Chapter 14 - Consistency and Connection

Jon had known that the kid could sulk.

It still impressed him how much the kid could sulk.

The next morning, Jon waited around for Shawn to come down for breakfast so they could have the conversation he promised. It took until almost noon. Jon knew by now what Shawn looked like when he had just woken up; this wasn't it. Which meant the kid had not only been sulking in his room, he had been foregoing breakfast for a few hours.

Jon had hoped for a good conversation about Shawn's misguided view of women, but it mostly ended up being Jon talking and Shawn shrugging. By the end of the talk, it was obvious to Jon that Shawn had really just been trying to get a rise out of him.

Jon had thought that the problem was that nobody had taught Shawn right from wrong, but Shawn was able to answer all of Jon's questions about ethics and morality when pressed, and his answers were correct. It just seemed to be that if there was literally anything else involved in making his decision—a pretty girl to kiss, classmates to impress, a good adrenaline rush to be had, or a teacher to annoy—he would make the choice he knew was wrong without a second thought. That concerned Jon quite a bit.

It also made him all the more certain that grounding Shawn was the right choice. He hated making the kid miserable, especially knowing he already was so miserable, but if Shawn would ignore what he knew was the right thing with so little thought, Jon figured he might as well stack the odds.

One way or another, after the long talk, Jon was sure that there was no question in Shawn's mind why he was being grounded. He knew Jon wouldn't tolerate missing curfew and running off, or disrespecting women. And that was the important thing. Even if Shawn resented him and sulked in his room, which was exactly what he did.

Jon had assumed the lecture would be the hard part, but there were two other issues to contend with. One of them was the fact that Shawn still needed to go to therapy. And that was probably going to be another fight. The other was the realization that Shawn being grounded meant Jon was, too.

Jon didn't exactly expect Shawn's sulking to last through the entire weekend, but every day after school, after Shawn waited for Jon to be done with his work and drove home with him, he went upstairs to his room, and he didn't come out. Jon checked in each day to make sure he was getting his homework done, and he made him come down for dinner, but Shawn barely spoke a word to him.

On Wednesday evening, Jon got a call from the Matthews—the second call that week that had come from Cory instead of Alan.

"Hey, Mr. Turner. Can I come over and see Shawn?"

"Well, if you've talked to him at school, I'm sure you know he's grounded."

"I know, but I don't think you understand, he needs me right now. You don't know why he did what he did."

"Why he ran off to Cleaváge in the middle of the night?"

"He's hurting because of what's happening with his father."

"I know he's hurting, but he can't run off every time he's upset."

"So you're going to punish him and make him feel even worse?"

"Can you honestly say your dad wouldn't punish you if you did what Shawn did?"

"He'd probably ground me until I turned 18, but I've never been through a tenth of what Shawn is going through. Now, if I know my best friend, I know he's either sulking in his room or plotting to sneak out to see me."

"If he snuck out to see you, would your parents tell me?"

"...They might not?"

Jon chuckled. "Have a good night, Matthews."

"Wait!"

Jon sighed, bringing the phone back to his ear. "Cory, you're not his parent, and you're not his guardian."

"No, but I know him. He's not learning anything from this."

"I disagree."

"OK, but he might be learning something you don't want him to learn."

"And what's that?"

"That everyone is against him. That he's alone."

Jon swallowed. He didn't want to let Shawn break the grounding, but he worried Cory might have a point, at least about part of this. "You're a good friend. I want you to keep being a good friend. You be there for him at school, you hear me?"

"I just wish you'd let me be here for him now."

"Week from Saturday, he's all yours."

"No, that's too long, you don't understand —"

Alan's voice in the background called, "Cory, who's on the phone?"

"Gotta go," Cory said, and he hung up.

"Who is that?"

Jon turned around. Shawn stood behind him in the kitchen. Part of Jon wanted to lie, but he knew that didn't go over well. He put down the phone. "Cory. Trying to talk me out of grounding you."

Shawn didn't look surprised, but he also didn't fake an exaggerated surprised look, so Jon doubted he had put Cory up to it. "Did he have any luck?" Shawn asked.

"Not a chance." Jon raised his eyebrows. "Is that what you came down here to ask?"

Shawn shrugged. "No. I'm hungry."

"Didn't eat enough at dinner?"

"I dunno, I guess not." He went over to the refrigerator and pulled out some leftovers from the night before. He didn't bother to heat them up; he just grabbed a fork and started eating them cold, leaning against the counter. "Kind of got lost on a math assignment."

"Can I give you a hand?"

"You're an English teacher."

"I got through high school and college. I know a little math."

"Yeah, but it's not your job to help me with it."

"I'm your guardian. Your parents never helped you with your homework?"

He regretted the words as soon as they were out. The answer was so obvious.

Shawn set the leftovers down on the counter. "I'll figure it out." He headed toward the stairs.

Jon suspected that meant he was going to skip the assignment. He didn't want to make the kid feel cornered, so he let a minute pass before he picked up the bowl and headed up the stairs.

He knocked before opening the door, and he found Shawn sitting at his desk, papers and books piled up at one side. He was just putting on his headphones.

Jon came over to his desk and held out the bowl and the fork. "Just let me take a look."

Shawn frowned at him, but he finally accepted the leftovers and gestured at his open math book that he had pushed aside.

It was graphing, which Jon had always hated, but on the plus side, it was a really, really easy graphing. "Mind if I take a crack at explaining it?"

"Be my guest."

"Give me a minute." Jon grabbed a chair from his own room, and he sat down next to Shawn.

It took a little while. He wasn't the best math teacher, and Shawn definitely wasn't the best math student. But little by little, they worked their way through the assignment, and by the end, Jon could tell the kid really understood.

And that ended their interaction. It wasn't exactly a huge step. Still, as Jon went downstairs to put away the empty bowl Shawn had cleared out, and to wash the dishes, he felt a lot better than he had in days.

Alan had been right about Shawn needing consistency, clear rules and consequences and someone to be there for him and follow through on enforcing the boundaries.

But Cory was right, too. Shawn needed connection. And Jon learned that those two weren't mutually exclusive.

On Saturday, when Shawn's grounding was exactly half over, Jon came into Shawn's room and said, "Hey, you wanna go down to the court and play basketball?"

"I'm still grounded," Shawn said.

"Yeah. No TV, no dates, no visitors." And no allowance, dessert, or driving, but Jon figured he was already feeling those. "But you could use the exercise. Work up an appetite."

"Who am I supposed to play with? You?"

"You got something better to do?"

Shawn looked down at his Walkman, and he shrugged.

"I'll let you get changed." Jon left for his own room to do the same.

Shawn was quiet on the way down, sullen, but he started loosening up as they played. Jon didn't go easy on him, and he was in good shape, even if his gym schedule had been inconsistent lately. His height was an advantage, too. The kid was sweating trying to keep up, but between his speed and obvious years of practice, he made a good opponent. Jon beat him, but not by much.

But the outcome of the game wasn't important. What stood out to Jon was the fact that by the time they were heading back to the apartment, they were both talking and reliving the best moments from the game. Seeing the kid's smile without reservation, while he was grounded no less, put Jon in a better mood than he'd felt in weeks—and he slept better, too.

Shawn was back to sulking by the next day, and Jon didn't try to do anything about it. But when Monday rolled around, Jon stopped by a Blockbuster on his prep to pick up a movie, and a couple of hours before Shawn was supposed to go to bed, Jon checked to make sure his homework was done and then invited him down to watch it.

Shawn gave him a look. "Wait, I'm not allowed to watch TV, but movies are OK?"

The kid had a point. Jon had thought of watching a movie together as a very different thing from Shawn mindlessly channel surfing when he was supposed to be doing his homework, and he still thought it was different, but Shawn needed for the rules to be clear-cut. So he just said, "I'm the one who grounded you, and I'm the one who's inviting you to watch. Unless you'd rather stay up in your room?"

"Well, what are we watching?"

Jon smiled and nodded toward the door.

It was an older action movie, and it turned out to be really bad. In the first 20 minutes, Jon winced a few times, and Shawn rolled his eyes once or twice, but halfway through, they were both laughing, heckling, and yelling at the characters.

After that, Shawn seemed to be doing a lot better. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he still spent most of the afternoon and evening in his room, and he wasn't exactly smiling at dinner time, but he was willing to have a conversation, answer Jon's questions about how his day went. And on Thursday, when they met up in Jon's classroom after school, Shawn was grinning.

"You didn't think I could do it!" He held out a paper. "But I did it!"

Shawn was waving it around so much, it took Jon a second to figure out what it was. It was his most recent English test—pretty similar to the one Jon had given to his own students, actually. There was a big red A at the top.

"What are you talking about, Hunter? I've been telling you all along that if you put your mind to it, you could do really well in school."

"Yeah, but I got an A! I never get A's!"

"You got an A on a test in my class at least once."

"Yeah, but… An A, Jon!" His smile was starting to fade.

It hit Jon, what Shawn was asking for. And he was more than happy to give it. He took the step that separated them and put a hand on the kid's shoulder. "Nice work, Hunter. Proud of you."

Shawn beamed ear to ear. "It was really hard, too. Only three people in my class got A's."

"Wow. That's worth celebrating." He wanted to offer something, maybe a special dessert, but the grounding wasn't actually over. So instead, he said, "Have you ever had croquets?"

"What's that?"

So that's how the two of them ended up spending the evening grinding cooked chicken, rice, and veggies, molding them into little balls, and breading them for baking.

"The family cook used to let me help her make these," Jon said. "Other than that, she didn't really let me into the kitchen, didn't want me underfoot, but these… I looked forward to these."

"We didn't really have special meals we made," Shawn said. "I mean, unless you count, like, fish grilled on a car engine."

Jon refrain from commenting on that. "Well, tonight's worth celebrating."

Shawn grinned. "We did know how to celebrate. The first time I sold blood for money, my dad dug out his old skateboard he found at the junkyard when he was a kid, and he took me to this skate park. Stayed with me all afternoon. It was awesome."

Suddenly, Jon didn't have much of an appetite.

But Shawn still did, and he ate more than enough for the both of them. "Can we have these every night?"

"They're a lot of work to make."

"Once a week?"

"How about whenever you get an A on a test?"

Shawn shrugged. "Then you better be ready to make me a lot of croquettes, because I'm just going to start getting A's on all my tests."

Jon bit back a sarcastic comment. "I'll stock up on ingredients."

"Good. Hey, can I put a few of these away to bring to Cory? Like, this weekend, when I'm not grounded anymore."

Jon chuckled. "Sure thing, Hunter."