Mind Reconstructive

My Advice...(Dare)

Dare:

She speaks...She spoke to me.

I drive down the worn out road thinking about what has just happened. Finding Erril asleep in the living room, and actually having a normal conversation with her. Maybe I'm too happy, or over-congratulating myself but I can't help it. Maybe I can actually help her, take down her walls or something. However, I must remember I have to be careful. It's good for a person to have some walls, otherwise they are too easy to demolish inside. No one needs that.

I drive around thinking about it for probably far longer than necessary...

I take a sharp turn, realizing it's already 1:30 and  need to make sure Joey's up and ready to go. While he's doing better and seems more happy, His only turn down is the fact that he sleeps far more than a normal person. The therapist said that this is just his way of coping, but I don't know how much of it is necessary...or helpful, anymore.

I park carefully on the sidewalk next to the front yard. our garage is too small to fit more than one car, so mine was sentenced to the street. 

Mom's car is gone, I see, which means she' either having a late lunch with dad, running errands, or (more likely) having another meeting with her therapist.

I don't mind...I'm glad that she goes, I think eventually it will start to help. If nothing else, I'm thankful none of the doctors put her on antidepressants. I thought they might for a while, and that scared me. I shudder, thinking of the effects they can have on people. It doesn't usually help

I can hear Joey's music from the main floor, which means he's probably still in bed. One of his quirks is that he absolutely cannot sleep unless he has music playing. He'll turn it off when he get's up, and usually has it on quiet, but it sounds pretty loud right now. He must have had a bad night.

I sigh as I walk up the stares. I hate waking people up, because I for one understand how much sleep means. Especially in our family. It (oddly enough) is as valuable as daylight to us. Not that anyone would really blame us for that, with everything that's happened. 

"Joey. come on, man, you need to get up. You okay?"

I nudge him a bit and he groans. "Whyyy?" 

I turn his music down, that should wake him up better. "Because you said you wanted to go to the movies today, and it's already 1:40. When did you go to bed last night?"

He sits up, blinking sleepily. "Huh? Like midnight or ten, or something...I can't remember."

"Well, you still need to get up. I'll make you food if you want. Or we could go out and get coffee. Or we could just head to the movie theater."

He frowns slightly, like he's still processing everything, which is quite likely.

"Umm, I don't really feel like going to the movies...do you want to go get breakfast?...or lunch I guess."

"Sure, why not. Any particular place you want to eat?"

"No, not really, just somewhere that sells coffee and isn't really busy."

"Alright...So, like that little coffee/restaurant shop thing down on first street maybe?"

"Sure, yeah, let's go there."

''''

Coffee First is Joey's favorite place to talk, and eat, and be generally, so it worries me that he doesn't even seem happy to be here. He seems very lost in thought, barely snapping out of it to order a sandwich and a breve.

We sit at the table closest to the windows and he stares out without seeming to actually see anything. The sky's clouded over and it's begun to rain. Not lightly either. Heavy drops that make everything seem like it's drowning. It's my favorite kind of rain.