His parents were still debating on which school to send him to. Listing the pros and cons made it easier to compare. Private school had a tuition, but he would get a better quality education in a smaller school with stricter rules. The other public middle school wouldn't cost anything, but was in another district and they could be denied and have to move to go there. Homeschooling was cheaper that private school, but they would have to consider hiring a tutor or trusting him to keep up with his classes on his own.

TJ didn't feel strongly on any of those idea, but he told his parents that homeschooling sounded nice because he'd be able to focus more on his mental health, and not the typical 'it's easier than regular school' spiel.

But it didn't matter.

He didn't plan on being around long enough to know what it was like.

He couldn't let his parents suspect anything, so he plastered on a relieved expression while coming up with how he was going to do this.

ZZZ

"You need to apologize to that guy."

Austin thought he was hearing wrong. After reminding that twerp of his position, he walked away, leading his gang and thinking about stopping for a soda or something as a reward. He needed it after dealing with that in school suspension bullshit. And he had that for the next two weeks? He should've knocked that kids teeth out.

But he stopped when one of the guys spoke up. God, another one of these?"

"What?" Austin asked, looking back, but still walking forward.

"You need to go back and apologize to that guy." It was Tanner, a running back on the team. "You don't just go around telling people to kill themselves! What if he actually does it?"

"He's bluffing." Austin rolled his eyes and brushed it off. "He's not gonna do anything."

"How do you know that?" Tanner snapped back. "What if he does? Then what?"

"Not my problem," he said. "Relax, Tanner. He's not gonna do shit. He's a coward."

"That doesn't matter! You can't tell people to kill themselves," said Tanner. "You're an asshole, Austin. Kevin and Brennan were right about you. You're a dick."

"So what, you're gonna leave now? Then leave! I don't care," Austin said.

"He's right," another one in the group said. "That was really messed up, dude."

"Oh so what? You all think you're better than me? Then leave! I don't want any pussies following me around!"

Austin turned to look at them. Tanner walked away, and others soon followed. Just under half of them remained remained. Austin rolled his eyes and kept on walking.

ZZZ

TJ was aware of different methods to do what he wanted. First thing that came to mind involved taking that rope his dad kept in the garage but hanging himself sounded painful. Living was painful enough, if he was going to off himself, he didn't want that to be painful, too. Besides, that rope was old and rotting, and probably would fall apart by touching it.

"How have things been, TJ?"

He sat in Dr. Sages office, though his mind wasn't entirely there. Everyones been so worried about him lately ("You're wasting their time"), TJ knew he had to get them off his back. But he had to be careful. Especially with Dr. Sage.

TJ read the side effects of his medications a dozen and a half times. If he went from as miserable to happy all of a sudden, Dr. Sage would get warning signals right away. So it was a balancing act.

"A little better, I think," he said, starting on a new Lego structure. "It was easier to sleep this week."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I only woke up in the middle of the night 3 times," he said. "It feels nice."

"That's good. Your medication increase is probably taking effect now," said Dr. Sage. "Hopefully they'll keep improving."

Not too much.

"I've been thinking about going back to kickboxing. . .I miss it," said TJ. "I'm worried I'm too far behind, though."

"Did you like your teammates?"

"Yeah."

"Then I think they'll be happy to have you back, even if you have to catch up," Dr. Sage said. "They might even be willing to help you."

Not too little.

He kept the conversation light, paying attention to the expression on his face to keep it from betraying him and showing how he was really feeling. Like wearing a mask. A mask that, if you looked close enough, you can see the cracks around the edges.

ZZZ

It was easy to tone out his teachers talks to him about his grades since, it didn't matter if he turned them in or not.

If he was going to go out, TJ, at the very least, wanted it to be painless. And he didn't want to leave a mess behind. He himself was a mess, he could be considerate and not leave much behind to clean up, which lead him to what he was doing now. Going through drawers and throwing out trash, cleaning up the mess in his room that grew from his apathy, he had to make sure it was easy to sort through and donate.

He read somewhere that drowning, though scary at first, felt very serene and peaceful. Even so, he didn't want it to be scary at any point, so that was out. Besides, it wouldn't be very considerate of him if his parents found his water soaked and bloated corpse.

A whine and nudge from Sasha brought him out of his thoughts. She had her leash in her mouth, eagerly waiting for him to take her for a walk.

"Sorry, Sasha. I haven't been paying attention to you lately, have I?" He asked. TJ took the leash from her and clicked it on her collar. He lead her outside, and down their normal path he took her for a walk. Sasha normally would walk a bit ahead of him, but today, her pace kept her by his side. TJ didn't notice, however. It was too easy to get lost in his thoughts again.

He needed no pain, and no mess, and no suspicion. His own pills were out of the question, but that didn't mean what was in the medicine cabinets were. He didn't get catch a cold or needed any cough medicine for a while, so he didn't know if Dr. Sage told his parents to lock up what was in them. For a moment he considered the cleaning supplies under the sinks, but those would more than likely be painful.

Down by the lake, after Sasha relieved herself, she came over and laid her head in his lap as he sat on the edge of the pier. Almost as if she knew or could sense what he was thinking. He absentmindedly pet her head.

Even if they were locked up, he still had the money he earned as a paper boy saved up. More than enough, he had a considerable amount sitting in his wallet just waiting to be spent. Going into a pharmacy to get what he needed. How much would he need, anyways? Would he have to buy a lot? Would it have to be so much that the cashier would ask questions? He might have to go to more than one store to get what he needed. . .

"Hey."

TJ flinched from the sudden voice. Turning, he saw that it was Robert who found him. It's been a while since he'd seen the now high schooler.

"Hey, Robert," TJ said. "What's up?"

"Nothing much, just school mostly," Robert said. He joined the younger boy and sat next to him. "What's going on with you?"

TJ shrugged. "It's alright, I guess."

"Just alright?"

"Yeah, just alright." Liar. "Right in the middle."

"You sure? You can tell me if somethings wrong," Robert insisted.

"I'm fine, really! I'm actually doing a little better than a while ago," said TJ. "My medication was increased and I've been sleeping better, and I'm thinking about getting into kickboxing again. So I'm going good."

"That's great," said Robert. "But if anything's wrong, you know you can tell me. I know we haven't been talking but that doesn't mean we aren't friends, right?"

"Right, I know. But c'mon, you're making this such a serious conversation," TJ said. "Let's talk about something else."

"Something else, huh?" Robert smirked. "Okay. How are the others?"

That was an easier conversation to have. He told Robert about how they had a whole day where they did the same things they did through the summer. When asked why, TJ had to tell him about the incident at the dance, which had Robert ready to go find him and beat the shit out of him. TJ told him he was suspended, and that was enough to calm the older boy down, but he didn't doubt that if Robert saw him now, he'd pummel him.

That was all he could tell him, though. There was no way he was going to say anything about the last week. Saying goodbye, Robert pet Sasha's head before they went their separate ways.

ZZZ

No matter how long he's been taking his medication, TJ still hated the feeling of swallowing it. He stood in front of the cough syrups and cold medicines, wondering if he should be nice to himself one more time and pick one that was a flavor he liked. Or tolerated, the flavor on the label barely matched the actual taste.

His parents had in fact cleared out the medicine cabinets, leaving him with the task of getting what he needed on his own. With his wallet and his jacket with the pockets on the inside, he started on Sunday, going from pharmacy to pharmacy.

Would cough medicine be enough? He didn't know anything about dosage strength with this stuff. Whenever he was sick, his mom always made him take two of those little cups of medicine, so would he need more? Or should he suck it up and just down a bottle of pills? This was all very important, he didn't want to fuck this up.

"Uh, hey."

He glanced up. Vince stood in the aisle opening, with none of Austins croonies in sight. Still, TJ remembered how he and others pretended as if they wanted to be friends again. He didn't fall for that then, and he wasn't going to fall for whatever this was, now. Instead, he turned back to the medicines in front of him, reading the labels for which was the strongest, and figuring out if he should consider the taste or not, not giving him a response.

"So, uh, you weren't serious about, you know, when Austin was messing with you the other day, right?" Vince asked. "You were bluffing?"

They had different prices, good thing that wasn't an issue.

"Austin didn't mean it. He's just being a jerk."

Maybe he should get one of the two packs. Oh, they had sleeping syrup; would that work better?

"I mean, it would be kind of stupid to do that over some bullying. Everyone gets bullied sometimes, and then they move on."

Or maybe he should mix some pills in it, make a sort of smoothie he could chug down. A suicide smoothie.

"People actually kill themselves, you shouldn't joke and say you're going to do it."

TJ opted for a double pack of cherry cough medicine to take to the counter. Far too little to raise suspension. There was another pharmacy a couple blocks from here that was his next stop. He passed Vince, not doing so much as looking at him.

ZZZ