DECEPTIONS
By Spense
CHAPTER FOUR
Alan supposed the family he was with was all right. It just wasn't his family. Trevor and Tina Jorgenson seemed fine. In their late forties, they were friendly and kind. Dr. Jorgenson (he'd told him to call him Trevor but Alan didn't want too. He didn't want to get that close to him – it was easier just to call him Sir) worked in the city and commuted. Tina stayed home. She was a pretty good cook it seemed, but Alan wasn't particularly hungry these days.
The farm was okay. It reminded him some of his grandparents farm. The big ancient wooden barn was pretty cool. They had cows and horses, and lots of dogs and cats. The house was big and rambling. It was an old farm house, which had been added onto many times. There were lots of great nooks and crannies, and interesting things to look at. Under other circumstances, Alan would have loved exploring both the house and the barn, especially with Gordon along. But at the moment, he just wasn't interested.
The place was busy right now. The Jorgenson's two daughters, Allison and Tami were home from college and in and out all the time, visiting friends, and talking on the phone. The oldest son, Michael, and his wife and baby were expected in another week or so, and preparations were being made for their stay. The preparations for Christmas were well underway. That was another thing Alan didn't want to think about right now. He really wanted to be home for Christmas, but nobody told him anything, so he had no idea if that was even a possibility. He hadn't seen his family since Scott visited. Alan shied away from that thought. It was just too painful. He missed them terribly.
The hub of the house was the kitchen with a huge family room attached. The room had a large river rock fire place on the wall opposite the kitchen, and it was usually blazing brightly. A large kitchen table was in the middle of the open room, and couches and overstuffed chairs filled the rest of the area. This was were everybody spent most of the their time.
Alan had a room of his own complete with a private bathroom up in a corner of the second floor, looking out on the snowy fields and the barn. It was small, with a sloping ceiling and lots of windows. The big bed took up most of it. He didn't have a TV up there, or a phone of any kind. Not that it mattered. He couldn't call any of the people he wanted to talk too anyway. He'd been told that that was off limits.
But Tina didn't seem to like him spending much time up there alone. She kept encouraging him to come join the group in the family room. The dark evenings, the Jorgensen's usually gathered in there, watching movies or sometimes playing games or cards.
Alan just followed the path of least resistance. He kept thinking about what Scott had told me. 'No running away, no fights, no backtalk, nothing. Remember that anything you say or do will reflect directly on Dad.' So with Scott's voice echoing continuously in his head, he did his best to not make any waves, and was very careful about what he said and did. He shuddered again at the thought that the state had put a restraining order out against his father. The thought just made him physically sick to his stomach. He wondered what he'd done to bring that on. But for the life of him, he just couldn't figure it out. So he did his very best to play it cool, and coped using the only options available to him.
He couldn't lash out, either physically or verbally as would be his normal response. That wouldn't look very good. Running away would be the kiss of death – he knew that, and Scott had specifically mentioned that. He knew that he could easily get home. And although that would be fine for the short term, long term he'd probably ruin any chances he'd have of going home for good by that course of action. He just wanted to hit something as hard as he could, but that wouldn't do anybody any good either, except maybe make him feel better for the moment.
So Alan just internalized everything. He just didn't know what else to do. He was polite, answering 'yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am', and did what was asked of him. But he turned inward in an effort to try to control his temper and his anger. And he turned to something he'd discovered during his time in New York. He turned to books. He found that living life through the characters of a story was a whole hell of a lot better than his own life right now. And it was the only legitimate escape he could manage.
Tina made it clear that she really wanted him to join them in the family room, and he obeyed her wishes. Then he would lose himself in whatever he was reading at the moment. The one good thing was that the Jorgensens were a family of readers, and they had plenty of reading material all over the house, and once Tina had discovered that he was interested in science fiction and mysteries, she made sure that plenty of possibilities found their way to his room. Alan also found that if he could get away with it, he'd put his headphones on and listen to music at the same time, which thankfully blocked out any of the noise around him. Anything to block out the sounds of the family preparing happily for Christmas. That just made him that much more homesick.
He also ran. It was the only physical outlet allowed to him. Tina had driven him around a route that he could use and made sure he knew how to find his way. He ran every morning on the cleared path next to the road, trying to work off his rage and frustration. It worked a little, but not enough.
The only time Alan felt free to release some of the fear he felt was in the middle of the night, when the house was quiet and all the occupants were asleep. Then Alan would allow the tears to fall – silently - so that nobody would ever know. And that helped only at the moment. In the morning, the fear and uncertainty would all come rushing back again, with no place to go, and no way to release it.
So Alan worked at restraining himself, watching every word he said and thinking about every action before he made a move. It was completely foreign to him to act this way, and it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Scott had told him it would be. So he coped by bottling everything up and praying that each new day would be the one he would get to go home, or at least be told something about what was going on.