Losing His Fix

7

Roland's POV

"I need you to burn these," I said as I placed the black trash bag on the floor of Andrew's office. Andrew only stared at me with a confused look in his eye.

"Burn what exactly," he asked as he looked at the bag. He went to open it but I batted his hand away. It had taken an act of god to actually get the clothes in the bag without touching them in any way and I wasn't about to do it again just so he could look at them.

"My clothes."

"Why do you need me to burn your clothes?"

"Because they are dirty and Kit isn't here to do it for me and you said you would help with all the things Kit would normally do and can't now since he had to leave."

"Right," he said with a frown, still looking confused. "Let's back up for a second. What happened to these clothes that would warrant them being burned rather than just being thrown out or washed and worn again?" I couldn't help the groan that left my mouth.

"Kit wouldn't have asked useless questions."

"I don't feel like this is a useless question. You've never asked to burn clothes in the past so this is a little concerning."

"Well, this has never happened before but now that it has I need them gone."

"Right but what happened? If it's something we could avoid in the future to save your other clothes I would like to find those options."

"They got dirty," I said with a duh tone, not understanding why he couldn't fathom the words coming out of my mouth. How hard was it to just take the bag and throw them in a fire?

"Okay, we're going in circles," he said with a sigh. "How did they get dirty? And what makes them so dirty that you can't just wash them? I know you don't like dirt and germs but you haven't had a problem with washing clothes in the past so what's going on? Did Kit usually do the washing and now you feel like you can't or is this a new thing entirely that's happening? I need you to help me understand."

I stared at him for a moment. I knew if I told him what really happened he would pressure me into telling him who did it so he could deal with it but I also knew that confronting a bully never helps. Either they make it worse for getting them in trouble or someone else takes their place. Nothing ever really changes.

But if I didn't tell him, he might refuse and send me back to the cabin which meant I would have to try and find a way to throw them into the campfire when no one was looking and just claim it was an accident. I would probably get questioned about why they were in a trash bag though and Andrew would just end up asking why I did it and that would lead us back to the first option.

"Someone threw a napkin at me. It was dirty and full of germs and the germs got on these clothes and now they need to be burned to kill all the germs and bacteria." His mouth fell open as he tried to come up with a response.

"Who threw a napkin at you? When did this happen?"

"I don't know who did it. Yesterday."

"Why did you come talk to me or Mary when it happened? You could have pointed them out to us and we could have done something about it."

"I had to get clean first," I said with an eye roll. "Then I kind of panicked. I'm telling you now," I defended weakly when I saw the disapproval in his eyes.

"Would you have told me if you didn't need me to burn them?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's just a napkin. It didn't hurt, I just didn't like it. There's no reason to get anyone in trouble over a napkin."

"If it negatively affected you the person who threw it needs to know that it isn't okay. Even if it didn't affect you, that shouldn't have happened. People shouldn't be throwing things. It's uncalled for."

"This is a camp full of criminals. I'm sure worse things have happened. This is just normal teenage boy things."

"It might be normal but that doesn't mean it should be happening. Not when everyone is supposed to be working towards getting away from bad habits and working on being a better person. Their therapist needs to know about this so they can work on it. It might just be a napkin today but what if in a few months, it becomes a soda can or knife?"