all they're good at anyway!" Matthew tried to pull against the hold Seth had on him, but it was no use. Darcy and his friends disappeared, likely heading into their classroom. One of these days, Matthew would fight Darcy again; he could just feel it within his bones.

Matthew made his usual trip to Roy's bomb shelter afterschool. He usually visited Roy every three days when Lucas and Seth were busy with their own lives, four when he went out with Misty. Secretly, Matthew had been hanging out in Roy's bomb shelter since Matthew got released from the hospital. He spent that time trying to make the perfect hot sauce while wondering where Roy had went. Now, that he knew that Roy was home, he decided to see how the man was doing.

When he went inside, Roy was acting quite normally. The man stood over the large freezer in his bomb shelter, cutting a fish over it, the obvious result of Roy going fishing as soon as he gotten back. Roy considered the activities of fishing and hunting to be ancient sports that men used to get back in touch with their primal roots.

"Hey Roy, it's great to see you back," Matthew greeted, "I see that my buckets of hot sauce are still where I left them."

"So you were the one who left that there," Roy replied, "Did you think I wouldn't notice someone making a batch of red hot sauce, drinking up my alcohol, leaving my magazines everywhere, and even playing with my knives? Good thing my guns are all on safety."

"Are you mad?" Matthew asked, flinching.

Roy sighed, setting the fish and the meat cleaver down, "No, I'm not mad. I'm just a bit overwhelmed from coming back today. Anyway, what kind hot sauce is in those buckets?"

"It's my own recipe. I call it 'Armenian Secret Hot Sauce'. It's made from ghost peppers and cure-ree spices. I had to mix it perfectly to get the flavoring right." Matthew remarked, "It was quite difficult, but I've made it. You want to try some?"

Roy shrugged, "I suppose. I'm not even sure what to expect from a hot sauce created by a kid, but I've tried strange cuisine before, so why not? Plus, I've eaten plenty of spicy food before, so whatever you've made should not be too bad. " Roy took one of the empty jars and filled a quarter of the jar full of hot sauce. "Bottoms up!" Roy gulped down the hot sauce until the jar was empty. "It's pretty zesty." Suddenly Roy's face turned bright red and the veteran dashed towards the small fridge in his abode. He cursed and pulled out a carton of milk. Roy chugged it down for a few minutes before finally coming back for air. "Goddamn! That shit can set your whole insides on fire! I don't think you've got hot sauce there. It tastes like hot sauce, but I think you've got a regular torture device."

Matthew laughed, "I thought you liked spicy food."

"Not that spicy!" Roy retorted.

Matthew let out another laugh and then asked seriously, his young facial expression expressing some concern, "What did you go to the nuthouse for? Seth told me that you were there."

"It's nothing you need to worry yourself over, kid. I'm going to be just fine," Roy assured, "I get a bit crazy sometimes, but it goes away."

"I know how that goes," Matthew replied, sympathetically, sitting down on the man's cot. "I've been in the nuthouse twice now. Every time I've think the crazy times have gone away, they've always come back. I can't win for losing!"

"There is no winning or losing when it comes to mental illness. You have to deal with it as you age. It'll be with you for the rest of your life. There is getting better to keep mental illness at bay though. Trust me, after several decades; the Vietnam War and Charlie still gets me down. Mental illness is a never-ending battle, but I trust that you'll learn how to fight it when you get older, kid." Roy ruffled Matthew's hair.

"I hate it," Matthew sniffled.

"You and me both. You and me both." Roy replied. Then the unexpected happened, Matthew received a hug from Roy. The hug was considered a masculine hug that two men use to express a close brother-ship with one another. Matthew was first confused by the hug and why Roy was hugging him. Once Matthew realized that Roy had no intentions of harming him, Matthew hugged the man back. After a while, Roy withdrew from the hug and ruffled Matthew's hair again almost like a father would do for their son. That day, Matthew started to consider Roy like a second father to him.

At the time, Matthew thought he would have Roy by his side forever. Matthew was too naïve to know about the nature of Roy's mental illness and how bad it would get. He was Roy, the guy who taught him how to fight and acted as a mentor to him. Roy never took advantage of him like Ted did or patronized him like his own father did. Roy had the sensitive nature of a mother and the paternal guiding nature of a father to Matthew, that guiding nature was something that Matthew needed for a long time. He never imagined that things would get so bad in a few years time. At that particular moment, things were relatively normal.