How Green Becomes Wood

"She said she wants to make sure she's stable first," Milo forced out between his full-body sobs, "it was my grandparents' idea. And it was all decided for me, and my opinion doesn't matter."
 
Xander very carefully put his arm around Milo's shoulders, trying not to cringe. This wasn't about him. It didn't matter how he felt. "Dude, that sucks," he said flatly. "They should have talked to you."

"Yes, they should have," Alec said gently, "but... there's a good side to this, too. It might have been your grandparent's idea, which they had because they love you, but your mom agreed to it because she's serious about this. She's serious about getting this right not just for her, but for you, too. This clearly wasn't easy for her, but she's doing it because she wants to get it right. For you both."

Xander grunted. "Maybe. But they should have talked with you. Not at you."
 
"She's leaving me," Milo replied bluntly, "it's just been us for half my life, and now she's leaving me, and I've told everyone for so long that she's a good mom, she's just sick. She's just sick, but she does her best, and people already don't believe me," He tried to wipe his face and being frustrated with his glasses he just took them off, tensed his arm like he was going to throw them, but then just set them down. It made him feel stupid, the action of angrily but gently setting his glasses down. But he didn't want them to break. "Nobody believes me, but you wouldn't call someone with cancer a bad mom, and now she's leaving, without me, and people aren't going to be any nicer to her. And now, if she relapses, nobody will be there."
 
Xander picked up Milo's glasses and carefully cleaned them off with the edge of his shirt, wiping away all the smudges from his crying and squishing them. "If someone has cancer, no one blames them for going to get treatment," he pointed out. "No one blames them for doing what they need to do to get better and to stay better. She's doing what she needs to do to get better and to take care of herself. By taking care of you. They've got programs for people who have problems like that, so if she's serious, she'll go to those programs, and people will be there for her."
 
Milo tensed up, digging his fingers into his arm, "She already went to rehab, she was there for three months, I haven't seen my mom in three months, and now she's leaving, without me. And if something happens, I won't be there. I already lost my dad, I just want to have my mom, but now she may not even come back."
 
"Hey." Xander took Milo's sleeve and pulled his hand away from his arm. "Stitch. Look at me." He paused and then handed Milo his glasses back. "Look at me when you can see me. I want you to hear me." He held Milo's sleeve tighter, like how some might hold a hand. "Your mum is not abandoning you. You are not losing her. She's doing what she should have done years ago. You love her lock, stock, and barrel. You don't think I get that, but I do. You'd give anything for her to be healthy, happy, and sober and for you two to have a good life. You want to believe every promise she's ever made no matter how many times she's messed up. You want a happy life. You have never had that. Not since losing your dad, and she's never let you have that because of what controlled her life. Her drug abuse kept her from actually being your mom, and she kept you from having anything, including friends. How many times did she say she was starting a new life only to break her promises? Her always moving you around? Was that ever your choice? Her making it so that you feel like you have to be invisible to keep from being hurt or hurting other people? Was that your choice? Being friendless and always feeling like you're a burden to everyone around you? Dude, you don't want to hear it, but whether she meant to or not, she made a prison without bars or locks and kept you in it so long that you forgot that you were in one or what life was like outside. All you know is that you have to be a parent to your parent. That you have to be there for her when she falls. That she's all you have for security because she never let you have any kind of security outside of her, but even then, you had to take care of her. That's not what a parent does. Now she's starting to realise that," he hoped, "and she's trying to make things better. She cannot be trusted. Yet. Trust has to be earned. She has to learn to trust herself, and you have to let her. She has to do this for herself. Are you going to get in the way of her finding confidence in herself? Of learning to have a good life? Of learning how to be a good mom? She has to do this or else rehab will have been for nothing. Rehab is easy. It's staying on the path outside of rehab that's hard. This is the chance for both of you to have a good life. She's not leaving you with nothing and nobody. I know you're mad at them with good reason, but you've got your grandparents, and they love you so much I can see it from here. You've got us. You might be mad at me right now, but I'd never let anything happen to you. I got your back, Stitch, if you'll let me. Alec's here, too, and our friends might not be your friends, but they'd get your back because of the transitional property of friendship. You're not alone. You don't have to be alone anymore."
 
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Milo shrunk back, and he did look at Xander, and he did listen to him, and somewhere deep inside even believed Xander was probably right, but it didn't make it easy to hear. Being told he couldn't trust his mom was, maybe, was one of the hardest things he had ever been told. And being told he'd be in the way, and make it harder on her, if he was with her, too. Clenching his jaw was the only thing that stopped him from screaming, he wanted to scream, he wanted to be sick, he wanted to run, or something, but the part of him that did agree with Xander said stopped him, even though the awareness he wasn't completely wrong made him want to scream even louder.

"Why are you calling my Stitch?" He forced out the words, because it was the only part of anything Xander had said he felt like he could respond to without collapsing in on himself, "The whole point of that movie is that if you're a family, nobody gets left behind. The whole point is that Lilo's sister, even though she wasn't perfect, did her best, and Lilo was better with her than she would've been away from her, so it doesn't even make sense." He took a deep, frustrated breath, tensing his arms to stop from flailing them. Then he dropped his head back down, and fell silent for some time before asking, "Why can't she learn to have a good life with me there? Why am I in her way?"
 
Xander waited for Milo to speak and to get it out. After a bit, he said, "You've got the wrong focus on that movie, but never mind. Right here, right now, your mom can't have a good life with you in New Mexico, Utah, California, or just down the street because she's still struggling. She's still got a lot to learn, and if she takes you to those other places, then you won't have anyone to look after you. She'll be taking you away from the first speck of stability you've had since your dad died, and she'll be putting herself and you right back where she started. Same old habits. Same old, same old. If you go with her, she'll start relying on you the same as she did before, and it will lead her to falling back into hold habits just like she's done a million times before, and you won't have anyone you can turn to. You'll be stuck just like you were all the other times your mom tried to restart her life, and that's not fair to you or her. If she's going to succeed, then she has to do things differently. And you deserve to have a place where you feel safe. Secure. With friends. And even family. Once she's got her shit together, then you get to be together like a real family. Until now, you've just been a kid getting dragged around the entire nation with a mom that was too stubborn to get real help. THis whole thing sucks, but you have to let her go. You have to look out for yourself for once, and she has to learn to be an adult."
 
Milo looked up at him and drooped his shoulders, after listening to everything Xander had said. He was still breathing heavily, and he struggled to put his words together. Then, he just said, "I don't want to have to understand. I don't want to be reasonable." He interlocked his fingers in the CPR hand placement, flexing his top hand to push the knuckles on his lower hand, "I just..." he began, but dropped off early.
 
Xander reached out and took Milo's sleeve lightly, just holding it and not pulling. "You're hurting like hell and your world just broke. You want to be mad. Scream. Maybe punch something or someone. You can punch me, if you like. I don't mind." He glanced back at the two cars and their respective occupants. "We can get out of here, if you want. You don't have to go with them. If you want to, you totally can, but if you need a minute, we can go somewhere else. I know a few places where you can have some time to yourself."

"I can go tell Ba what we're doing," Alec offered quietly. "Or talk to your grandparents and mom to let them know. Your mom said she got a motel, so that means you don't have to deal with this right now. She'll still be here later."
 
"I don't know what I want," He said, squeezing his eyes shut "I think I'm... just really tired." After rubbing his face under his glasses, he felt brave enough to look at his mother sat in her car, who was still looking at him despite also carrying on a conversation with his grandfather, "They want to talk to me, still. My grandparents. Mom said so, she said before we go to dinner. If I still want to go to dinner."
 
He sniffed and stood up after them, feeling a little unsteady on his feet. It had been a long time since he last let himself just drop to the ground like a child to cry. It had been a long time since he had let himself be upset about his situation. Although Milo wasn't exactly certain if he wanted to go for a walk, he thought he might as well go along with it. "Are you going to tell your dad we're going for a walk?"
 
"Texting right now," Alec said, looking for his phone. "Um. In a minute."

Xander handed him his phone. "Give it back."

Alec texted and handed the phone back. "There. We shouldn't go too far."

Xander nodded and fell in beside Milo. Alec walked on Milo's other side, and the pair of them lightly guided Milo away from the parked cars and the people within. They didn't talk, just walked, letting the cool air blow over them and through them. Xander kept one eye on Milo, making sure he was alright. Motion always helped him when he needed to get a handle on things, so he hoped a slow walk would help Milo. Whatever Milo chose, he would support him. Unless it was running away from his grandparents and going with his mom. He might have to draw the line there.
 
Milo didn't really speak when they walked together, and he didn't really look at much. He thought about a lot, but nothing really made sense, and nothing really seemed helpful. It was all too much to think about. "I'm glad," he said eventually, "that most people at school don't know I'm there. If I did, I'd have to explain this to people."
 
Xander considered this and then nodded. "Fair. It's a weird thing to explain. Not that it's anyone's business."

"It is if they are your friend," Alec said softly.

"Okay, maybe if they are your friend," Xander conceded, "but you don't have to explain anything you don't want to."
 
"If I was friends with more people," he sniffed, stuffing his hands in his pockets, "then more people would know I was leaving. It's really just you two who I told. I didn't even tell my teachers. If I had, they'd be confused when I came back. I'd have to tell them something."
 
"Well, that's one less thing you have to worry about, then," Alec said, trying to be quietly cheerful. "That's a silver lining, in a way."

Xander checked how far they'd gone and started steering them in the general direction of the parking lot. "One less thing is good," he agreed.
 
Murming something that sounded somewhat in agreement, he looked up at the parking lot, not really wanting to go back into all of it, but knowing it wasn't like he had a choice in the matter. At some point he was going to have to talk with them, and by the time they showed back up, all of three of his family members were out of their car and carefully watching them.

"I'm going to have to talk to them," he said flatly, "I don't want to."
 
Xander stopped walking and stood next to Milo, hands in his pockets. "Yeah, you kind of do," he agreed. "You could take some time, maybe talk to them tomorrow, but that just might make it worse." He glanced at Milo. "Do you want backup? Or go it alone?"

"I know that they've done a lot to hurt you, and they handled it about as badly as they possibly could, but please try to remember they did it out of love," Alec told Milo gently. "That doesn't make it okay, of course, but reasons matter."
 
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