I apologize for the late update. I've been dealing with a bunch of issues lately—most of them technology related. Recently I had a virus on my computer and had a heck of a time cleaning out the system; then I had to turn my computer off because it was overheating. And also, where I live we had a snow storm and our power was going off and on repeatedly. It's just been one problem after another. But, anyway, here's chapter 6.

This chapter is mainly focused on George, but that's because he's going to have some influence over Cody later. The story itself is still mostly about Zack and Cody. I listened to the songs "Love, Save the Empty" by Erin McCauley and "Send the Pain Below" by Chevelle for this chapter and they helped me write out George's story. George doesn't really go beyond the basics, though. He's the type of guy who likes to just give people the gist of things.

Disclaimer: As before, I do not own The Suite Life series

If Cody could have described George using any one word in the English language, he would have used the word "rebel." George was many things—bipolar, indifferent, straightforward, young, imprisoned…and in many ways, lost. He was complex, among other things. But Cody thought the best way to describe him would be to say that he was a rebel. A more sophisticated term (and Cody knew full well about sophistication) would probably be "revolutionary." Cody thought of him as a silent revolutionary who—if freed from the inside of the asylum—would go around stirring things up by spreading graffiti on building walls and setting off guns in public places. He wouldn't kill anyone, Cody didn't think. But he'd sure as hell shake people up.

He didn't have a cause. He wasn't the kind of person who had hardcore beliefs; in fact, he struck Cody as someone who didn't even think about what he believed in. He would do it for the thrill rather than for the sake of making a statement. He would have been one of those people who were considered troublemakers by authority…which reinforced Cody's assumption that he was an ex-criminal.

To keep from getting extremely bored during their lockup time, Cody and George sat on their beds and talked. They talked for hours, carrying on whole conversations about the most random things. Cody learned more about Fairoaks Asylum—that it was an even bigger maze than he'd previously thought. It contained six separate buildings, each for different types of illnesses, which were all linked together by bridged hallways. Every building, which was referred to as a hall, had two different wings—one for males and one for females—as well as its own cafeteria, entertainment room, restrooms, visiting room, and set of staff members. The males and females could be together in some of the rooms (like the cafeteria and the visiting room); but, other than that, they were kept apart. All of the halls were joined together in the center, at the main building, where the lobby was. In a way, it was like living in a gigantic condo.

Cody also learned that, within the next day or two, he would be taken to get his "patient attire." That's what George called the plain, white, pajama-like outfit he was wearing. He would have three different pairs of them, all identical. And he would be required to wear them all day, everyday, so long as he was a patient there. Cody did not like this idea at all. First, they took his freedom; now they were taking his individuality? "That's bullshit," he huffed. "That's complete bullshit! I can't wear white every single day. I'll get so tired of it that I'll puke."

George just shrugged (he did that a lot), and said "Sorry, man. I hate it too."

They talked about interests and talents, and they told jokes. They talked about girls and relationships (Cody only mentioned Barbara and Bailey) and what they thought life would be like when—or if—they were ever released from Fairoaks. George thought for sure he never would be released. He swore up and down that he would remain behind those asylum walls until he died. "I'm telling you, man," he said, "they ain't ever gonna let me outta this place. I'm a lifer. I've been here three fuckin' years and there hasn't been one sign that they'd ever let me out."

"Well, have there been any patients who've been here longer than three years and got out?" Cody tried to be positive. Though George was an indifferent guy for the most part, he had an overall negative point of view. He seemed to assume the worst about everything.

"Sure," George admitted, "but I ain't one of them."

"Why wouldn't you be?"

"Because…" George stopped and gave it some thought for a moment. "Because I don't have any secrets."

Cody was puzzled. "Secrets?"

"Yeah. See, everyone here—or most everyone here—has secrets. They have something to hide. These doctors try to get you to reveal those secrets. They wanna know what makes you tick. They keep prodding you, and prodding you…and they twist what you say. They manipulate your words to get you to slip up somewhere and tell them something."

Cody understood this. He'd seen it with Dr. Thompson.

"But the thing is—the more you tell, the more they think of releasing you. Cause they think they're helping you; they think they're making you better. Reveal your big, dark secret and you get your freedom back. You see, that's bad for someone who doesn't have any secrets. They keep assuming that you do but you just don't want to let them out…when, really, you don't have any at all."

George paused again. Cody considered this. He'd never thought of it this way—he'd never really thought of what he would need to give in order to go back into the real world again; but on some strange level, it made sense.

"It's like the Salem fuckin' Witch Trials," George continued (much to Cody's astonishment at that comparison). "Whether you're guilty or innocent doesn't matter; whether you're lying or telling the truth makes no difference. They're always going to think you're lying unless you confess to being guilty. You confess, they free you. You speak the truth, they hang you. So long as I don't make some sort of confession, they're going to keep me here till I rot."

You know something George, you may have a point. The common human mind associates people like you and me as liars. We're guilty until proven innocent, so to speak. But you should realize…we all have secrets. We all have something to confess.

Cody didn't want to go any further into that. He knew he had secrets, and he knew that he didn't want to reveal them…least of all to some doctor he hardly knew and did not particularly like. But at the same time, he wanted to get out of the asylum. He wanted his freedom once again. And if it came right down to it, he wasn't sure which one he would sacrifice.

He decided it best to change the subject altogether. "So where are you from, George?" he questioned.

George didn't appear to be thrown off guard. He was probably very used to changing subjects. "Originally, New York City."

"What made you come to Boston?"

"Long story."

"We've got plenty of time."

The corner of George's mouth turned upward into a crooked smile. "Why don't I tell you the whole thing, then? How about that?"

Cody shrugged. "If you feel up to it, go for it."

George took a moment to breathe and glance out the barred window at the tree leaves which, on that day, were blowing in a moderate breeze. "My mom was sixteen years old when she gave birth to me," he began, "and my father skipped town once he found out about my existence."

Cody gazed at George sympathetically. "It was fuckin' good riddance too," George added quickly. "My mom told me he had a bad rep. He was a drunk."

"So how did your mom feel?" Cody asked.

"Scared," George replied. "And probably like an idiot. She came from a strict, Christian family; her father had been a preacher and her mother had been a housewife. When they found out she was pregnant, they kicked her out of their house…without even letting her pack her stuff. They just shut the door in her face and told her not to come back. She sat on their front porch crying for over an hour, before leaving the damn place."

"Shit," Cody remarked under his breath. "She told you that?"

George nodded. "She'd wanted an abortion. Can't say I blame her. Who wants to have a kid at sixteen? But she didn't have the money to get one. So she tried adoption. She talked to a friend of hers who was able to contact an adoption agency, and they set her up with an appointment to meet this family who wanted a child but couldn't have one of their own. She talked to them, thought they were nice…decided she wanted them to raise me. But about two months after making that decision, she changed her mind. She decided she wanted me after all. Stupid choice. She could've had her life back…and gave me one too."

"She raised you then?"

"More or less. She didn't get to finish high school so she started hooking to put food on the table. It worked most of the time. I sure as hell didn't starve to death. But it got kind of annoying when she'd bring home these strange men—some of them old enough to be her father—and fuck them right in front of me. See, eventually she was able to pay for a one-bedroom apartment. She and I kind of shared the bed cause the couch was not comfortable to sleep on, and she would take the guys back there and fuck 'em. I would watch sometimes and she wouldn't care. She hardly noticed."

George paused and formed an un-called for smirk. "I never needed to have 'the talk,'" he stated.

But damn it, George, you SHOULD have. You were just a kid. You shouldn't have been seeing that. You should have found out about sex the way most kids do.

"Obviously," Cody said to him. What else could he say? He didn't want to offend George. George was acting perfectly natural about all this.

"I don't think she was all there, you know? She had constant mood swings. She'd be mommy of the year one day and then a total bitch the next. It could really give a kid whiplash. I think I got my bipolar disorder from her. I think she was bipolar. She never got diagnosed or anything, but there's really no other way to explain it. She would go off on these random rampages and destroy all kinds o' shit. Most of the time it was over ridiculous things—broken dishes, power outages, vomit on the carpet…stuff like that. But it was always my fault. She'd start screaming and banging dents into the walls, and calling me a little motherfucker."

"Did she hit you?" Cody wanted to know.

"What?" George asked. For once, he was caught off guard.

"Did she hit you?"

"Yeah, sometimes," George said casually. "I remember having a busted lip now and then, a nose bleed, a couple o' black eyes. Man, they don't look anything like what you see in movies. She threw me down the stairs once and I got a concussion. Oh my God, that sucker hurt like shit! It took fuckin' forever to heal." George took in another breath. "So…yeah, my life was like that for a while. It was pretty much routine. We lived in that apartment until I was about seven. Then we moved. My mom brought home this guy who was a truck driver one night and…well…he was nicer than some of the others. My mom liked him a lot. He wanted her to stop hooking and start being responsible…which didn't make a lot of sense given the fact that she met him by hooking, but whatever. He made her feel special, you know? He made her feel good about herself. And she clung to that, man. That was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal so she clung to him like a suction cup. They started dating and he wanted her to come with him when he made his next stop, which was in Boston. She was all into him, so she didn't even think twice before saying yes—young people are like that, and she'd never really grown up. Not mentally, anyway."

Suddenly, the latches on the metal door came undone and the door was pulled open. Jenny Kroft entered the room and beamed at both Cody and George simultaneously. "Hey, guys!" she said. In one hand she was holding a small, transparent cup with a tablet lying inside, and a cub filled with water in the other. "It's time for your Depakote, George."

"Joy!" George said sardonically.

Jenny handed him the cup with the tablet. George took the tablet out and slipped it in his mouth. Then he handed the empty cup back to her in exchange for the one with water. He downed the water in one gulp and gave that cup back to her as well. "Okay," Jenny told him. "You're done for a while. I'll be coming back in about an hour to take you two to the restroom."

Jenny turned and walked back to the door. Before closing it behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and gave Cody a concerned look. "How're you doing?" she asked.

Cody shrugged. "Better than I thought I would be, I guess." What was he supposed to say?

"Well, that's good…I guess."

Jenny left and the door latched behind her.

Cody turned his attention back to George. "So, what happened then?"

"We left," George told him. "We moved to Boston. The guy broke up with her there, and she was devastated about it. He was the second man to take off on her…and just like the first, he'd gotten her pregnant. Figures, right? Well, at first she let the depression have her. She would lie around and not do anything. But then later, she got pissed. Really pissed. She started wrecking stuff like crazy. She'd beat on anything and everything she couldn't stand the sight of…including me. That was the worst I had ever seen her. Luckily, it didn't last very long. She finally decided to send me to school. There was an elementary school about a block or two from where we lived and she told me one day that I'd be going there."

"How old were you?" Cody inquired.

"I was about…eight and a half? Nine, maybe?"

Cody was astonished. "And you were just then starting school?"

"Yep. I know, it's weird. Most kids start when they're about five. But…what can I say? My life was pretty weird."

I'd say totally fucked up describes it better, George.

"I'll never forget the principal's face when he found out how old I was and that I'd never been inside a school before. It was priceless."

"I bet," Cody interrupted. "Was your mom investigated?"

"No, why would she be?"

Cody flashed George a baffled expression. "Gee, I don't know, George. A kid who's about nine years old and has zero years of education—hmm, what could be off about that?"

"Well, no one investigated my mom," George said matter-of-factly.

"They should have," Cody remarked under his breath.

George continued. "So, I started school. It was kind of embarrassing cause I was so far behind. All my classmates were much younger than me. They weren't into the same things I was. And they didn't seem to…know anything. They knew how to read, and write, and do basic math, but other than that, they knew absolutely nothing about the world. They were all so ignorant. And happy. They never thought of the future; to them, the future would take care of itself. For a while, I kind of envied them that. I envied how simple their minds were. You know that saying ignorance is bliss?"

Cody nodded.

"Well, let me tell you now, that's so true. The more you know, the more miserable you are. I found that out at school. If I learned anything there, that was it." George scrunched his eyebrows, which was the first real sign of emotion he showed since Cody had met him. Nobody can hide their emotions completely. They wouldn't be human. "And it pissed me off. I didn't want my knowledge anymore. I wanted it to go away. But, of course, I knew it wouldn't. You just can't unlearn something. I mean, sure, you can forget; but it wasn't possible to forget the things I wanted to forget. Jesus, I felt like I was condemned or something."

Cody looked down at the floor, thinking about that. He had never believed that ignorance was bliss. That was always Zack's motto. Cody had believed in obtaining as much information as he possibly could. In fact, people used to tell him it was scary how much he knew. They would get annoyed by him and all his knowledge. Zack used to drive him nuts about it; he used to call him either a "nerd" or a "dork" on a daily basis. Cody knew things that the common person would never even think to ask about. And that had given him an inner sense of peace. He viewed knowledge as his strength—as his one and only strength. As far as he was concerned, knowledge and bliss were synonymous. How could an ignorant person be happy? He used to act so condescending to Zack about how little Zack cared to learn—how little he wanted to improve. How insensitive he was.

And yet, Cody thought angrily to himself, he's not the one in here. I am.

"School went as well as could be expected," George sighed. "I had to be put in special classes to help me catch up to speed with all I'd missed, which was a shitload of stuff. I didn't learn how to read until I was, like, twelve years old. I'm still slow at it to this day, and I'm twenty-three. I managed to go to high school just two years later than I normally would have. For most people, those years are the worst years of their lives; for me, they were a blessing. Mostly because I was away from home most of the day—away from my mom."

Cody thought about his high school years. They certainly had not been a blessing; he'd been teased relentlessly. But, at the same time, they weren't the worst years of his life. The worst years didn't come until later…when she came into the picture. Cody's chest constricted. Don't think about that. Shut it out. Shut it out like an old file. Delete it.

But you'll have to bring it up sometime. Otherwise, according to George, you'll never get out of here. You'll have to put on a good face and own up, if only for the sake of your freedom.

I'll do that when the time comes. But right now, I'm going to shove it away. Send it all below the surface, at least.

"Speaking of your mom, did she have the baby?" Cody decided to ask that instead of the real question that was haunting him.

"Oh yeah," George replied. "I have a little sister named Sherrie."

"Where is she? Do you know?"

"With my mom, somewhere. I never see her. I haven't seen her in nearly three years."

Again, Cody gave George a look of sympathy. Imagine not seeing Zack for that long. "Do you miss her?"

"Sometimes. But I try not to think about it. I turn off my emotions, remember? That's one thing you have to do while you're in here."

Try to be positive, Cody. Try to be positive around George. "I bet she misses you too."

George looked doubtful. "I don't think so," he said. "Why would she? She knows I'm in here. She knows I'm crazy."

Cody found himself thinking about Zack. Does he miss me?