The Wrong Man For Her

Duh!! Like hell this is gonna be our group. Adults always say crap they don’t mean, like those assholes at school. My aunt’s okay, even though she looks at me like I walked off some Martian space craft. This guy’ll probably be like the ones at school. We’ll play some freaking games for a while, then he’ll make us do whatever he wants. The chick, too. She seemed cool at the intake interview, but that didn’t mean anything.

J.J. glanced up and saw the other kids writing. He looked at the posters on the wall. They were printed from the computer. The first showed statistics on teen victimization. It read:

Teens are twice as likely as adults to become victims of crimes.

58 per thousand of 16-to 19-year-olds are victimized.

46 per thousand of 12-to 15-year-olds.

Revictimization is 80% for teens who’ve been victimized once.

Right on, man. Nobody knew the number of times he’d been stuffed into lockers. Knocked against the wall. Doused with soda or water or whatever the frigging jocks had handy. Cripes, a couple of girls had even gotten into the act. His arm hurt like hell today, though the doc said it was healing. He wished his father were still alive. He could have helped. He was such a great guy… Even his mother would have been there for him. Now they were in long, cold graves. Sometimes J.J. wished he’d been with them on that rainy night when they’d skidded into a guardrail. He’d never even had a chance to say goodbye.

When the hole inside him threatened to gobble him up, he went back to the journal.

Anyway, what do I want from this place? How about pizza and beer for snacks? How about somebody to believe me? How about other kids who don’t look at me like I’m a weirdo?

He felt his eyes well with the dreaded moisture. Damn it, why had he let his aunt convince him to come here?

Because he was afraid she’d turn on him if he didn’t. Because he couldn’t stand how much he hurt inside and couldn’t handle the anger that never seemed to go away. These people might not be able to help, but they couldn’t make his life worse.

It couldn’t get any worse.

MADELYN FINISHED her journal entry about what she wanted to happen in this group. It wasn’t much different from what Nick had proposed, though she would have preferred the kids refer to her by her formal title. And she wouldn’t have thought to meet with them at a coffee shop.

“Time’s up.” Nick’s voice was clear and strong and confident. It even made her feel safe, and she knew better than to buy into his coaxing ways. “Let’s share some of our thoughts. Anybody want to start?”

No takers.

Madelyn jumped in. “I will.” She read from her first page. “I’d like to decorate the journal covers next time with something that reflects our personalities. Who we are. And I think we should do some ice-breakers then, too, to get us warmed up to talking about our feelings. I hope everybody will participate because that’s the only way to help each other. However, my vote is for a pass system, where we don’t have to share if we don’t want to.”

“That’s chunk,” Nato said. Madelyn had recently learned that chunk indicated approval.

Hector added, “Sí, Señora.”

Madelyn smiled at them. “But, guys, I don’t think we should be able to pass all the time.”

“I agree with that.” She looked over to see Nick had gone to the whiteboard again and had written down what she’d suggested.

Madelyn held up her journal. “The rest is for my eyes only.” She’d written about how difficult it was to be here with Nick.

“Did you do that?” Kara asked. “Write private stuff?”

“Yes.” She angled her head at the girl. “Kara, you know, adults don’t have it all together. We have issues.”

Nick stared at Madelyn. “We mess things up. We make bad decisions.”

“I guess I know that,” Kara said.

“Let’s go on.” Nick scanned the kids. “One of you want to start?”

Again, Anne Nguyen raised her hand.

“You can just speak out, Anne,” Nick told her.

“I want this all to be private from our parents.”

Nick wrote privacy on the board, then set down the marker. Sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he leaned back on his heels. “I think your request is a key here. But I have to tell you some parameters. You can share feelings that you don’t want your parents to know about. But if either Madelyn or I sense you’re going to harm yourself or someone else, we can’t and won’t keep that private.”

“Will you tell Dr. Walsh what we talk about in private sessions?” Tommy asked.

“I’m going to ask for your permission for that,” Madelyn answered before Nick could. “I can help you better in these group sessions if I know what you and Nick talked about.”

Tommy’s expression was challenging. “You promise it won’t go further?”

“I do.” She looked at Nick.

He said, “You have my word.”

Madelyn struggled with that….

Maddie, please, I need to touch you, hold you. You have my word, I won’t hurt you, emotionally or physically….

“Madelyn, Carla asked you a question.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re head of this place?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Can you keep that promise?”

“I haven’t broken one yet.” She shot a pointed look at Nick.

He cleared his throat. “It’s settled then, if no one else has an opinion on the privacy.”

Most of them nodded.

“Nato? You go next.”

The boy shrugged as if he didn’t care about any of this. “I want pretzels and Dr Pepper.”

The corners of Nick’s mouth turned up. “I’ll go grocery shopping. What else?”

The kid held his gaze unflinchingly. “I pass.”

“Hector?” Nick asked.