How Green Becomes Wood

Xander shook his head. "I don't know the details, but I know he's still stuck in jail. He attacked a pair of minors on school property - or close enough - and he doesn't have friends to post the kind of bail the judge set. It was ridiculously high, apparently. There's still court stuff happening, but he won't be out anytime soon."

He rounded the last corner that led up to an overlook at the top of the hill. It wasn't the most spectacular view, but they could see most of the residential area of the city from where they were. He pulled off onto the overlook and parked the van. He got out, went around to the side, and opened the van door so he could pull out a small cooler and a stepladder. He tossed the cooler up onto the top of the van and then climbed up after it.

"Come on up," he said down to Milo, reaching down to give him a hand up. "There's a couple of cushions on the back seat if you want one." They were small squares sometimes seen tied to dining room table chairs.
 
"That's good, at least." It really was a relief to know: Part of him kept thinking about how the video he took did a lot to help the investigation, and what if the man knew who he was? He didn't have a parent like Dark, and Xander couldn't even fight him off.

When he got out of the van, he looked over the town for a few moments in wonder, and then picked up one of the cushions and scurried up the ladder to sit with Xander, not totally understanding what they were doing there, but willing to go with it.
 
Xander shifted the cooler to sit between them and unzipped it. It was a small fabric one, not very big, but it did the job of holding a few bottles of soda, lemonade, and flavored water. His backpack he sat behind it, and when he opened it, he revealed that it was full of small, handy snacks. He pulled out a box twizzlers for himself and helped himself to one. He was craving a smoke because that was what he did when he was anxious and sitting alone, but he'd sworn off that. So he used a twizzler stick instead.

"Not a bad view, eh?" he asked Milo as he thought about what he was going to say next.
 
"No," Milo agreed, "It's beautiful. I like seeing the cars pass by in the distance. It's always weird seeing a lot of cars, because every person in them has a different life. And you never get to know it. You'll never even see them again. You'll never even remember you had seen them."

He took one of the snacks, but bounced his leg. This was cool, but it was weird, and he didn't know exactly how he should be behaving.
 
Xander nodded thoughtfully. "S'good way to put it." He chewed on the end of his Twizzler for a bit. Then he used it to point out toward a trailer park just visible below them. It was one of the run-down type that lived up to the trailer park trash stereotype. "We lived there for a couple of months. See that one with the blue roof? Lived in that one when we were seven with this guy called, I kid you not, Dink." He pointed to a different trailer. "That one with the grey roof and the red sides? Lived in that one when we were twelve with a guy called Mack. He drove trucks, and there was a hole in the floor and a pair of handcuffs in the closet locked to the wall. No idea why. We'd play with them, but now I just... ew." He shifted, gesturing out toward another section. "You see that old house there behind the church steeple? The one with part of the roof missing? We squatted there when we were eight after a guy called Jo-Jo kicked us out after bringing home his new girl. And there, a couple houses down? That's where we went to after leaving Mack. Then over there, on the opposite side of town, we were in this weird little triplex, the attic level with a guy... I can't remember his name. The place was always sweltering hot, even in winter, in it only had two windows." He paused, resting his arm on his knee.

"When you talk about everywhere you lived, you have to pull out a national map. When I gotta list all the places I need, it's a city map. I don't mean to make this into a 'who had it worse' one-up show, I just wanna say that... I get you. I get where you're coming from. Exactly? Hell no, and I can't without living in your shoes, but I understand the idea. And I know what it means to be afraid to go somewhere new no matter how much you're promised it's better." He sighed. "You think I'm with everyone else, that I want your mum to fail and prove us all right to not trust her. I don't trust her, and I do hold great suspicion that she won't succeed, but that's because I'm a cynical bas***d who is still learning not to distrust literally everyone and think they mean the worst. When I think about your mum and you together..." He glanced at Milo. "I want nothing more than to be proven wrong. I have never wanted to be proven wrong more in my entire life. I mean that." He looked out over the city again. "You're like Alec. You hope no matter what. No matter how dark the situation. No matter how hopeless. Me? I lost that hope a long time ago. I stopped trying to see the good side. The bright side. I started resenting my mum and everything she did. She was trying to get us a better life, but she was refusing to try it in a different way. There was always another guy. Another situation. A new opportunity the new guy offered. And it never panned out, not once in 15 years, but she kept trying it. Until we had enough and ran off to live on the streets rather than be with the latest guy. Dax. She loved us, and she tried to put us first, but she couldn't shake out of her chosen solution no matter how many times it proved to go wrong."

"The thing is, you and your mum are doing the same thing as my mum, you're doing the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. She gets clean. She moves somewhere new. She promises you a better life. She means it, she really does, but then things happen and she slips again. Now is no different than then. Yeah, she had rehab, but it's easy to stay clean in rehab. It's hard when you leave and then go somewhere where you've got no support system. She's a grown woman, she can make her own choices, but she shouldn't be dragging you with her. You're her son. She's supposed to do whatever she can to put you first. That means that after the first couple of times of not being able to stay clean, she should have given you a better life by letting you stay with your grands or someone else until she did get her life together. She was being selfish and proud and it did nothing but harm you and her both. I don't doubt she loves you, not for one second, but you should have come first. She loved you, but she f****ed up and you're paying for it.

"Your grands, they love you, too, but they're f***ing it up, too, just in a different way by forcing what they think is right on you. They got a lot of the right ideas liek getting you summer school and stuff like that, but they won't even give you your own room, and they're not listening to what you have to say. How's that fair? It's no more fair than you having to know what and how to Narcan someone, or whatever. None of this is fair. None of it."

Xander glanced at him. "So. What are you going to do about it?" It wasn't a challenge. It was a quiet, almost gentle question.
 
Milo listened, first with curiosity as Xander explained his life story, but as the turn of the conversation shifted, he dropped his shoulders and stopped looking out at the horizon, unsure of how to respond to that. "She's never been clean like this before." He said at last, swallowing hard. "It's never been like this before. I know it's only been a little bit but..." He shrugged, "And I think, I think she didn't realize how bad it was. I think neither of us saw how bad it was. It's not like a light switched on and suddenly we were living that way, that's not how it works. It'd be easier if it did. And if I didn't have hope, if I was like you, and my grandparents, then I'd have to accept how bad it all was. And I can't do that, because, if I did, then I don't know if..." He sniffed, sitting on his hands to keep from scratching his arm, "I need people to believe in her. Because I'm the only one who believes in her, and how is anyone supposed to improve their lives if everyone, at best, has great suspicion about your ability to change? She needs a support system but almost everybody she knows thinks she probably can't do it, even if they wish she could."

He looked up at the horizon again, trying to stop his tears from spilling over, "I don't feel like I can do anything."
 
Xander nodded slowly as he listened. "I think you're grands want to believe in her, but you come first, and they're upset with her for hurting you. It's so not fair, but it makes sense. I think the more you believe in her, the more they'll believe in her. And I'll... try. You should be hopeful. You shouldn't be like me, but you do need to be realistic, too. Less realistic than me. That halfway point. You know? Believe in your mum, and I'll believe in you. And until you get to live with her? What are you going to do?" He knew he'd already asked the question, be he asked it again.
 
"I don't know if they do," Milo replied, shaking his head, "If they did, they'd probably say something positive about her once in awhile. They don't talk about her at all, unless they have to. And until then... I don't know. Wait, I guess."
 
Xander shifted so he could look straight at Milo. "Just wait? Stitch, all you've done is wait. Do you think it's fair? I mean seriously. How do you really feel? What do you want to do?"
 
"I don't know, what can you do other than sit like a lump in the corner not doing anything, not saying anything, not pushing for anything, and having no opinions of your own?" Xander pressed. "If you ask me, not interacting as much as humanly possible doesn't exactly sound like the shining star of gratitude. Even asking for stuff and being in the way shows more gratitude than doing your best to not exist. So. What do you want? Right now. Right here. With your Grands."
 
"I have opinions of my own," Milo countered, "It's just... they didn't need to take me in. They could've let me sleep on my aunt's couch or let me go into foster care, but they let me live with them. Even though it means my grandma needed to get a job again. I can't exactly say, thanks, but do more for me."
 
"Why not?" Xander demanded. "Like you said, they didn't need to take you in, but they did, which means you're not a burden. A burden is something that you're unwilling to take or bear or don't want. They want you. So, let them have you, not some random lump of a yes-man. If you were to ask them anything, for anything, what would you ask? It's just us. I'm not going to tell them. So what's your opinion? What do you want? Anything."
 
"I don't know!" Milo replied quickly, bringing his knees to his chest, "I don't know. I don't know how to not... try to make myself small. I only know how to be small. Because I just want it to be over. You're said before you don't like 'normal' people and it's boring to be normal, but I would love to just be normal, but I can't have that, and I don't know what I would want."
 
Xander gave him a moment to breathe. "How about a room?" he asked. "One room that's your room to do with as you want. Would you like that? Or do you want it to stay as it is?"
 
Xander shrugged. "Then why not ask if she can move it? They're the ones who said you'd be staying longer, so it seems reasonable that they give you a room that actually feels like a room, not an after thought. It was their idea, after all. Can't hurt to ask."
 
"I dunno, but how they view you ain't your problem," Xander said with a shrug. "So what if they say no? If they say no 'cause they have a real good reason, that's one thing. If they say no because they're a**holes, then you have no obligation to give them more than the bare minimum respect. Do you really think they'll say no because they want to be a**es? And what if they say no because they got a reason? Nothing will change, but what if they say yes?"
 
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