Dwayne didn't eat his dinner that night. The one piece of chicken that he did take to please his mother sat all alone next to the half of a corn cob. At one point, he picked up the corn and started pulling each little kernel off and dropping them on his plate one by one. "Dwayne, you've hardly touched your food," Richard pointed out
"No, I've touched it all, I'm just not hungry." Dwayne glared at Richard for a moment, daring him to say anything else. When he didn't, he got up from the table, and left. His family looked around at each other.
"Oh god. I thought that we had finally started figuring things out with him. Ok, who's going to go talk to him?" asked Sheryl.
"He's your son," said Richard, picking up his chicken and taking a bite.
"That maybe true, but you have to think about the fact that he is a teenaged boy who needs a father. Without a father he won't have the guidance that he needs. Maybe you should try talking to him once in awhile; you give him nothing of what he needs."
"Yeah, well he's not my kid; he doesn't want anything to do with me!"
"Well I'm sorry about that, but when you married me you knew that he was part of this, a big part of it." Sheryl looked intensely at Richard. She knew that most of the reason why Dwayne was the way he was had all been a cause of his parents divorcing when he was too young to remember, and he never really had a father. When Richard married Sheryl, he had never given Dwayne much more then being civil with him. As Sheryl and Richard fought, Frank and Olive looked at each other, then stood and walked back to Dwayne and Frank's room. When they entered, they found him lying face down on his bed, not moving at all.
"Dwayne? What's wrong? I thought you were ok," Olive asked. She received no answer. "Dwayne, come on. We're your family." She walked over to him and sat on the foot of his bed. He still refused to acknowledge that she was there.
"Come on, your mom and Richard are fighting again. Everything was fine, and now it's not, and I think that you could fix it." Frank sat down on the roll away bed that had been put into the room for him. Dwayne still remained motionless and speechless.
"Dwayne, are you asleep? Are you alive? Please move." Olive started sounding slightly worried. She climbed up and sat in the curve of his back, knowing that would get at least some movement out of him. "Come on, talk to me!"
"Oh fuck, will you get of my back?" Dwayne turned over slowly turned over, and Olive slid off of him and onto the bed, shortly followed by a slow tumble on to the floor.
"What happened to the Dwayne from California? The one who was dancing around and happy?" she asked him.
"He's gone," Dwayne said after a pause. "Just because I let loose once to protect you doesn't mean that I am completely happy again." Olive pulled herself up and sat next to him on his bed. "It's complicated, but on the way there and stuff so many things in my life that I had taken for granted changed, and I don't know if you understand, you may be too young still, but it's hard, really hard." Dwayne sighed.
"I know what he means. I think he's feeling roughly the same way that I did when I tried-…" Frank coughed and cleared his throat. "When I had my accident, that is."
"You mean Dwayne is going to kill himself!" Olive's eyes grew wide with shock and fear.
"Nice Frank, really smooth. No, I'm not going to try to kill myself; I'm handling things a little differently." Dwayne shot a nasty look at his uncle for frightening Olive. "I'm not going anywhere, not yet. I wouldn't leave alone with Mom, Frank and Richard now that your grandpa's gone." Dwayne hugged Olive. It was a limp hug, but none the less it was the gesture that counted.
"Hey what's wrong with me? I'm fine!" protested Frank.
"Don't even get me started on why I wouldn't leave Olive alone with you."
"And don't get me started on all of your problems," retorted Frank.
"Wait, what's wrong with Dwayne?" asked Olive, she was suddenly confused.
"Well he-…" Frank started to speak, but Dwayne cut him off before he could give away anything that would comprise Dwayne's integrity in the eyes of Olive.
"I have a lot of anger right now, well I always have, but more so now because of the whole discovering that I'm color blind thing. I'll be fine eventually, it just make take a little while." Olive hugged Dwayne tightly, and he kissed her lightly on the top of her head. "It's going to be fine, now why don't you go out, tell mom that I'm fine, and finish your dinner." Olive gave him a final squeeze, and ran out to finish her food. "What the hell is wrong with you? You know that you can't tell her about my addiction! She's 7 years old!" Dwayne whispered harshly to Frank.
"I know that, I wasn't going to. Who was that girl anyway?" Frank asked,
"Joanna, she works at Starbucks, she's just some girl with the same problems as me, we help each other out." Dwayne sounded incredibly un-phased about this considering that she was clearly helping him out, just as he was helping her.
"Yeah, and who are the others?" asked Frank.
"There is only one other, this girl Britta at Safeway." Dwayne lay back on his bed face down to show his uncle that he didn't want to talk anymore.
"Ok, suit yourself. I was just thinking that it might be nice for you to find someone who you actually care about, and someone who cares enough about you to help you." Frank left the room and Dwayne flipped back over to prevent himself from suffocating. Taking a deep breath, he cursed the day he's discovered his addiction. It had been almost a year, and it had been hard for a bit. After awhile, he had managed to find two girls in the same area that he lived in with the exact same problem. Both of them had been looking for someone exactly like him, someone who would feed their addiction and expect nothing else. Not a friend ship, and absolutely not a relationship. The rest of it had been easy, same time, same day of the week every week, always at the girl's houses because neither had any siblings, and both had parent's who worked all day. He sighed. It was amazing how just one indiscretion, one night could change everything in his life, one girl, one feeling. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.