In his two years at The Harbor School, Ryan had learned more than he had ever thought possible, and retained it, too. But he couldn't remember when he had read the April was the cruelest month, which was just as well, because that guy, who ever it is, was full of shit.

Ryan had never been a big fan of summer – too much unstructured time with too few places to go, too few dinners and no school lunches, too many nights when the heat and the sweat and the haze drove ordinary disagreements into painful confrontations. Now, he was just debating whether May or August sucked more.

Until six weeks ago, he would have say August, for sure. August, when Trey had thrown a crowbar through a TransAm window and gotten them both arrested; August when his mother had first kicked him out and then abandoned him; August when Theresa had called him, tears still in her voice, and told him the baby was gone and so was she, just like that.

But now, May was catching up quick. If he had been gut-punched last summer, leaving the warmth and safety of his year with the Cohens for a new, sad, scary life with Theresa and the child he had claimed for his own, this year was a royal beatdown all its own. He hadn't expected Kirsten, of all people, to let him down, just like he hadn't expected things to turn out the way they had with Trey. He had thought that he was strong, and hard, and tough enough, but two years in Newport had softened him, two years in Newport had let the cracks show, at least to fam – at least to Sandy and Seth.

He wasn't sure what he had said or done in those first few days after Marissa had shot him to make Sandy think that he was so fragile that he couldn't handle the truth. Sandy had always been straight with him before – Sandy had always had his back. Now, he was treating Ryan like a little kid who couldn't handle the bad news, and Ryan didn't understand why.

They were sitting together, side by side, in front of the desk that belonged to his therapist. Christ. If anyone from Chino could see him now, they'd bust a gut laughing. But, well, there was really no one from Chino left, and that thought sobered him more than the his actual surroundings did. Theresa was in Atlanta, Eddie was dead to him, Arturo was in jail and Trey – well, Trey was why they were here, wasn't he?

They were not in the room where the actual therapy took place, but in the doctor's far more formal office. They were supposed to be having a "summit" about the Cohens and Ryan, but the minute that they had walked in the door, Dr. Mel had asked Seth to take a seat in the waiting room, and for Sandy and Ryan to follow her into the office.

This was not the first time that they had met Dr. Mel. Two days after Ryan had come back to the Cohens' house from the hospital, two days after he discovered that Sandy wouldn't tell the truth about Trey, he had met Dr. Mel for the first time. Sandy had been convinced that they all needed therapy to deal with "the hard time" they were having, between the shooting and the rehab and the everything in between, and Ryan didn't have the energy to fight him.

They had come to this suite of offices, not to meet with Dr. Mel, but with Dr. Lyon, the child psychologist that Seth had seen years earlier for his "adjustment issues" when he first moved to Newport.

Seth had assured Ryan that the psychologist was not as bad as he thought, and Seth, for a change, was one-hundred percent right. She was a plump – well, plump for Newport – middle-aged woman with a sensible blonde bob and a penchant for wearing denim jumpers. She smiled a lot, and her office, it seemed to him, was geared towards kids a lot closer to the age that Seth had been the first time around. There was a pint-sized table and chairs in one corner of the room, a toybox in another, and he and the doctor had faced each other in neon-colored Papa-san chairs.

Seth had already had his consult, and been sent out to the waiting room with Sandy. Ryan didn't care how many cheerful cartoon animals lined the walls of the office as he trailed behind her into the office, as far as he was concerned, he was entering the Lyon's den.

She asked him a few innocuous questions and then asked what he wanted to discuss. Nothing. That had been really easy. They had sat in total silence across from each other for twenty minutes – Ryan had counted by two in his head for the last seven of them – until she'd stood up and suggested they try something else, which turned out to be hunching over the half-sized table, perched on a stool with his knees around his ears, drawing.

He had tried to explain that art was really Seth's thing, but after all that silence, he was surprised to discover that she really didn't want to listen to him. So he'd sketched the layout of the Harbor School locker room from memory, and had been surprised at how flustered that had made her when the next twenty minutes was over.

With only ten minutes left in their session, he wasn't surprised that she started talking again.

"Isn't there anything you'd like to ask me about?" she had asked, finally, after asking about his family, his hobbies and school, and being met with total silence.

"Yeah, there is," he'd answered as politely as he could after being jerked around for the past 47 minutes, "Can you talk to Sandy and ask him if there's any way that I can go see Trey at some point? I'd really like to say goodbye."

She had ended their fifty-minute hour two minutes early, and had sent him out to sit with Seth and trade comic books for the next half hour. He had heard the rise and fall of Sandy's voice from her closed office door as he stared sightless at the latest issue of i Legion /i , and was wondering if she had relayed his request to his guardian when the door at the other end of the waiting room had opened, and a woman who seemed several years younger than Dr. Lyon. She had dark red, almost auburn hair, which stood up in a short, spiky cut, and was wearing a dark grey suit that Ryan thought he'd seen Kirsten wear before.

"I suppose that neither of you is Parminder Patil?" she asked in a British accent. At least, Ryan had thought it was British, but it didn't sound at all like the accents on those Masterpiece Theatre movies that Kirsten was always watching.

The two boys had shaken their heads as one.

"Right. Well, it seemed unlikely, but one does hate to make assumptions. Waiting for Dr. Lyon, then?" she had asked at almost the same moment that Sandy had come storming out of Dr. Lyon's office and had ordered them to the car.

"Boys, we're leaving. Right now."

And that was the last that Ryan, at least, had thought of the British doctor for quite some time.

The next doctor that Sandy had dragged them all to was an honest-to-God psychiatrist, and Ryan wondered whether Sandy thought he was getting crazier as the summer went along. Ryan certainly thought Seth and Sandy were.

They had taken to following his movements around the house, and he would sometimes look up from one of the benches where he was lifting weights under careful supervision at physical therapy and see one or the other's face bobbing anxiously in the lone window of the PT room's door. They would find excuses to enter the pool house three or four times a day, and every time he left the house – even to take a walk on the beach – one of them always wanted to come along. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate it, but he sometimes found it difficult to breathe.

Dr. Beddingfield was as different from Dr. Lyon as night and day. He was the partner of the Cohens' – and now Ryan's – family doctor, Neil Plummer, who was also one of Sandy's oldest friends.

Two days after their failed meeting with Dr. Lyon, he had shown up at the pool house door, bearing two sodas and sheepish look on his face. He was older than Sandy and Neil, closer to Caleb's age, but a physically big man, with broad shoulder and wide hands and a bulbous nose hidden behind a salt and pepper beard. Ryan had met him once or twice before, at various Cohen functions, but he didn't think he ever talked to him alone.

"Hey, Ryan, how ya doin'?" he asked in his easygoing way, and Ryan had shrugged from his perch on the bed. He had been in the midst of reading "A Clockwork Orange" for his summer reading, and parts of it were hitting just a little too close to home, so he'd actually welcomed the distraction, even if Sandy had sprung it on him.

The doctor had handed him a soda, and had settled into what Ryan privately thought of as Sandy's chair with a sigh.

For the next hour, they'd chatted carefully about school and sports and whether Sandy and the boys wanted to join the doctors for an Angels game before the summer was over. He'd explained that since he'd known the Cohens for so long, he couldn't treat Sandy and Seth, but that Sandy thought he might have a rapport with Ryan.

"And I think he thought my experience might help."

"Your experience?" Ryan had asked warily. He'd gone to a group session while he was in juvie – had been forced to – where everyone was supposed to talk about all the things that had led them there. After an hour of listening to tough boys stumble awkwardly through their own versions of Dawn and A.J. and Chino life, he had done all of the sharing he'd ever cared to do on that particular topic.

"Didn't Sandy tell you? I work at the VA in San Diego – mostly with vets that have PTSD."

"I'm not crazy," Ryan had protested, and the older man and nodded in agreement.

"No, I didn't think so. Of course, neither are they, really."

Ryan had liked that he was honest and upfront about everything, and that he had carefully explained the nature of confidentiality, and how he wouldn't even talk to Dr. Plummer about Ryan's case.

"Confidentially, Ryan," he'd said with a conspiratorial wink as they ended their session, "My cases don't exactly make the best pillow talk."

Things had gone well enough that Ryan had agreed easily to a second session, and he was hoping to talk to Dr. Beddingfield – Noah – about Trey the next time. Instead, he'd screwed things up royally, and had been, for the first time, ready to admit that he might not be coping quite as well as he should.

The day before Dr. Beddingfield had returned to the house, a gardener's truck down the street had backfired, and Ryan had had his first panic attack in his time with the Cohens. While he'd come close a few times during the Oliver mess, he hadn't what Trey used to call his "vapors" since he'd stopped living with A.J. When Seth had mentioned it in passing as they all ate lunch together before Ryan's next "session," Noah had suggested that they try some relaxation techniques.

What Ryan hadn't understood was that one of the doctor's specialties was hypnosis. He was surprised to find that the whole process was nothing like the magicians he'd seen on television, even more surprised to find that he was a good candidate – easy to put under. So easy, in fact, that he'd surfaced over an hour later, wedged tightly into the space between the toilet and the wall in the pool house bathroom, his face covered in tears, while Sandy and Noah tried to take the locked door off its hinges.

Dr. Beddingfield had been beside himself, and Ryan, for the first time, had been afraid. He hadn't done anything like that in years, since Carl, two scumbags before A.J., had lived with them, before Ryan had had his adolescent growth spurt.

Noah said that he'd used a standard method to put him under – having Ryan count backwards in time – but that something he'd said had triggered a memory. Ryan had had what was essentially a flashback under hypnosis, and had reacted as if he'd been twelve years old again.

That part didn't seem so bad, although Noah kept threatening to turn his license in to the state board. No, what had really scared Ryan was the fact that he'd awoken from his stupor with Trey's name on his lips – and that he couldn't for the life of him remember why.

Dr. Mel was their third try, and Ryan was beginning to worry that she was about to be his third strike, watching her from under his overlong bangs as she spoke forcefully to Sandy.

The day after the pool house disaster, Noah had shown up at breakfast time with Angels tickets and a suggestion. He met this doctor at a conference, she worked with adolescents now, but had worked oversees with refugees before that. To no one's real surprise – although Seth kept insisting that his childhood was like a war zone – there were few other doctors who specialized in both teenagers and PTSD, which is what everyone kept insisting that he had.

Sandy had groaned when Noah had handed him the card, and he saw the familiar address, but in the end, he had decided, Ryan needed to talk to someone who wasn't, in fact, actually a Cohen.

When Ryan had walked into her office with Sandy at his side earlier this afternoon, he was surprised to find that she remembered him.

"Right, then – still not Parminder Patil, are you?" she'd said with a smile as they walked in, and Ryan had found himself shooting a her a crooked grin as Sandy started beside him.

"You two have met?" he had asked suspiciously.

"Sort of," Ryan had started to explain, but the doctor cut him off.

"Not as such, Mr. Cohen. I saw Ryan -- isn't it? – and his brother in the waiting room last week."

"Seth's not my brother," Ryan had snapped without thinking, and he had felt Sandy tense beside him. Since he refused to look the older man in the face, he was forced to look at red-haired woman in front of him, behind her sleek mahogany desk, staring at him with one eyebrow raised high.

"I'm sorry," she had said mildy, "As I might have mentioned, I usually try not to make assumptions."

Ryan, to his dismay, had felt the dull heat of embarrassment coloring his face.

"I just meant – not that he's not – he's – Sandy and Kirsten are my guardians, and Seth's their son," he had mumbled, stumbling over every word, but the doctor had just nodded and asked them both to sit down.

"Okay, since I talked to Dr. Beddingfield the other day, I have a little background on the situation, but let me hear it from you. Why are you here, do you think, Ryan?" she had asked, and Ryan was surprised that she'd asked him and not Sandy.

"You see, doctor, Ryan's had a very difficult last few months," Sandy had started, automatically, at this point, and the doctor had turned her level gazed to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you Ryan, as well?" she had inquired in a perfectly innocent tone of voice, and Sandy had stumbled to a stop.

"No, I'm Sandford Cohen, Ryan's gua—okay, I get it."

"Ryan?"

She was the first person all summer to ask his opinion on anything that had to do with the night in question. Unconsciously, he had begun to play with the fraying edge of his sling as he answered her, so he wouldn't have to meet her level gaze.

"Sandy's thinks I'm nuts," he blurted, finally, and before Sandy could protest he'd continued. "My brother tried to rape my girlfriend, and when I found out I went over to his place to fight him. My girlfriend got there and thought he was going to kill me, so she killed him, and shot me, and then left for Europe while I was still in the hospital. That last part's not her fault, though, really. Oh, and Kirsten, Sandy's wife, she went to rehab that same day, and now Sandy thinks if he tells me the truth that I'll go all crazy again or something.

"And what truth isn't Sandy telling you?" the doctor asked, and he could hear nothing but honest curiosity in her voice.

"That Trey's dead."

"And Trey is….?"

"My brother. For real, my brother. The one that hurt Marissa – my girlfriend."

Sandy was protesting again from the seat beside him, but Dr. Mel just held up a hand to silence him.

"And why do you think he's dead? Even though everyone around you insists otherwise?"

That was the real question, wasn't it. Why would Sandy, and Seth, and everyone else be lying to him? What had he done to convince them that he just couldn't handle it? Why wouldn't they just tell him the truth.

"They said Trey left that night, after I got shot. Trey wouldn't do that," he said. Why was that so hard for people to understand? Seth, he got. Seth hadn't grown up with siblings, he didn't understand that power, really, of that bond. But Sandy had a brother and a sister, he should know that, even if you hated him, you'd always have your brother's back.

"Trey wouldn't leave you?"

"No. Never, not if I was hurt," Ryan insisted, and for the first time he looked up and looked her squarely in the eye. "He wouldn't do that."

She nodded, her eyes never leaving his.

"But Sandy would lie to you, everyone who loves you, they would all lie?"

"Yes! I mean, no – just, maybe, I guess, if they thought it would make me better," he stuttered, and he heard Sandy start to protest again.

"And is it making you better, Ryan?"

"No."

"Then why would they keep doing it?"

Sandy was talking over her again, but Ryan wasn't listening to the words. Why would they do that? Why would they hurt him? Why wouldn't they let him say goodbye?

"I don't know," he whispered miserably as he dropped his head again.

Sandy and the doctor were arguing over his head, but he didn't care. He wanted to go back and rewind this summer, until they were back in April, until he'd dropped Trey off at Rick's shabby house with his box of prison stuff and never looked back.

He'd been ready to leave Trey that day – leave him behind like he'd left the rest of Chino behind and move on. But Sandy hadn't let him. Sandy had insisted that Trey had a place in his world.

And now, of course, Trey was gone. And Ryan wasn't even sure if he had a place in his world anymore. But Trey would never have left him there, bleeding on the floor. Trey wasn't like Ryan, able to turn his back on the past and keep going, able to forget old loves and old slights. Trey was loyal. Trey was family. And Ryan didn't understand why the Cohens didn't see that.

"…okay, Ryan?"

Whatever the doctor had asked had gone right over his head.

"What?"

He looked up, and both Dr. Mel and Sandy were watching him carefully, their eyes worried.

"Are you back with us, kid?" Sandy asked, laying a hand carefully on Ryan's good shoulder, and squeezing lightly.

"Sorry. I'm fine. "

"Okay, then, Ryan, I'm going to talk to Sandy alone for a few minutes, then, and then to Seth. I'd like to see you again, if you would. I think we'll have a lot to talk about."

Ryan was suddenly tired. He was tired of talking. He was tired of not talking. He was tired of that look in Sandy's eyes all the time. He was so fucking tired.

"Fine," he answered shortly, and stood up carefully, "I'll go wait with Seth. Tell Sandy when you want to see me again."

He walked out of the door without another word.

In the waiting room, Seth's head was bent over a comic book Ryan couldn't identify. His iPod was on, and his head was bobbing slightly in time to the music only he could hear, his long, lanky frame folded into the chair Indian-style. As Ryan headed down the hall, something alerted Seth to his presence, and he looked in Ryan's direction, flashing him an anxious smile.

Seth was the best thing that had happened to him – Seth and Sandy and Kirsten. If he still lived in his mother's house in Chino, instead of in a pool house in Newport Beach, he would still be almost as happy as he had been the past year, as long as the Cohens were with him. Seth might not have been his brother, but he was Ryan's closest friend. And he'd never lied to Ryan. Not once since he'd known him.

Ryan's stomach twisted as he slid into a seat across from Seth and watched as he resumed his reading. New family or old, Chino style or Newport style, big brother or his slightly-less-related brother, as Seth had once called himself, whatever happened next, whatever path he chose, Ryan was going to get hurt.