a/n - While not explicit, this chapter contains moments of depression and implied suicidal ideation, therefor is potentially triggering. Proceed with caution.

Chapter 21

Lifting the hem of his shirt, Squid waited for Mom to get his injection ready and get it over with. He wasn't sure which was worse at this point, crashing through his highs and lows due to the uncertainty of his next dose or having Mom fuss over him.

"Now you let me know if at any moment you feel pain," Mom said, plunging the tip of the syringe into the little bottle of insulin. As he spoke, he kept his wide, tooth-filled smile on his face.

Squid rolled his eyes. Never mind, this definitely was worse.

He hated when Mom smiled that that, as if he and Squid were on the same team and that he was only trying to help. If Mom really wanted to help, he'd let Squid handle his insulin on his own. He wasn't a baby; he'd been dealing with it since he was diagnosed at twelve. A diagnosis that had his mother attempt to be present in his life. At least for the first four months. That was a record.

It was then that he knew he was truly alone. His father ha been long gone for ten years at that point and his mother, between her bouts of clarity, looked at him with disdain so palpable it crushed his chest, forcing all the air out of him. When she wasn't blaming him for being expensive, she was stealing his syringes to give to her at-the-time boyfriends to shoot up. He learned that lesson the hard way. One doesn't forget someone bursting into their room with a gun pointed at them, screaming for more needles. It was free for them. It cost Squid his control.

He couldn't control his failing pancreas. He couldn't control his mother needing to spend most of her paltry paychecks on his medication. He couldn't control needing to check his blood sugar many times during the day. He couldn't control his classmates' dumb questions about his disease nor could he control their taunts and jeers the one time he passed out during a free period because he kept playing a soccer game rather than stopping to check his levels or grab something to eat. He couldn't control how weak his friends viewed him.

But he could change it.

He played harder, earning the title of soccer captain on his junior high team with ease, a position he held through the years up until he was arrested, even through his repeats. Rather than absorbing jokes and keeping his head down, he fought back. He hardened his heart, hurt others before they could hurt him. Got into fights. Ran with a tougher crowd. Regained control. Got the upper hand.

Now, here at Camp Green Lake, it was taken from him all over again.

"Is this the right amount?" Mom asked.

Squid blinked, turning his once blank and now focused stare from the wall across the room and down to the needle Mom held upside-down. Squid glanced at the numbers on the side of the syringe, where a plunger had stopped. He quickly calculated the amount in his head. Math had always been a subject he excelled at, science as well by default. Math made sense to him. Numbers and letters gave you a specific, concrete answer. There were no underlying answers, no opinions, no clauses, no exceptions. One plus one always equaled two.

"Yeah, that's fine," Squid replied. They were having beans and some sort of green mush for dinner. He knew the exact amount of bolus he needed to get that mess of so-called-food to be process properly. It didn't take long for him to get his carb intake numbers down to the exact number. (Not that that was any special sort of skill, their food choices were few and far between. Besides, he was the only one that he knew of that had to pay attention to his caloric intake).

Mom pinched a few inches of skin on his abdomen and jabbed the insulin needle in. Squid didn't flinch anymore. He was used to it. Besides, he didn't expect his treatments to last much longer. The Warden was getting impatient with them. He would—they would—be punished soon enough. Then everything could go back to the way it was and his heartbeats could go back to being a countdown.

"Okie dokie, all done," Mom announced. Squid rolled his eyes, dropping his shirt. "Get in line, you wouldn't want to miss dinner."

Holding his sneer, Squid turned and left the office. One of these days Mom would have to drop that "we're all in this together" act. It was a bold-faced lie and they weren't in high school. They shouldn't have to kiss his feet for the bare minimum.

As Squid's stomach started to growl, he made his way out of the office and joined the line of campers getting their meal for the day. He meshed in with D-Tent at the back of the line. Their pool game must've lasted longer than usual. E-Tent didn't usually get the jump on them. Everyone got their food in order. Squid's eyes narrowed. X-Ray didn't seem to mind as he moved through the line with his tray. Fine. He wouldn't say anything either, then.

His fingers twitched by his side as Magnet and Armpit steadily moved forward. The urge to hurry them along swelled. He needed to get his food and fast. But he knew better than to rush them. Not when it came to food. Like their crates and their lifelines, food was something no one else could touch.

Finally, Magnet moved out of his way and he reached the tray line. He slapped his tray down on the rail and threw a piece of bread down on it. He paused by the condiments and grabbed a bottle of ketchup, squirting a quick design on it.

"Dude, you still do that?" Squid looked up to see Mouse's horrified expression. The same expression he'd seen over the years. "That's so gross."

He shrugged. "It's not that bad. You have to have the right bread for it though. This is good. That wonder bread crap only turns it into a soggy mess." Besides, beggars can't be choosers. It was all he had to eat some days, but he grew to liking the taste. Much like he grew to her poking fun at him for it. It was a trade-off; he still didn't understand how she could eat raw tomatoes like apples.

"Yeah…because soggy bread is the problem," she commented, nose still wrinkled. "Did you want beans or greens?" She used her ladle to point between her pot and Eagle's.

He really didn't care. He just needed to eat something; his stomach was starting to turn itself inside out. But he was not going anywhere near Eagle. He didn't trust him or anyone in B-Tent for that matter. For good reason. But he still wasn't a fan of Eagle's sniffing around Mouse. He hated the way Eagle looked at her with his beady eyes and the way he smiled at her and the way he made her smile. And he hated that he knew he was the reason for it.

"Anything's fine," he finally replied. He scratched behind his ear and cleared his throat. He needed food; maybe then he'd be able to think clearly.

The thought of which flew threw his mind again only a second after he moved down the line, looked up at Mr. Sir's face, and uttered, "Whoa! What happened to your face?"

Thinking had gone completely out the window.

He gulped and, quick as a flash, Mr. Sir's fat fingers curled around the collar of his jumpsuit and yanked him forward. His hips slammed into the silver railing of the tray slide shelf. Pain exploded in pulsating waves. Beneath the rapid pounding of his heart and his shallow breaths trays, pots, and condiments rattled. Mr. Sir's other hand slapped against the back of his head and jerked upwards, fingers curling around the shafts of his hair in a grip so strong he was surprised that it didn't come out in one swift pull. With wide eyes, Squid stared at Mr. Sir's swollen, scratched up, furious face.

He stared at the devil.

"Somethin' the matter with my face?" Mr. Sir barked. His fingers tightened on Squid's hair; he heard a few strands popping beneath the colossal strength of his grip. "Huh?"

Squid flinched, spittle landing on his face. He swallowed thickly, his breaths coming out in shaky pants. He peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth and uttered, "No. No, Mir. Sir."

Mr. Sir's squinty eyes narrowed even more and, with an extra yank he hissed, "You got that right."

Squid grunted at the push against his chest and he stumbled backwards, slamming into a nearby metal trashcan before hitting the leg of a table on the way down to the floor. Stars burst before his eyes as his tray, food, and silverware came to a rest on the floor. His short breaths burst through the still and quiet Mess Hall.

Stalking out from behind the food line, Mr. Sir's boots clomped on the wooden floor. Squid brought a hand up to the back of his head, gently pressing on the throbbing spot where his head struck the table. His heart pounded in his ears, covering the words wrapped up in Mr. Sir's barking to the rest of the campers.

As Squid lay crumpled on the ground, his thoughts raced. Why didn't anyone come to his defense? Why didn't anyone help him? Why did everyone sit still, let him be pushed around? But he knew why. That's how the camp worked. That's the way things were at Green Lake. Your business was your own, your problems were your own, you were on your own. There was nothing anyone could do for him.

He was the one who asked the dumb question. He was the one who broke the unspoken rule: don't question Mr. Sir. And maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he made the bad decision to open his mouth, to put himself there. But Mr. Sir was the one who attacked him. And Mr. Sir was the one in control.

And as Squid sat up, still rubbing his head, he glanced up, locked eyes with Mouse, and felt as if he'd been socked in the stomach. He got it. Boy did he get it. Their situations might be different but he understood and sorry wasn't a strong enough word to fix everything that he did back then.

He tore his eyes away when Eagle leaned over to whisper something to Mouse as the Mess Hall came back to life. Someone righted the trashcan. Someone got a broom to clean up the spill from his tray. Mom dribbled on and on about Mr. Sir being "sensitive" and a "human" just like all of them. Whatever. He could keep peddling that bullshit if he wanted to.

Squid peeled himself off the floor, brushing any traces of dirt off his jumpsuit, fully aware of how foolish that motion was. Eyes shifted from him and back down to their trays as the other campers went back to eating, tentative conversations starting up again. Fire burned inside him, and he was ready to make someone regret looking at him twice. The other campers kept their eyes down, falling in line like proper protocol. Even X-Ray kept quiet when he eased into his seat at D-Tent's table, choosing instead to humor Armpit over deciding what their first meals would be whenever they got out.

Not that Squid had much to look forward to himself. Cold spaghetti-o's if any were left over, maybe plain Cheerios without milk, or a box of saltines. He wasn't sure what his mother was up to. For all he knew his mother was lying dead unclaimed in a morgue somewhere. He still wasn't sure if that would be a relief or the worse news of his life.

A tray clattered down on the table. Squid looked up as Mouse settled in the chair at the end of the table, opposite X-Ray. She moved a few bits of food around and then pushed her tray in his direction, holding out an extra spoon. He took it out of her hand, sighed, and shoveled a spoonful in his mouth. Everyone ate quietly, until a lively discussion over who was hotter, Jessica Alba or Mila Kunis, came up. Same conversation, different topics. Table chatter tended to be superficial and easy.

It wasn't until dinner was over, signaling their last bit of free time before light's out, that he was finally asked the long simmering question, "How are you not dead?"

"Guess I'm lucky," Squid replied dryly.

"Seriously," Mouse commented, falling into step with him at the back of D-Tent's pack.

He used his tongue to shift a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. He shoved his hands into his pockets. "God's playing a cruel trick on me," he said. "Keepin' me around for shits and giggles." He kicked at a loose rock, watching as it bounced a few paces ahead of him. It hit the heel of Zigzag's boot. Zigzag's glanced back over his shoulder, round eyes widening slightly, and continued on his way.

"Sometimes I wonder if you have a death wish."

He snorted. Wish was a strong word. He stopped wishing on things a long time ago. He was just trying to speed up the clock, is all. The world would be doing him a favor for once. "I'm fine."

"I didn't say anything."

"I can see it on your face. You've never been good at keeping whatever you're thinking off your forehead." He reached out, pressing his finger into her forehead and pushed her head back. She slapped his hands away. "And you're always asking."

"Because you're always doing something stupid."

"You're exaggerating."

"Okay then!" Mouse held out her hand, lifting a finger with each listed response. "Remember the time you asked out Leslie DeBarge…in front of her boyfriend? Or the time you rode down a hill in a shopping cart? Or the time you let one of your friends drag you around the neighborhood with his car while you rode a swivel chair holding a rope? Or the time you threw a firecracker into a toilet? Or the time you stuck your thumb in the cigarette lighter in my dad's car? Orrrr the time you waxed off my eyebrows? Squid, I have about ten years' worth of shit on you. Do you want me to keep going?"

"I'll pass, thanks," he grumbled, though his lips twitched in the corners.

"And anyway, you're not the only one who said something." Squid glanced at her. "About Mr. Sir's face. I said something too. But I Mickey'd my way out of it." He snorted. "Yeah, I'm aware of that name everyone at school used in regards to my rambling." Lightly nudging him with her elbow she added, "Some would call it cute; you know."

He rolled his eyes. "Some haven't spent more than ten minutes with you."

"You've spent over ten years with me. And yet you're still here."

"Yeah, but I'm stuck with you."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It's not."

"Mhm. How hard did you hit your head?"

Her verbal cold water sobered him up real fast. It wasn't the first time he'd been caught in the crossfire, in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was the first time he wasn't able to fight back. To protect himself, to survive. So, how could she?

He licked his lower lip and finally replied, "Think it knocked some things into place."

"Or maybe just knocked you silly."

He wondered if it did; wondered if he had been knocked harder than he thought. The rest of the night was strange. As Mouse rushed ahead, her hand briefly slipped into his and as quickly as it was there it was gone. In its place was a Snickers candy bar. He looked at it and then up to the tent where Mouse said something to Caveman and then went inside after Caveman shook his head. Caveman glanced over at Squid, turning red beneath the growing moonlight, and hurried inside.

Squid walked inside slowly, his legs dragging him in. X-Ray asked, well told him, to join in on a card game. Squid waved him away with a mumbled decline, saying that he was tired. Magnet said something about a possible concussion. Armpit's face scrunched up at the word and a Zigzag patted his shoulder, telling him not to hurt himself. Laughter spread around at Armpit's expense.

He fell onto his cot. His head started to hurt again. He tucked an arm beneath his head and lightly pressed against the aching spot. Closing his eyes, he let the groans of defeat and laughs of triumph from their resulting card game wrap filter in and out of his ears. (Save for Zero who stared up at the ceiling, Mouse who read, and Caveman who stared at a letter.) Playful jabs and superficial conversations lulled him to an uneasy sleep as he licked his wounds and tended to his bruised pride.

He tossed and turned that night, like the crashing waves in his dream. It beat and battered him, pushing him this way and that, slamming him beneath the surface, dragging him down beneath the depths. Currents clawed at him, pulling him in all directions, disorienting. His chest ached. His head swam. He needed help; he needed an anchor. And then he saw it; a hand reaching down beneath the surface. He reached for it, fingers splayed, searching, scrambling.

With a shuddering breath, Squid's eyes flew open. Snores and whistles drowned out his attempts to regain his breaths. He pushed a hand through his hair, his heart rammed against his chest. Darkness surrounded him, cutting him off from the rest of the tent. A tattered life raft floating alone in the abyss.

Squid turned on his side, tucked his arm beneath his pillow, burying his face in the scratchy fabric as a bubble swelled in him. When it broke, for the first time in years, he cried.

a/n — Another update in less than a month! Yes! I promise, after this chapter, I will give Squid a break. As much as I love to delve into the dark parts of his mind and life, he deserves some happiness and good times to balance out all the angst and darkness that follow him. (I just love the version of him I've created, okay?) Some long-awaited tent bonding will come along as Mouse settles into her place in the group and her and Squid's friendship repairs itself (or starts anew? *wiggles eyebrows*) Let me know what you think!

Review replies

LittleBlueSweater: Yyyyyep, the judge is a HUGE snake. Some people will do anything for those dollars. As for why he's sending Mickey to the camp, that will be revealed soon! (I realize soon is a relative term when it comes to me but I do mean soon!) Ehehehehe, let me just say your feeling of anxiety will come into play sooner than you think. After all, the Warden knows and sees everything right? Man, if my update emails make your day then your reviews always make mine! Seriously, I love seeing your thoughts and your guesses on what might happen next. I always look forward to what you have to say. Honestly, it keeps me going on days when I feel like giving up on my writing but I love this story and I can't wait for you to see how all the threads come together!