A Bad Monday

6:45 am

"Where the hell is it? It has to be here. It was here on Thursday." But where had he seen it last? Ryan wished he hadn't taken that sleeping pill last night. He felt better for the rest and the shower but his thinking still seemed sluggish. He felt like a bag of the blue cotton candy Seth preferred (blue, he claimed, being less minty than pink) had been stuffed into his head.

Ryan had tried listening to music, watching TV, and reading, anything that might help him relax his body and mind. Confident that his history book would work its usual sleep magic, he'd even read his assignment for today. Nothing had given him more than temporary relief.

He had needed to sleep last night if he was to survive school today. So, he'd used one of the Ambien they had given him along with the pain pills at the hospital. He'd never taken a sleeping pill before. He only hoped that its effect on him wouldn't be as unsettling as the combination of pain pills and exhaustion had been on the night of the accident.

Ryan scanned the disorder surrounding him in the pool house. He hated the mess. It reminded him too much of every house that he'd ever lived in before coming to Newport. Never his room, but the rest of the house had always ended up resembling a before ad for Merry Maids. He'd wondered, but never dared to ask, if some of the moves they had made after his dad went to jail were because Dawn had preferred to forfeit the deposit than clean up the mess.

His room had been the one place over which he had some control. Not that he could depend on anyone respecting his privacy or his things, but he could keep his room clean. If he had ever dared to bring a friend home, he wouldn't have been embarrassed for them to come to his room. But that had never been an option. He never knew what or who might be waiting for him at home after school. So, none of his friends ever saw the inside of the Atwood home or met his family. It was better that way.

He had to be ready when Sandy was ready to leave. So, where was his European History book? He needed it today to study for the test, which he would have done this weekend if he hadn't spent the last three days at the hospital. He'd even carted it back and forth to the hospital, but that had proven to be a useless exercise. Every time he had opened it his mind had gone skittering away to thoughts of Seth. Ryan was honest enough with himself; however, to admit that history, as his least favorite subject, was always a pain. But his concern for Seth had eliminated any chance that he'd be able to absorb anything about The First Crusade.

Why did it have to be a history test today? Why not math or science? He loved things that were logical; that always gave the same answer every time you worked the problem. The formula for the area of a circle never changed. The rules were universal. You could count on them. Formulas and scientific laws didn't go postal on you. In a rational world you didn't end up in the emergency room getting stitches in your head for making too much noise during the ball game. Mothers didn't forget to cook dinner for their kids and they didn't they give them away to strangers, even kind and well-intentioned ones like the Cohens.

Anything dealing with people was messy. History was filled with people making stupid, emotional decisions for unfathomable reasons that led to unforeseen and usually bad consequences. English, at least the rhetoric part, was a little better. Writing had rules of grammar and punctuation that could be learned and applied consistently.

Literature, however, had all the emotional untidiness that distressed him so. Why should he share with anyone how a poem affected him, even as a question on a test? Maybe he didn't want to think about what it meant or how it made him feel. Sociology and psychology were the same black pits, always posing questions with which he'd rather not deal.

There it was. He spied a corner of the book's cover peeking out from beneath yesterday's clothes. Clothes he'd shed on his way to bed last night.

"OK, let's take stock. I'm showered; I'm dressed; all the books I'll need today, including that damn history book, are in my backpack; and I've got money for lunch." The thought of lunch made him realize that he was hungry. He hoped that he still had time to grab something in the kitchen before they had to leave.

"Please let there be time for coffee."

But he couldn't leave yet. He couldn't leave the pool house this way, with dirty clothes strewn about and books and papers lying all over. It was Monday and Rosa would be in to clean today. He'd never gotten used to having someone clean up after him and he'd never left a mess for her to clean up before. He wished he could be as blasé about the whole servants and having money thing as Seth; but he doubted he ever could be. That attitude, he supposed, came from growing up with money.

Ryan suspected that Seth's room saw Rosa and her magic touch several times a week. How else could Seth's room stay so neat? Ryan knew what it looked like at the end of the average day.

Unfortunately, he didn't have time to spare this morning. Hating it, he quickly gathered up his dirty clothes and tossed them into the closet. "I'm living in a teen sitcom." He mused, disgusted with himself, as he closed the door. "I'm hiding my sins and hoping that the housekeeper won't need to open the closet door." He reflected bleakly that it never worked on TV.

The bed could stay the way it was, he realized with relief. Rosa changed the sheets on Mondays. That left only the books and papers. There was nothing for it. All he could do was get them off the floor. They would just have to be piled on his desk. A large "Do Not Touch" note should keep Rosa from feeling that she needed to deal with that mess.

He glanced at the clock. It was almost 7:00. He wondered how Seth was doing. The nursing staff had probably been in and out of his room a couple of times already for his vitals and meds. He smiled at the thought. Now that Seth was starting to recover, he would not like that. Seth was not an early riser. The rumbles in his stomach reminded him that he still wanted breakfast if he could manage it. One last look around the pool house to reassure himself that he hadn't forgotten anything and he was off to the kitchen.