Page 5 of Boyfriend on Parole: The Care of Broken Things Extended Epilogue

Chapter Two

Racer’s Surgery

Things got busy after that. There was Hailey’s birthday present to finish, and though he’d certainly started with plenty of time, he found that the closer he got to the finish line the more and more perfectionistic and neurotic he became until three days before the day when he decided it was all terrible, he was a talentless hack, and promptly burst into tears.

Rat was the one who found him, with all the artwork spread out over the floor of the library, and him in the center ready to throw his life away.

“For fuck's sake,” was the man’s assessment. “A prima donna like you should have his own reality show.”

But Rat did help him clean it all up and even helped him to stitch the binding, even if it did come out wonkier than he was hoping. The later signatures were better than the first ones, and the end papers were a little tight, which would have sent him into another meltdown if Rat hadn’t been threatening to knock him unconscious the whole time.

“You know this bullshit has nothing to do with the party, right?” the man said that night after lights out. “You see this kind of thing in the lifers set to be released. It’s panic about the adjustment. You’re worried you no longer fit into the world and that this place is the only one that can handle you. Basically, you’re scared shitless, and you don’t know what to do about it.”

He hated it when Rat got psychological on him, mostly because the man made an annoying amount of sense whenever he did. “I’m not set to be released soon.”

“It’s been nine months, hasn’t it? Cruces promised you a year.”

“Only because Eli threatened her.”

“Yes, well, she’s never broken a promise to you, has she? Her beloved son. And anyway, you must believe it subconsciously otherwise you wouldn’t be freaking out.”

“Because I’m so stable the rest of the time, right?”

Rat laughed and nudged up at his mattress. “A day at a time. You’ve done six years. You’ve got this. Besides, you’re cute. That means you can screw up more and have it matter less.”

“Is that how it works?”

“It’s kept you in their good graces so far, hasn’t it?”

“That’s because they’re nice.”

Rat snorted. “Nice. Right. That’s why the doc took care of your little friend.”

“What friend?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot already. Wasn’t Racer the one who came closest to popping your cherry?”

As if he could forget, and Rat was right too about Racer getting the closest. It was Carnivore who’d found him, and he still remembered the way she had jumped in, even though she was alone, whacking that bastard straight over the head with her truncheon. Always, always he’d been grateful to her for it, thinking of her as ‘one of the good ones’ even though he’d tasted the business end of her truncheon himself more than once. “But what does Eli have to do with that?”

“You’re joking, right?”

He was growing annoyed, still sensitive after his meltdown. “Do I look like I’m in a joking mood?”

Rat couldn’t believe it. “You don’t know? You really don’t know?”

He smacked at the bedrail. The thing sure did get a lot of abuse. “Just tell me.”

But Rat was already backing off. “Maybe I shouldn’t if he really didn’t tell you. I can’t believe he didn’t. Or that you don’t know. How the fuck is it that you don’t know? It’s all the prison talked about for a month. Hell, they still talk about it. Why do you think Doc’s such a legend?”

“What do you mean, why? Because he’s a doctor. Because he’s helped all of you with your weird rashes and gross bodily functions.”

“I mean, before that. Why do you think people started going to him at all? As if we’d trust some criminal doctor just because he had a degree.”

The insults weren’t helping his mood. “First of all, fuck you. It was obvious from day one that he was innocent. Anyone with half an eyeball should have seen it, and second, fuck you again, he graduated at the top of his class. If there’s a better doctor in existence, I guaren-fucking-tee none of the degenerates in this place are ever going to—”

“God, you are such a princess. Obviously, we all know that now. But we couldn’t very well just put our lives into his hands right off the bat. He had to prove himself first.”

His eyes had gone so narrow he could barely see out of them. “Prove himself how? And just try to hold out on me. See if you like how you walk tomorrow.”