Prologue

“I told you that we shouldn’t have brought him here!” the young woman sitting on the floor cried as she struggled to restrain the young boy in her arms.

“I’m sorry! I know that I should have listened to you, but I’m sick of not being able to go anywhere or do anything! I’m sick of this!” her husband yelled as he let go of his son’s legs. Without another word, he stood up and walked over to the window. Once again, leaving her to deal with their son alone.

Struggling not to lose it, she fought back the tears that she knew wouldn’t help as she looked down at her son. He’d stopped fighting, but he was still panicking. She knew the signs well by now. His eyes were squeezed shut and his body was tense.

*-*-*-*

He was trying to tear away from her, from the house, from everything, but he couldn’t free himself or even scream for help. His mother had him restrained on the floor and she was doing everything that she could to keep her hand over his mouth. She didn’t want his grandmother to hear him, to know that he’d had another “episode” as she liked to call it. When he felt her hold on him relax, he made his move, too desperate to get out of the house to care about what happened next.

“Ow! He bit me, Shaun!”

As soon as she released her hold on him, he was up and running down the hall towards the stairs. He tripped over something, but didn’t dare risk opening his eyes to see what it was. He used his hands to help guide his way. He fumbled with frames on the table that he’d seen barely a half an hour ago and was soon moving his hand along the wall.

As soon as he felt the banister he knew that he was almost there. All he needed was to get down the stairs and out the front door and then he’d be safe. Desperate to get out of the house, he started to run faster, too fast, down the stairs and tripped. He blindly reached out to grab onto the banister, but it was too late. He fell down the stairs, hitting what felt like every step until he landed on what felt like the hardwood floor in the front hall. Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he stood up on shaky legs and ran as fast as he could, praying that he was going the right way.

Stumbling forward, his legs suddenly gave out, sending him flying and slamming him face first into what felt like the thick leg of the mahogany end table that his grandmother kept by the front closet. He could feel hot liquid stream down his face, but he didn’t care. He needed to get out of the house. The pain was intense and any attempt to get up was immediately met with more pain and dizziness. He struggled until the only thing that he could do was rollover onto his back and pray that his grandmother finally followed through with her threat and threw him out.

*-*-*-*

“Oh my God, Tristan!” his mother cried, running down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Julie, is he okay?”

“No, Mom, we need an ambulance! He’s bleeding everywhere!” Julie said, shaking Tristan’s small shoulders as she tried to wake him up, terrified that he’d finally killed himself.

“I called them twenty minutes ago when he started to go into hysterics,” her mother said as she joined her in kneeling over Tristan’s still body. “Honestly, Julie, there is something wrong with that boy. I told you that I didn’t want him in my house.”

Barely listening to her, Julie pulled her sweater off and placed it beneath Tristan’s head. A moment later, she reluctantly left his side and quickly made her way to the kitchen. She grabbed her purse and dumped the contents onto the floor. When she found the small business card that she’d thrown into her purse a few months ago, she grabbed her mother’s phone and dialed, praying that the damn doctor would listen to her this time and do something to help them.

“Dr. Myers, please,” she said as soon as she heard someone answer the phone.

“I’m sorry, but he’s with a patient right now. If you’d like to leave a mess-“

“I don’t care if he is with a patient!” Julie said, cutting the receptionist off.  “Tell him that Tristan McCree has had another panic attack. He’s knocked himself unconscious this time and we’re taking him to Province Hospital,” she rushed to explain, hanging up before the receptionist could argue or ask her any questions.

Feeling exhausted, she walked back to Tristan, praying that this would be the last time that they had to go through something like this. Honestly, she didn’t know how much more she could handle. Tristan was too much for her. She hadn’t been ready for him seven years ago when she was barely sixteen years old and discovered that she was pregnant and she wasn’t ready for him now. She just needed a break. She needed someone to fix him, or…..

She just needed something.

Tristan was still unconscious when the ambulance arrived. The Paramedics bandaged his head and stabilized his spine and were starting to load him onto a backboard when Julie realized that Shaun hadn’t come downstairs.

“I’ll be back in a minute. I just want to tell my husband that we’re going now. Please don’t leave without me,” Julie explained in a rush as she ran upstairs.

She found Shaun sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. “Hun, I have to go. Can you drive the car to Province Hospital? I’m going to ride with Tristan,” she explained quickly before turning around to leave, hoping to avoid another argument. “I’ll see you there soon.”

“No,” was his reply.

She quickly turned around and walked back up the stairs so that she didn’t have to yell. “You can’t go with us. They’ll only allow one of us to go with him. Baby, you have to drive there or I won’t have any way to get home.”

“I said no, because I’m not going. I’m done. He’s wrecking our lives. We can’t go anywhere with him! We’re stuck in our house when we’re not busting our asses off to pay all the medical bills he makes for us. For Christ’s sake, this is the first time we’ve came to your mother’s house in three years! I’m sick of this. He needs more help than we can give him. He needs to be in a psychiatric hospital! The doctors have been telling us that for three years now. You won’t do it, because you think it will make you a bad mother and right now I don’t f**king care! He needs help!”

“I don’t need this right now!” she screamed at him, almost pleading with him to just do it, to free them from this nightmare that Tristan brought into their lives.

Sighing heavily, Shaun got to his feet and went to her. “I’ll go this one last time, but only to make sure that he gets the help he needs and then I’m done. I can’t be his father anymore.”

Julie bit her lip as she looked away, hating herself for wanting nothing more than to walk away from Tristan and pretend that he’d never existed. Shaun was right. Something was wrong with Tristan, had always been wrong with him. She didn’t want to admit that her six-year-old son was disturbed, but maybe now she didn’t have a choice.

“Ma’am, we need to go!” one of the EMTs yelled.

Shaun cupped her chin and raised her gaze to his. He brushed her blonde hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. She couldn’t say anything to him. She just wanted to wrap her arms around him and pretend that only the two of them existed.

“Julie, he’s coming to!” her mother yelled, destroying all her hopes that she could forget this was happening.