Recovery

Chapter 15

After another song, I decide to address the elephant in the room.

"Brent?" I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, and trace the wood grains on my guitar with my finger.

"Ya?" I see Brent move his head to look at me.

"What do you think about... Officer Dowling being our dad?" I wince at the words, reality finally setting in.

Brent shakes his head and grins. "It's weird, ya know? Like, it feels like a dream. It still doesn't seem real." He looks down at his lap and fiddles with his fingers. His smile disappears and is replaced with a slight frown. "How do you feel about it?" His forehead creases with worry.

I give a little laugh and smile a bit. "I hate him." My brows furrow, and my eyes fill with tears as I try to keep smiling. My smile falters and I cover my eyes and my body wracks with a sob. Oh boy. I did not need to lose it in front of my brother. I was planning on keeping it bottled in until tonight.

"You okay Lex?" I hear Brent shuffle and sit down beside me.

"No." I say. "I'm fine." But I'm not fine! My world is falling apart!

Brent chuckles. "One or the other, Lex," and wraps his arms around me, turning me around so that I'm in front of him.

"No, I'm not fine! My world was just turned upside down, and right when it was righting itself, it's being turned upside down again! My whole life is a lie!" Whoops I did not need to say that. "What I meant was that I'm perfectly fine." I sniff and Brent chuckles again. "Perfectly fine." My last word ends in a wail as I collapse in a sobbing, snotty mess. Brent rubs my back.

"It's okay not to be okay, Lex. I know how you feel." He rubs my back as I have a nervous breakdown. I don't know if I'm actually having a nervous breakdown, but this is how I imagine one would be like.

"And," I gasp, "and school starts tomorrow and everyone will talk about me," another gasp, "and I'll be bullied," another gasp, "and-".

"Alexis!" Woah. Full name. Never heard that before... I start to giggle at his stern tone. I have no idea why it's so funny, it just is. Brent looks at me kinda funny, and that sends me into another round of giggles, mixed in with sobs and gasps. I lean back into Brent and groan.

"School! I don't wanna go!" I wail again, and now the giggles have disappeared. Suddenly I can't breathe. Or, I can breathe, but it seems like my lungs won't fill with air. "Brent!" I gasp. "I can't breathe!" I gasp again. Brent's eyes fill with a look of horror, and he looks around the room.

"I'll be right back Lex. Stay right here." He pats my shoulder and runs out of the room and I hear him call something down the stairs. I roll onto my back, and I close my dry eyes, rolling from side to side, trying to get some oxygen to my lungs.

"The leg bone's connected to the, hip bone. The hip bone's connected to the, back bone." The soft tone stumbles out of my mouth. What am I doing? I can't breathe, and here I am, wasting my breath on a preschool song?! Boy, I must be going insane!

"Alexis, open your eyes." I hear a stern voice cut through the mayhem going on in my mind. I let my eyes flutter open, and there I see... Officer Dowling! Why is he here? Oh ya. He's my dad. My dad! Why is he my dad? My dad is supposed to be dead. I hate him. I hate mom for not telling us. I hate everyone but Brent at the moment.

"Brent," I croak out between gasps, and I feel someone grab my hand.

"I'm right here, Lex, just breathe." I squeeze his hand, and close my eyes again. It's getting mighty hot inside.

"It's going to be okay, Lexi. Can I call you that?" The deep voice calls me out if my thoughts again. No, I want to shout. No, you can not call me that!

"Just calm down, Lex." This time it's Brent's voice, and I feel my body relax, and I know that everything will be okay.

My breaths deepen, and I start getting more air in my lungs. I open my eyes and sit up.

"What was that?" I yawn, that episode leaving me exhausted.

Officer Dowling, aka my dad, looks at his watch. "That panic attack lasted a good ten minutes, if it started when you said it did, Brent. Thanks for getting us." Wait. He said us. Then... Mom's here?

I look around the room, and see mom in the corner, her hands over her mouth, tears shining in her eyes.

"Mom?" I ask softly.

"This is all my fault, isn't it?" Her voice wavers, and I get up, a bit slowly because I got dizzy halfway up, but I get up and walked over to her. I lift her chin so that she meets my eyes, like she did to me when I was little.

"Mom," I start, debating which route I should take. "Mom, it's not your fault. It's just the stress from the last week building up, and with school starting tomorrow..." I take a deep breath, careful not to let myself slip into another panic attack.

Moms eyes examine my face, looking up to my eyes. Finally, I guess she's satisfied with what she saw, she pecks my cheek, and slips out of my door. Silently, officer Dowling-turned-dad followed her, making the stairs creak as he walks down them.

"Brent?" I ask, thinking of something. "Can I borrow your phone?" I really wish mom would let me buy a phone, or at least an iPod, but all I have for internet is the gargantuan computer downstairs. Somewhere I am not going to go, because I am back to being mad at mom. Brent looks at me warily while handing it to me.

"What do you need it for?" He holds it just out of my reach, and I think about what to say without making it awkward.

"I have a question about school tomorrow." Let's see if that works.

"Ask me," Brent says, pulling back his phone, and tucking it in his front pocket. "I'm ready." He crosses his arms over his chest, confident that he'd be able to answer.

"You're sure that you'll be able to answer?" I sound a little smug, even to myself. I'm sure he won't be able to answer.

"Ya," he swaggers closer, a confident smirk on his face.

"So," I start, and giggle at the confident gleam in his eyes. "How are you supposed to use foundation?" He looks confused for a second.

"What does that have to do with school, Lex?" He scratches his chin. "Aren't you supposed to know that a foundation is wha keeps the house from shifting? You don't 'use' it," he says, making quotation marks in the air, "it is made when people build the house, and I have no idea what you were thinking..." He trails off and scratches his head, looking at his feet. "I don't know what they teach you kids in school these days." I giggle again and he looks at me, confused.

"No," I tilt my head,"foundation." I walk over to my dresser and pick up the container, showing him.

"Oh," he says sheepishly, and hands his phone over to me, pulling it out of his pocket. I type in 'how to use foundations' and tap on the first link, taking me to a website with eight steps.

Wash my hands, easy... Put it on around my eyes, easy. Use green concealer for any red spots, because they cancel out... Here we go, so you do need to put some sort of sealer on... I turn off the phone, and start looking through the different containers of makeup. Hopefully, people won't talk as much if I make myself presentable.

I glance at the clock. 3:46. Already? I never ate lunch! My stomach growls, and I look at Brent.

"I have some snacks in my room," Brent winks at me, even though his eyes tell me that he understands that I don't want to face mom quite yet. It's too early, and who knows what her and my dad are doing down there.

No, I will not think about that.