Roland’s POV

I hummed along to the radio as I looked over the engine of the car in front of me. Despite the fact that it should be running perfectly fine, the car only sputtered when I turned the key over and I didn’t understand. I tried to hide my frustration from Andrew but with a few quick glances in his direction, I could tell it wasn’t working.

“How are you feeling,” he asked after a while of me just staring at the broken engine.

“You aren’t supposed to talk unless I’m taking a break,” I said, trying to force my voice to be calm.

“I feel like this is a valid enough question to break that rule,” he said with a small smile that only annoyed me more. “We haven’t had our productive session for this car,” he noted. “Per our rules, you aren’t even supposed to be out here so why don't we do both? You work, I ask questions. How does that sound?”

“Horrible.”

“Would you rather us go into my office?” I huffed. 

“No.”

“How are you feeling,” he asked again and I shrugged.

“About the car or about life in general?”

“Both.”

“Mad,” I sighed. “About the car. It should be working and it’s not.”

“And life in general?” I paused, hoping he would drop it but after a a minute of him not moving on I sighed. 

“Fine, I guess,” I sighed and without looking I knew he raised an eyebrow at me to keep going. “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I don’t want to be here anymore because Kit was the only reason I stayed and he’s not here anymore. The cars are nice but even this isn’t fun without him anymore. Mary is mad at me, you are worried about me, Kit is having issues and I’m stuck here instead of helping him. I feel like I’m just wasting time here.”

“How long have you been thinking about this?”

“How long has Kit been gone,” I asked with a light chuckle, hoping to pass this off with humor but Andrew only slightly glared. “A few weeks maybe? I don’t know, not long.”

“Are you thinking of running away?”

“No,” I said a bit too fast as I messed with the timing belt just for the sake of keeping my hands busy.

“Roland,” Andrew said, his voice firm but kind but his glare didn’t fade.

“Yes,” I sighed, hating that I couldn’t hide anything from him. “I won’t do it though! I promised Kit that I wouldn’t leave and I don’t want to make him worry so I won’t leave. I just think about it sometimes.”

“Have you found another escape route,” he asked, worry clear in his eyes.

“No. I haven’t looked but from what I remember from last time, the gap in the fence was the only way out and now that it’s fixed I don’t have any idea how to get out.” 

“That’s good,” he said sadly. “I thought you were going to tell us when you started thinking about leaving again. And we talked about Kit being the only reason you didn’t try running. I told you to come to me and I would work with you to make it better. Why are we just now talking about this?”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed,” I sighed. “And I didn’t want you to tell Kit and make him worry and it really only started getting bad when Mary yelled at me. I just don’t want to make things worse.”

“Things will only get worse if you don’t tell me when things start getting bad. I won’t be able to help if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know how to fix it,” I sighed.

“You might not be able to,” he said gently. I looked at him to find him already staring at me, his eyes were soft with a bit of guilt hiding in the background. “But I might be able to do things that you can’t.”

“Unless you can bring Kit here to visit then I don’t think anything would help.”

“I’ll talk to Mary.”

“And how likely is it that she lets that happen?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “But I will try my best. I won’t make any promises but I will talk to her.” I hummed as I turned back to the car.

I knew it wouldn’t happen. He might talk to Mary but I knew better than to hope for something like that. I refused to get my hopes up for something that would likely never happen.

“What else do you think would help?”

“If he can’t come visit, can I at least FaceTime him or something? I just want to see his face even for a little bit.”

“I can try,” Andrew said with a small smile. “I’ll start with him coming in person and if May says no, I’ll try to settle for the video call.” I nodded but knew even that was a hard ask. “Anything else that could help?” I shook my head and he sighed. “What else has been going on to make you not want to be here? You said something about Mary being mad at you. Is that part of it?”

“A bit of it. And you’re having to work harder to be here for me. I just think it would be easier for everyone if I wasn’t here anymore.”

“Mary isn’t mad at you,” he soothed and I rolled my eyes as I twisted the belt around, looking for any way to get out of this conversation. “If anything she is mad at herself for how everything happened.”

“Then why is she avoiding me,” I asked, still playing with the parts in my hands.

“She’s not avoiding you, she’s trying to make you more comfortable. She knows that you are stressed around her and she’s trying to make it better by not hanging out with you. If you’re ready to see her then I know she would love to see you again and hang out in here with you. And as far as me, I love hanging out with you. It’s not work for me if I enjoy it. I won’t tell you about Kit, the same way I won’t tell him about you but I will assure you that he is fine. He’s not in rehab and has given me permission to tell you if that ever happens unexpectedly.” I frowned, still playing with the timing belt. I liked the thought of knowing that Kit wouldn’t just disappear without a trace, at the very least Andrew would tell me if he had to leave.

“That’s good,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say to that. 

“Kit wants you here, Roland,” Andrew said, his voice almost pleading. “I know you feel like it’s useless and that you’re just wasting time but this is the best place for you right now. I need you to know that you will come to me if something bad enough happens. If you run, I can’t save you. Runaway is a crime and with your technical probation committing any crime on our watch could mean jail time. If you run and the court decides to make an example out of you, there is nothing that Mary or I could do to help get you out of it. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” I sighed even though I didn’t want to think about that.

I had done it before. The last time I ran, I wasn’t found for a year and by then they couldn’t do anything since I would be an adult. But I didn’t want to cause more trouble. Kit was having a hard time and my leaving would only make it worse. Mary would probably get in trouble for losing a kid. Andrew would feel responsible for not seeing the warning signs sooner. I didn’t want to make things worse than I already had. 

“Kit wanted to know if you have been enjoying the pictures he’s been sending,” Andrew asked after a while of me fiddling with random car parts. I shrugged. 

“They’re fine I guess. I like the ones of just him more.”

“How do you feel when you get new pictures?”

“Sad. I want to be able to see him in person and be with him when all of these pictures are taken but I’m stuck here. I like getting them but it makes me miss him more than I did before.” Andrew nodded.

“Would you rather not get them anymore? I can open any letters you get from him and with your permission I can take the pictures out and save them for a time when you think you’ll really need them.” I frowned and shook my head.

“I don’t want that. They make me sad but I like seeing him happy. I don’t want you to do that.”

“I understand that,” Andrew said with a sad smile. “How has your depression been? I know that was something we were concerned about before Kit left. Is it getting worse with everything that happened?”

“I don’t have depression.”

“I think you do,” Andrew said softly. “You’ve seemed really down lately, more than just a random sad spell and we talked about it being a possibility.”

“I don’t have depression,” I said again as I turned my back fully to him. My eyes scanned over the engine before running my fingers over the cylinders and moving to place myself underneath the car.

“I assume we’re done for the day then,” Andrew asked and I don’t bother answering. 

I only stared at the car above me. Tears welled up in my eyes and I didn’t understand why but I knew I didn’t want Andrew to see so I forced myself farther under the car when my chest began to heave and the soft crying turned into a silent sob.

I knew Andrew probably knew what I was doing but I didn’t care enough to try and stop. I wanted my fucking boyfriend. I wanted my house. I wanted to not have a therapist. I wanted to get out of this place and I couldn’t and that only made things worse.

Kit’s POV

I sat on the floor of my bedroom, tears streaming down my face as I tried to look over the list Andrew made me write. The words were blurry and my tears falling onto the page would surely ruin it if I didn’t stop crying soon but I didn’t see the tears stopping anytime soon. 

I repeated the list of names like a prayer, hoping that some god somewhere would help me take my mind off of it.

The day had been long and bad. Several of my tables had yelled at me over things that weren’t my fault. Things like their stakes were undercooked, they had a long wait before getting a table, they couldn’t sit outside because of rain, and we ran out of some side that they wanted. Because of that, the manager had been called over several times and I’m officially on his shit list, my tips had been shit, and I was left craving a blunt more than I had ever had before, even when I was hitting it every day.

It took everything in me to not stop by the skate park on my way home just hoping someone would have something I could take a hit from. I spent the entire walk with my head down and my nails digging into my palm. My eyes were opened just wide enough to see the path in front of me as my heart raced out of my chest.

The second I got back to the apartment I went to my room and locked the door behind me before pulling the note out of my pocket and reading every line until I had it memorized. 

As I read the words I thought about their faces. Roland’s shy smile, Nathan’s loud laugh and wide smirk, Cody and his annoyed smile that he always tried to hide, and Anthony’s flirty smirk at anything remotely dirty. I thought of my parents and the way their smiles used to light up any room they were in. Andrew’s array of smiles ranged from a happy, wide smile to a sad, soft twitch of his lip.

I thought about how each of them would react to me using again. I didn’t like picturing any of them but Roland’s was the worse. He would be pissed first and I never wanted to see that hateful glare aimed at me again. He would probably break up with me the second I had a chance to call him again out of pure anger. And after he got all of the tears out of his system he would cry. He would cry harder than I had ever seen him before and I couldn’t stomach the thought of being the reason he cried that hard.

I repeated the list over and over, tears still pouring down my face until I couldn’t take it anymore and pulled out my phone.

It was late but I dialed the number anyway, praying the one person that could help me would still be there.

I held the phone to my ear and prayed this would end soon.