MASKING 101

3: Freakish Pain

"Emory Rose! I'm shocked, here I come to visit and bring you clean clothes and I've just been told that you were never admitted!" Mom turned her fury to Will. "And you, always bending the rules, quite frankly I'm surprised you graduated medical school! Just like Jeremy always testing the waters with you, never following simple simple rules!" She ranted, I shrank back but Will looked absolutely done with the woman. "Mom, I contacted Scott and explained what you refused to listen to, the psyche ward here is not at all the best place for Emory; the therapists here aren't the greatest either though I doubt you even researched anything about mental wards." Will told her as he stepped in front of me, Mom rolled her eyes and sighed. "Well I guess that smooths things over then." She said with a sickly sweet voice, Will shrugged and led me by the arm gently out of the hospital. 

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Will opened the car door for me and handed me my bag, after he was sitting in the car silently with his mask hanging from one of his ears frowning; I was confused, I thought it went okay Mom let us go and didn't seem upset. "What's...the matter Will?..didn't it go good?" I asked. "Yeah! It was terrific!!!" He shouted, "If it went good then why are you frowning?" I asked, Will released a heavy sigh and let his forehead his the top of his steering wheel, why was Will sighing like it didn't go well?! Was I missing something....Will put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot swiftly and drove the whole way to Kroger in a thick silence. He parked in a parking spot and got out of the car leaving me sitting there wondering what the heck I did wrong. I decided not to follow Will into the store and to leave him be; I pulled the Ipod out of the bag carefully not to mess up the splints Will put on my fingers, once I had the headphones on my head I hit play on the Lo-fi playlist waiting for my brother to come back from shopping.

Halfway through some sort of Celtic song Will came back to the car holding a few bags, he seemed calmer when he shut the his door and pulled the mask under his chin. "I'm sorry for taking my anger and irritation out on you....She just really gets under my skin." he apologized and set a Kit-Kat candy on my leg. "I didn't know if you liked sweet tasting things so I got a couple different snacks and grabbed that out of the bag." He explained, I looked at the red wrapper and felt myself smiling for the second or third time that week. "Thank you...really, Dad buys me candy and stuff after he and Mom get into a fight over my problems so thanks." I gushed as I picked up the wafer candy ripping it open with my teeth. "I like Hello Panda cookies." I told him, Will chuckled as he opened a bottle of grape Fanta. "I'll keep that in mind." He replied taking a long sip from the bottle. After swallowing he grabbed the water bottle he had brought from the house and drank a bit of whatever it was before pulling out of the parking lot after turning on a different band that sounded less angry then My Chemical Romance...

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We got back to the house and saw a teenager with hot pink hair sitting on the porch in all black; well her shoes had rainbow bottoms and the earrings hanging from her ear lobes were silver hoops. Will pulled the keys out of the ignition and grabbed his bag from the backseat. The girl noticed Will and I coming with the Kroger bags and his med bag and tried standing up but fell almost faceplanting onto the cement. "Take the groceries inside and ask Sawyer to bring some ice." He told me, I nodded and continued walking into the house. "Try to hurry with the ice sis!" He yelled through the doorway, I couldn't find Sawyer anywhere so I grabbed a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and a washcloth then sprinted out the door. "Blake, what are you doing on my front porch dude?" Will asked as he pressed the wrapped peas on the welt forming on the side of Blake's face. "Mum and Pop were arguing and it got physical...I heard this was the place to come to get fixed up by a legit doc.." She explained, Will cocked his head to the side before deciding on whatever he was thinking about. "Grab the platform crutches from the closet Emory." He pointed towards the painted white door just inside the house. "I don't need no crutches Doc..." Blake told him while I grabbed a set of crutches from the coat closet. "You've been coming to see me for the better part of a year...so about eight months once or twice a week because of something happened at home or at school, I try to keep notes about all of the kids I take care of so I can refer to the notes if I think there might be a certain cause for some injuries or problems." I set the crutches next to him and went to sit on the ground and started running my hands through the lawn. "from the amount of bruises on you I'm gonna make an educated guess from my notes and the marks that you have some degree of trouble maintaining good balance," He stood the crutches up and showed them to Blake who was glaring at me. "What's the freaking matter with her?!" Blake asked pointing at my clothes since I wasn't wearing my sweatshirt the olive green shirt I was wearing was exposed, the particular shirt had a UFO abducting a human figure with the script: I WANT TO LEAVE hovering above the craft. "Blake I'm not focused on her at the moment I'm focused on you," Will replied, Blake made a gesture at me that I had been given a few times after a not particularly nice conversation before turning her attention back to Will. "I don't need no crutches, I'm fine Doc." She snapped looking weirdly at the walking aids. "Blake I want you to try them, I have a cane or two if you want to try that instead but I genuinely think that you should try using a walking aid so your not falling so much." What my brother was saying made sense to me but Blake still looked annoyed. "just gimme the damn peas, I'll fix myself up." She grouched grabbing the peas from Will's hand. "Forget about me coming back to your place Doc!" She held the same gesture up to the sky while she walked across the street and slammed the front door. Not even fifteen minutes later a couple kids came walking up the drive; the boy in between the two others was limping and looked real bad. "Hey Mr. Katz...Noah got beat up after a game of ball, Maxine told us about you an stuff so do you think you can try to fix our buddy up?" the boy closest to me asked, I had seen Noah at school hanging around the D&D club and sports groups too but I never really tried talking to him; Will stood the crutches against the siding of the house and pointed to the plastic lawn chair from inside the house, I walked over to the porch and slid down the porch's guard rail. "I've seen you around school...." Noah told me through his labored breathing, his friend on the left slung Noah's backpack off his shoulder setting it on the porch gently. Will came back with a notebook and pen.
"Alright Noah, I'm Will Katz so feel free to call me by my first name; what happened after the game?" He asked, Noah's friend who had put his backpack on the ground told Will a lengthy story about what had happened; a couple of guys from Noah's school had jumped them while they were walking home; they didn't go after Noah's friends just him and the guys from the school beat him up until Silas (the guy who was talking) and Ray were able to overpower the three boys. "H-Help..." Noah was heaving heavily with his midsection bent over his knees. "Silas, give me his bag." Will was looking at Noah he sounded dead serious; Silas gave the bag to my brother who quickly opened the bag looking for something, after several pill bottles Will pulled out something that wasn't a pill bottle, he uncapped the object propping Noah up on his lap because he was hunched over on the ground now; after Noah saw the object he nodded furiously as Will put the shorter end of the object into his mouth and pressed the button. "Noah's asthmatic, why wasn't this mentioned?" He asked as Noah took the first non-labored breath since he was sat down, Will pressed the button again still waiting for an answer. Sawyer popped her head out the front door. "Room's ready, Silas Brooks your mom just called asking if I had seen you what are you doing on our front porch?" She asked the hazelnut colored boy, he shrugged dismissively; Sawyer came out and grabbed Will's bag and the crutches. "You and Ray are welcome to come in." She told Silas as I followed her into the house.