Absolute Brightness
Finally I managed to offer this: “I thought you liked it here?”
“I doooooooooo!” he howled. He lifed his head to wipe his nose on the pillowcase. Gross. “It’s not…” Another gasp for breath. “It’s not…” For a moment I thoguht he was saying it’s snot. “It’s not”—he motioned all around him with a gesture that was theatrical to the extreme—”here that’s the problem. It’s here!” And to make his point, he began pounding his head with his two clenched fists. “It’s my brain, my mind. It’s me!”
Poor kid. It was hard not to feel sorry for him. He’d been through so much and he wasn’t even fifteen.


