Locking and chaining his bedroom door and staring gravely into its white-painted paneling, Justin let a discontented noise expire softly in his throat. Adults. They worry so much. They have much to worry about, of course, but he worried enough for all of them. Didn’t they understand that’s why he was sent here? Why he was brought here? Sent here or brought here, he wasn’t sure which, but it didn’t much matter one way or the other. His responsibility was the same: to wonder, to worry, to act.
Dr. Moore was a mess. Poor guy almost had his life back together before Justin knocked on his door, but what did he expect? These things were decided long ago. Very long ago. Nothing is decided when it happens.
He felt bad for his mother. It would be hard on her when it all came out. She had done nothing to deserve the pain. She only wanted a son, presumably one without a destiny, but she had no choice in the one she got.
On his bed, his hand feeling around inside his backpack, Justin gripped a leathery pouch with a zipper. Retail stores used them to make cash bank deposits, and hip teens now used them for tools and school supplies and allergy medicines and computer discs and PDAs.
And stuff.
His mother had been at the park today. He’d seen her car in the rearview mirror. So now she knows he’s been seeing Moore. That was a problem. Not a fatal one, but it was another challenge. Whether the challenges were sent here or brought here, that again didn’t matter much.
Justin unzipped the pouch and dumped its contents on the bed. Cloudy crystals tumbled from a plastic Baggie. A lighter, a spoon.
He turned on the radio and after he had prepared the syringe he injected its contents into a kitchen sponge and placed the sponge in a plastic bag for anonymous disposal later. From a week of this ritual, the Baggie, the syringe, the spoon all looked well used, coated in black and white residue. He capped the needle, returned everything but the sponge to the leather pouch, and hid the pouch behind a row of books on his nightstand shelf.