All in my Mind

XIII.

I want to talk about decompensation. It's a fun psychological medicine term to describe what it looks like when everything starts falling apart. I've done it a few hundred times, so even though I don't have the medical degree, I feel qualified to talk about it.

Alexander was falling apart. It was happening quickly and he couldn't stop it. He could barely even notice it happening.

Then Addison found out.

He'd been a social recluse for a few weeks. He still went to school everyday and by extension that meant he was still picking up Parker and Addison on the way most mornings, but he hadn't attended a party since that catalyst of a night. He hadn't gone over to Parker's after school studying. He'd gone to the boxing gym once, but really it was so he could justify that black eye he'd gotten to his mom. Sometimes he drove circles on the way home from school just to pretend he'd gone. He'd not even remembered to scuff the gloves up, so the lies were only half believable. The texts from the trainer were piling up.

As he was coming into spring, his course load had at least lessened. Seniors always seem to get a break on that second half of the year. The school is really just keeping them there to maintain the status quo or something. Alexander's German class had just started watching films. Even the classes that still had work to do, like calculus, seemed to be easing up. That was all really hard for him because it meant he had more free time to let himself crumble.

The spring fling was towards the end of March. It had been several months since he'd first noticed the problems, and they hadn't begun to lessen in any way. If anything, they were gradually worsening.

He decided not to go.

Except for he couldn't actually not go because of his mother. The second he indicated he might be skipping, her face had gone scrunched and concerned. Alexander noticed that because he'd recently developed a hyper awareness for every little feature that might tell him other people were seeing beyond his farce. He noticed everything with aggressive awareness.

When his mom made that questioning face, he followed it up with the only thing he thought might be acceptable to her. "Parker isn't going either. We're going to play video games at his house all night."

Then because she looked unsure still, he decided he was going to need to commit to the bit a little bit more.

"All my friends plan on getting drunk at the dance mom," he said with a false nervousness. "I don't want to be a part of that."

Her face softened. Alexander was flooded with a immeasurable amount of guilt. He'd just appealed to the part of his mother that was consistently vigilant. The part that feared for the safety of her children. What was worse was that he'd done it in a lie. Alexander wasn't fearful of peer pressure, because it hadn't ever worked on him anyways. Spring fling wasn't the place of temptation. If anything, there was nowhere he'd been offered drinks or drugs more than when at Parker's house.

"Who all is going to be there?" She asked him.

"Just Parker," he said.

You should know at this point, that Parker was actually not going to be there. Parker had plans that night for sure. Recently he'd started seeing a girl named Crystal, and he had already told Alexander that he was hoping to go home with her. Apparently she had absentee parents too.

He'd also not questioned it at all when Alexander had asked to use his house as a hide out. Alexander had come to him with his fakest sincerity possible when describing how he just really needed to focus on his calculus homework. Since Parker was currently in the trenches of calculus, he sympathized.