“Fine.” I shrugged. “What about the nudes? Can you at least stop with that until I get out of high school?”
“Brandon, that’s two years from now. And the way you’re going, it could be longer.”
“I’m not dumb! I have A’s in everything!”
“Well, if you keep getting suspended, you’re not going to graduate. Besides, when I talked about things changing, I meant for you. This little attitude of yours needs adjusting, and I think once you are on the right path, you won’t piss and moan and pout like you have been.” I glared at her. “3:00 tomorrow, you have an appointment with a counselor.”
I bolted out of my chair.
“What? I don’t need a shrink! There’s nothing wrong with me!”
“Brandon, you need to talk to someone about this attitude and the anger.”
“How about you?” I asked.
“I’m perfectly grounded, sweetheart. It’s you that I need to get under control so I can maximize my worth and retire soon. I’m lucky that I’m still in demand for modeling.”
She didn’t even pick up on that my suggestion wasn’t for her to go see the doctor, but for me to talk to her. Whatever.
“I’m not going,” I said confidently.
“No?”
“Nope.”
She picked up my BMW key fob and raised her eyebrow at me.
“Then you lose this. If you want the freedom of a car, you will earn it. Right now, the way you can earn it is to attend weekly appointments with the counselor.”
“For how long?”
“At least the rest of the school year. It’s April now, so at least until June.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said and shook my head. “All of this over a fight because I was defending you.”
“It’s not just because of the fight, Brandon. The fight was simply the last straw. As long as you continue going to the appointments, you can keep your car. You’ll be seeing Dr. Hamilton at the office that I go to. He’s not my counselor, but the other one at the practice. Their secretary will text me when you arrive and when you leave. So I’ll know if you don’t attend.”
When I got up to my room, I went to take a shower and made three new cuts on the inside of my left thigh. My heart pounded hard as the thrill tore through me while the razor blade sliced my skin. I leaned my head against the wall of the shower while the stinging subsided, and the dull throb kicked in. The satisfaction I got from it was far too brief, and quickly the tears threatened.
2
Brandon
Sixteen-Years-Old
The morning was spent floatingin the pool and making lots of posts and comments on Instagram. Occasionally, I’d sit in the spa to read through some assignments for my English Lit class. After the morning and early afternoon were wasted away in the pool, it was time for me to go “earn” my car.
Since my mom was a model, it had been burned into my head at a very young age to take some pride in what I wore. But as I stood in my huge walk-in closet, I just didn’t give a fuck what I wore. I finally settled on a pair of jeans, a red t-shirt, and my gray and black socks with the sloth hanging over a tree branch. Before I left the closet, I posted a picture of my sloth socks with my hashtag.
My mom was in the kitchen, gabbing away on her cell phone, when I decided to have a quick bowl of cereal. Even though it was late in the afternoon, dry cereal was one of those things that I could eat anytime as a snack. I poured a bowl of Crunch Berries, sat at the breakfast bar, and began shoveling it in. Apparently, this was a problem that led to yet another fight.
“Brandon!” Mom pulled the phone away from her ear and glared at me with a look of disgust.
I dropped the spoon in the bowl and stared back at her. She rolled her eyes at me and when she went back to her phone conversation, I went back to sifting through the cereal to find the crunch berries.
“Yeah, he’s home… Nope, he’s not sick. I had to leave my shoot early yesterday because he got into a fight with three older boys at school…Yes, the other ones were suspended too… He’s so smart, but he hasn’t made good decisions lately,” she said into the phone as she wandered around.
“You left out the part about why I got into the fight. I didn’t want them to jizz on you. But I guess you’re okay with that,” I said under my breath, but making sure it was loud enough for her to hear it.
