There Will Be Blood (not mine)

39. Obedience and Authority

JUSTIN POV

I was actually salivating as Keegan pushed the giant piece of fatty, Chicago deep-dish pizza across the breakfast bartowards me.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Jaxon said hesitantly.

"Shut up," I snapped and took my first bite of heaven in almost a month.

I moaned as the grease slithered down my throat. The heat from the pizza burned my mouth, but I didn't care. I would die a happy man just for this one last taste of freedom.

"Is it good?" Keegan grinned and took a large chunk from his own pizza.

"You have no idea." I swallowed another bite.

"This is not going to end well." Jaxon started to pace the floor of my kitchen.

"Will you sit down?" Finn rolled his eyes. "You're stressing him out."

"Maddie is going to kill us all," he muttered. "She almost strangled me for giving him a cup of coffee. What is she going to say when she sees him eating pizza?"

"She's going to castrate you." Keegan laughed at me.

"I wasn't the one who went out and bought the stuff," I argued.

He thought for a second, and then shrugged. "She can't beat me."

"You wanna bet?" I chuckled.

It had been a month since my "episode", and Maddie was breathing down my neck like a dragon. She was the personification of Nurse Ratchet, and it wasn't fun at all. I had a heart problem; I didn't die. To me, it wasn't really a big deal. It's over now, right? Not according to Maddie. If she wasn't shoving pills down my throat, then she was makinghealthy food and monitoring my stress level.

I wasn't allowed to move from the couch if she was here. She would have a medical reason for everything, and I wasn't even allowed to shout at the TV. I was a fucking invalid, and I wasn't taking this new life well.

I was a person who got restless if I sat in a chair for five minutes. What did I do now that I was glued to the couch? I was going insane. My mind was literally buzzing for some kind of interaction. I had gone through two Sudoku books and began on a New York Times crossword set that was supposed to be difficult. It was less strenuous than advertised.

On the occasions when Maddie was at school, I took the opportunity to do something productive.

Against everyone's wishes, I secretly did some behind the scenes work. I kept a low profile, but got things done. I went over numbers from business transactions and monitored everything that my brothers handled. I would clean the house from top to bottom, which under Maddie's classifications, fell under strenuous activity.

However bad Maddie was, she was nothing compared to my parents. Even over the phone, they berated me for not following rules. When they came over, Pattie went crazy. She always had to point out something that I was doing wrong. It was very annoying, but her persistent nature didn't let up. Jeremy took the firmer approach of basically tying me down to take my meds.

I wasn't a child, although, I was acting like one. They were forcing me to behave like a fucking baby. I had no say over anything anymore. I had depleted in authority so quickly that it made my head spin. I couldn't wait to get the seal of approval from the doctor so that I could go back to work. This was hell.

I was just trying to have some control over something and defiance was just enough of a rush for me to stay sane. Thus, the reason for the pizza. This was my first taste of real food since I had gotten out of the hospital.