Toxic Bad Boy(4)

The one where I cried at Gianna’s funeral had me waking up panicked, agitated and with no outlet for the rising aggression. I’d been tempted to drag Ian off the top bunk just to have someone to punch. Another nightmare centered on me getting released from juvie only to find out she’d fallen in love with someone else.

I hadn’t fallen back to sleep that night. Gianna was amazing. Other guys would be sniffing around while I was out of the picture.

After health class, it was my turn to see the shrink. Since taxpayers generously paid for my therapy, I figured I’d get their money’s worth. My therapist would get tired of hearing me bitch about Julie by the time my sentence was up. Maybe she’d recommend early release to the judge to get rid of me.

I met with the psychiatrist for individual therapy three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. My group therapy was once a week on Friday afternoons. Thank God Ian did group therapy a different day. I heard enough of his yapping in our cell and at mealtimes.

The shrink insisted on discussing my parents, their marital problems before the divorce and how the divorce affected me. It became tiresome after our second session. I was from a broken home, poor me. I got into so much trouble because I didn’t have a father in the house during my formative years. Bullshit. I was offended when my therapist went this route, because it was like saying my mom hadn’t been a good single mom. This wasn’t true at all.

I owned up to my mistakes. My parents were a hell of a lot better than what most of the kids had in this place. They’d never mistreated me, even when I misbehaved.

Each session, we talked about Josh attacking Gianna. Besides it resulting in my own attack on Josh, it had become apparent I harbored rage about the incident. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from killing him if I ever saw him. Would I be able to keep myself from hunting him down after his release?

I’d been reluctant to talk much about Gianna directly. What we had, still have, was private. Those memories were precious, not for others to analyze. After a whole month with no letter from Gianna and not having her new cell number yet, today I broke down to my therapist, Dr. Erica Adler. My emotions were turbulent and I was anxious about the future of our relationship.

Feeling embarrassed at exposing my feelings, I hightailed it out of there at the end of our session and a guard escorted me back to the cell block. Ian sat in the common area, looking sullen. Maybe his earlier session hadn’t gone so well either. It almost made me feel guilty about my daddy issues comment earlier.

“Hey, man.” I dropped down into an armchair across from him.

“I’m hungry,” Ian muttered grumpily. “I hate how they make us wait until everyone checks in before we can go to dinner.”

Tapping my right foot, I was impatient to eat, also. My plain white tennis shoes were comfortable, if not a little generic. When the shoes were first issued to us, Ian complained they were poor people shoes. I’d laughed and told him no more name brands for the rich boy.

At least the staff fed us well at mealtimes. The food in the place exceeded the quality at public schools. It was as if the state of Colorado was attempting to compensate for taking away our freedom.

After dinner, we got the choice of staying inside or going outside. Despite the indoor gym which most inmates preferred, I usually played basketball outside in the cold because I relished the sense of freedom. Pretending I was still in charge of my life brought a measure of sanity. With the thick workman’s style coats they gave us to wear, it wasn’t so bad.

During the weekends, we had the option of either being outside, in the gym or watching movies in the common room. Since the movies were usually rated PG, with an occasional tame PG-13 thrown in to spice things up, I usually declined and hung out elsewhere.

Beating Ian at one-on-one hoops had become my new favorite pastime. Ian worked out to keep in shape, but he had zero talent on the court. I whooped as I made another basket. “In your face!”

Ian cursed, scowling in frustration. “I’m tired of playing this game.”

Bouncing the ball, I circled around him. “More like you’re tired of getting your ass handed to you.”

“Give me a soccer ball and I’ll have you crying on the grass,” he boasted.

I scoffed, bouncing the basketball between my legs before palming the dimpled leather. I threw the ball at the hoop across the court, making it bounce off the backboard without going in. “Soccer sucks.”

I found the chilly November night refreshing. Running across the court after the basketball had my blood pumping. Our time almost up, I was eager to see if I got any mail today. The staff opened and examined the mail before handing it out to the residents in the evenings.