It wasn't like TJ liked keeping secrets. If anything, he hated it, what with keeping track of them and keeping them straight and minimizing how complex they could get. But in this particular case of self mutilation, keeping his secrets was a necessity.

But apparently, frustration was enough for him to let everything out. Goddammit, he just wanted a night to himself away from those guys but no, they had to follow and ruin everything.

The rest of the weekend was spent at home, ignoring any knocks at the front door, and the text messages and calls from his personal phone. The ones from his second phone, he didn't have a choice to ignore is texts as "Alias".

So he distracted himself by giving out advice to students who were too stupid to do the obvious thing. So many replies of 'give her this', 'tell him that', 'don't fucking cheat that's awful', and even one 'yeah maybe you should tell the police that your parents beat the shit out of you'. He hope that one turned out okay.

But Monday had to come, and he had to go to school and do his best ignore their stares and get to class.

He saw them at the corner of his eye, but he didn't give them any direct attention, and despite the staring, they didn't try to approach him. Walking home, he stopped at the drug store to pick up om more supplies and make sure that he wasn't being followed.

Maybe h could have some time to himself tonight? He was iffy on that. They might make their way in his house and find him enjoying himself again and they'll be on his case about it with the prodding and the questions. Such a hassle.

ZZZ

The others didn't know where to go from here.

Dealing with a gang that TJ owed money to, that would be easier than this. Easier than him getting off on being beaten within an inch of his life, apparently. Jesus tap dancing Christ, where do you even start with that one?

When did this even happen? They haven't hung out with him since middle school but they couldn't have missed that much, could they?

Spinelli sighed, and slouched in the bean bag chair in Gretchen's room. Her's was the biggest out of the five of them, she needed it for her experiments, so it was easier for them to gather at her place.

"It's called masochism," Gretchen said.

"Oh, good. There's a word for it," Gus said. "Anything else?"

"A masochist is a person who 'gets off' on being inflicted with pain. That would explain what we walked in on in his room and what happened the other night," she explained.

"Great. Now what do we do about it?" Vince asked. "Call me crazy but I don't think confronting him will work."

"Maybe we should tie him down and force him to spill," Spinelli said. "That helps me get the information I need."

"Nah. I don't think he'll be that afraid of you, Spinelli. What with us all being friends before," said Vince. "We're going to have to think of something else."

"The irony isn't lost on me that it's was usually TJ who came up with these plans," Gretchen said. "In any case, we should think of something quickly. Considering that we saw needles in his neck, he might do some serious bodily harm soon."

But none of them knew what to do. This was far outside their scope of things they knew how to deal with.

"Maybe we should try understanding," Mikey suggested.

"Understanding? The only thing to understand about what hes doing is that he needs to stop!" Spinelli shouted. "I don't want to understand anything about what hes doing to himself!"

"But think about it, Spinelli! After whats happened TJ probably thinks that we think that he's sick, and doesn't want any of us near him. If we show him that we're willing to understand this, then-"

"Then he would be more willing to open up to us and we'll be able to figure out the root of why hes hurting himself," Gretchen finished. "I think Mikey might have a point. We aren't getting anywhere the way we're going about things now."

"So what, we just go up to him and ask to watch him cut himself up?" Spinelli asked, with a roll of her eyes.

"Maybe. Do you have any better ideas?" Vince asked.

"I don't have the stomach for this," said Gus, already sounding sick from the mention of this. "If this is what we're thing with, then I'm out."

Since none of them had anything better offer, that was the plan they went with.

ZZZ

There was a part of TJ that wondered if the guy behind the counter at the dug store had any questions about why he always came in an brought rubbing alcohol and bandages on a regular basis. But an even bigger part of him didn't care, and that's the part he listened to.

On his way home, while eating some skittles, he got the feeling he was being followed. And given how correct this feeling has been so far, didn't second guess himself. But, he just wanted to get home. If they were just going to follow him, then he was going to ignore him.

He didn't want to deal with their questions and prodding about the night before. God, he knows just how well that conversation would go.

He didn't arrive home soon enough. Luckily, which ever ones of them were following him didn't knock on the door or keep him from closing the door, and he wasn't going to look behind him to check.