Once we were finished with breakfast, Alex and I went back upstairs into our room. I wheeled over to the window, and he sat down at his desk, pulling out a laptop and browsing the internet.

The gentle click his fingers made on the keys made me drift off into a daydream as I stared out onto the lawn.

The sky was gray again. Maybe it would rain.

I began drawing a picture in my sketchbook. I didn't know what it would be in the end.

But that's life, isn't it? It's one big picture that we're still drawing and we won't know what the final outcome will be. We draw the essential figure in the beginning, and then we add detail and finalize the lining. Then we add the color (or the shading), and we erase any leftover pencil marks.

I ran a hand through my short hair and sighed. My father had always forced me to cut it short because he thought that it was gay to have long hair as a man. Now that I was free of him, I would most likely grow it out.

A chill settled into the room, creeping into my skin. I shivered at the sudden cold and wrapped my blanket tighter around me.

It was raining again pretty soon. That heavy feeling you get when it starts raining settled on my shoulders and pressed down softly, tugging at the edges of my consciousness.

The typing stopped. I turned around to look at him.

His fingers were frozen, shaking madly as he stared at the computer screen with wide, glassy eyes.

"Not again," he whispered, his eyes brimming with tears. "Please, not again."

His eyes completely glazed over, and he fell onto the floor, trembling wildly.

My chest squeezed itself into a knot as I wheeled over to him and pushed myself out of the chair to lay next to him. I carefully laid the blanket over him and put his head on my chest so he could hear my heartbeat.

He clutched at me, tears pouring out of his eyes.

"Alec," I whispered softly. "Alec, can you hear me? I'm right here, Alec."

"J-John?" he whispered, coming back to reality. "W-what happened?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "You just fell out of your chair and had what looked like a seizure."

"Damn," he said softly, balling up his hands into fists. "I thought I stopped having episodes."

"Episodes?"

"Little flashbacks," he explained, then stood up and put me back in my chair. "They're one of my PTSD symptoms."

"Oh," I said, not knowing what else to say. "Well, let's talk about something else. We leave for Europe in a few days! That's exciting, right?"

"Yeah," he said, brightening up again. "Yeah, I'm excited to see France."

"So am I," I agreed. "Lafayette's told me all about it, and it seems so exciting!"

"It does, doesn't it?" he said, then laid down in his own bed and sighed. "My social worker is going to be here tomorrow to clear everything up with us traveling to a different country. I don't understand how it's going to happen, though. How is this gonna work?"

"I don't know, Alec," I said, then looked back out the window. "I don't know."