Save Myself // Larry Stylinson

Chapter 5

Chapter 5: V

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"Tell me about your mother," was the first thing Terri cut into Louis with on their Tuesday session.

Louis had survived the whole weekend, Monday and most of Tuesday, with the thought that he was eventually going to be sitting here and listening to her advice. He wanted to talk about what to do with the fact that he still hadn't spoken to Matt. He also wanted to mention that he had finally opened the lines of communication, but Matt had still not reached out. There was a lot of things that Louis wanted to talk about, but none of them involved his mother.

"Um, no," was all he said.

"Eventually, Louis, you're going to have to talk about it,"

He shook his head. Nope. He was never going to have to talk about this because it was all irrelevant and it had nothing to do with the real issues he was facing in his life. His family, his childhood, it was all just cookie cutter from every kid who had a rough go of things. Louis wasn't any different than any of them, so Terri already knew everything she needed to.

"How about this, then, Louis," she tried to skirt around the things she wanted to ask, "tell me about your father,"

Louis shrugged, "I haven't got a clue," was all he said.

"See, now we're getting somewhere,"

"There's plenty of dead-beat dads out there. Mine's hardly remarkable,"

"Yes," she said, "but a lot of the people who have deadbeat dads, have a mother that tried to make up for it,"

Louis stayed quiet. He didn't want to dance anywhere near this subject. Anything he said could make it all blow up, so there was no way he'd utter another word.

"I met your mother when you first came here," said Terri, and Louis looked up at her, giving her permission to continue. She looked like she had about a thousand things resting on the tip of her tongue, but all she said was "It felt like I was speaking to someone that had never actually met you,"

That was fair. That was pretty accurate, actually.

"I didn't want to talk about that today," said Louis.

"So you came with a plan?"

"I..." He stared at his hands, "I turned my phone back on,"

Terri looked frightened, which Louis found odd, "and what happened?"

It was all very anticlimactic, considering the look on her face. She expected some great story, but Louis didn't have one to tell.

"Nothing,"

Louis could easily tell that it wasn't the answer she'd been expecting. "Can I be honest with you?" She asked him suddenly very serious.

"Aren't you always?"

"Of course," she started, "but honestly, I'm scared about what you're going to do when its time to see him again. I'm afraid that I won't have gotten you to a place where you're ready to deal with it,"

He pondered that for a moment, "can I be honest?"

She nodded quickly, her eyes following every small movement his body made.

"I'm worried that I'm not ready to deal with it,"

"So, why did you turn your phone back on?"

"Extenuating circumstances,"

***

Tuesday night had proven to be just as uneventful as the rest of the day. Louis and Lottie had assumed their normal positions in his bedroom. This time, though, Lottie had started a new book at Louis' recommendation (The Perks of Being a Wallflower). She was just as quiet as usual while she sat on his couch and he typed up study notes. The poetry class he was taking had given him one giant syllabus with a lot of readings on it, but he was already a third of the way through them. His biology text was still opened on one corner of his bed while he flipped through a poetry anthology for a Walt Whitman poem. He wanted to get as far ahead in his biology readings for reasons he didn't really understand, but it was getting a bit exhausting. His notes were thorough and he'd done about three drafts of each chapter before he felt really satisfied.