BLOOMING BLOSSOMS

Chapter 1

Max woke up, blinked his eyes and looked around. For a moment he was disoriented, but quickly saw the familiar sites of his dad’s living room. It was barely recognizable with all the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles… or something? It wasn’t a large living room. He lived in an apartment with his dad. It did not appear to be a bachelor pad though. His mom had lived here with them for a while before she passed away, but traces of her were still around. His dad kept it as a shrine to her in almost the exact same way she had left it. There was her Buddha statue on one of the book shelves, which was stacked with old weathered books on various subjects typical of a New Age liberal. Her coat hung in the front closet, next to an ironing board that hadn’t been used since. While he did know where he was, he hadn’t last remembered being there. The place was a mess.

Asleep on his shoulder lay the face of a beautiful fifteen year old girl named Crystal. She was two years his junior. He wondered how she felt about him. He hoped she was his girlfriend. They hadn’t used such terms yet, and hung out more like best friends. Across the living room on a love seat lay two other girls from his high school. They were snuggled up together. The night before they had made out. One of the girls was doing it to get the attention of guys at the party. However the other felt something for her, and had drifted to sleep fairly confused, but happy. Max didn’t know any of this, and hardly understood such things yet. Other than the four of them, everyone had left. There were bottles all over, and pizza boxes were stacked up in the kitchen. He thought to himself that he would have to take care of this before his dad got home. He wasn’t sure when he would arrive, but he doubted it would be at four in the morning.

Max began to stir to take care of the mess and Crystal opened her bright green eyes. “Hey there,” she spoke with a smile, in a gradual slow wake from deep slumber.

“Hey,” Max whispered, returning the smile. She made him very happy. He was a little afraid of her though. Just a little. He was of most girls. “I remember the party, but I remember having to take someone to the hospital and don’t remember coming back.”

“ You were pretty wasted,” Crystal said. “After dropping Linda off at the hospital, you went the wrong way down a one way street and we had to turn around real quickly. Luckily there were no cops. Anyway we came back here and partied a little more with Choe and Tiff. I don’t remember much after that. You shouldn’t have drove, but you were worried about Linda and didn’t want to call anyone.”

Max remembered Linda going crazy last night. She had way too much and OD’d. He kind of blanked out after taking her and kicking everyone out but Chloe and Tiffany. They were friends of Crystal and he trusted them more. He was frankly frightened he didn’t remember much after dropping her off at the hospital. Once they got her in the ER room, they took off before they could get in trouble. He was a little panicked. However he couldn’t believe he’d driven that drunk. It scared him a little. “Where’s the car?” he asked.

“It’s fine. It’s in the driveway. Everything is cool. We should have called a taxi though.”

“Yeah…” Max remembered not wanting to do it, because the driver might rat on them. Max sighed. He looked at Chloe and Tiffany. They were out. “I’ve got to get this place straightened up before my dad gets home.” He hated cleaning, but he didn’t have much time. He started collecting up the bottles. Crystal grabbed a left over slice of pizza. “Isn’t that nasty now?” Max asked.

“Nah, I don’t mind. I’m starving.” Max was always surprised by how much she could eat. He figured she weighed 98 lbs. He didn’t have a reason for the exactness of 98, but he just didn’t think she ever broke 100. She was short though. Max liked petite girls. He was short and wiry himself, and in love with her. He paused picking up the bottles. “…are you my girlfriend?” Max asked tentatively. It was a weird way of putting it, but he was 17. Crystal started to tear up.

“I can’t believe you don’t know.” She was sort of heart broken, but had been waiting for him to say he loved her. “I mean, you don’t think of me as your girlfriend? I just don’t know what to make of you. I love you and we hang out constantly, but your so… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” She looked away to hide her sadness. Max didn’t know what to do.

“I do love you,” he blurted out without thinking. “I just, well, I wasn’t sure if you just wanted to be my friend. I didn’t want to blow that.” He moved to kiss her for the first time and hit her cheek. She turned around and almost knocked him over kissing him back. When it was over, and he wasn’t sure how much time had passed, he didn’t know what to say. “Come on, let’s get this place cleaned up.” He looked over at Chloe and Tiffany. They still appeared to be out, though Chloe shifted a little. He didn’t think she heard him. Steph had actually been dreaming about a similar situation with Megan. The subconscious mind can play weird tricks with it’s surroundings. Max’s dad pulled into the driveway a half hour later.

Max’s dad was a tea totaler. His name was Brian, and he had given up alcohol when Max was a baby. He felt it was a bad idea to mix it with his medications. Brian used to have mental health problems. Max didn’t know much about it. To him his dad was sometimes embarrassing and weird, but he held no views on him that any teenager did not typically hold for his dad. There was love, respect and rebellion in Max. It was nothing unusual in a teenager, however Brian was struggling to keep things together since he lost his ex-wife. He missed his wife greatly and felt guilty about being a little relieved when she died. Her battle with cancer took so much out of them that towards the end they discussed and researched assisted suicide for her. In the end she fought it until she ‘transitioned.’ He was glad to see her at peace and felt more stable afterwards. However his depression lingered, and had not yet fully lifted. It had been two years now, and he was beginning to suspect he wasn’t going to ever get back to normal. That night he had muddled over his options. He had left Max alone to go drink at a motel and write. It was his first slip in sobriety since he and his wife quit together over a decade and a half ago. He came to the conclusion that he needed help. After he got some sleep he planned on calling his sister and asking her to take Max for a while. He was going to commit himself to the Veterans’ Administration hospital in a nearby city and let them fuck with his brain chemistry for a while. And he meant ‘fuck.’ It took a decade for them to find the right drug regiment last time. He was nervous about letting them mess with his head again. However he no longer believed he could act like everything was fine. He knew he was about to spin into a breakdown and he wanted to square things away with Max first. His son meant the world to him, but for a moment he needed to take a break from being a father. And he was a good father. He took great pride in how much dedication and love he had put into his son. It hurt him immensely that he wasn’t on his game, and his primary reason for choosing to commit himself was so that he could come back stronger for Max. Last night he started to self destruct, and knew that he had to do everything in his power to stop himself from going down that path. Max wouldn’t completely understand it until he became a dad himself, but his family was his life and his wife… she was a missing piece to the puzzle he thought he had all figured out. He knew he had to save himself to save Max. Brian always did have a hero complex and for a long time he was Max’s. He was determined to get better so that he could be one again and rescue Max when such times come. And Brian would come back with new found strength. However Max would never look at him the same again. Max would never know the extent his dad watched out for him when he got out. He would however know he was loved, and would always love his dad.

As Gary pulled up to Max’s car, he noticed cups and bottles in the yard. He hoped it was from the neighbors, but doubted it. He suspected Max had begun to drink. However he was surprised he’d have the balls to throw a party while he was gone. Apparently it was time for him to experiment with such things. Gary had waited until much later in life, but he also knew that it was not necessarily for the best. He wondered if he was also smoking marijuana. He hoped not, but knew that his own experience with drugs and alcohol were part of what made him so resistant towards them. However he felt great shame at having binged on beer the night before. This was some bitter timing, but perhaps for the best. First, he thought, he needed to make sure everyone was alright. Either way, he was still going to talk to aunt Cassie in the morning about taking him for a while. It had become ever so clear Max was going to need his help soon. However he didn’t want to be an alarmist either. This was partially something for Max to figure out on his own. He kicked a can absentmindedly and proceeded to walk towards his home. Neither Max or himself were prepared for him to be home so soon. He deliberately fiddled with the lock and walked inside. It wasn’t fair of Kelly to leave him, he thought. This all just sucked.

Max had not finished cleaning up, of course. He was embarrassed and scared to see his father walking through the door. This was new ground, and he frankly couldn’t predict what his dad would do. As his dad walked through the door and looked around, all Max could think of to do was continue cleaning. He would wait for his dad to speak first. As fate would have it, his dad had the same plan in mind. He stood there in silence and looked around. Stephanie and Megan were still asleep on the love seat. Crystal just looked in terror, slowly, back and forth between the father and son. The more the silence grew, the more she got nervous.

“Want some pizza?” she said, her voice cracking like Max’s sometimes did.

“No thanks,” his father said surprisingly softly. He was grateful for the break. He looked over at Stephanie and Megan. There was a time in his life he would have fantasized about such beautiful nubiles. He never quite adjusted to being able to appreciate such a sight, without having any sexual impulses. A part of him was proud his son had gotten the obvious interest of Crystal, and was more outgoing than he was at that age. However it brought forth additional concerns he was not quite ready to deal with yet. His son was obviously not prepared to be a father. Then again he and his wife were hardly sane, married or even really dating when they found out she was pregnant. She had turned out to be his soul mate. However they’d had many struggles and Gary did not wish such hardship on his son. He also knew his son brought him great sanity and strength. It was time for him to show it again.

“Sorry dad. I’ll have this place cleaned up in no time,” Max said with a false sense of confidence. He had gotten quite a bit done, but was still working on the dishes. He didn’t know how to take his dad’s unusual lack of lecture and emotion. A rant would have been preferable to this, he thought. He felt true shame.

“There will be plenty of time to take care of it after a night’s rest. Sleep is fundamental towards good mental health… and you seem to be making some foolish choices.” Gary attempted to end it with something Kelly might say. She was always big on choices. She was also big on consequences, but now was not the time to determine them. He was too confused. “Brush your teeth and go to bed. We will talk about this in the morning. I’ll take your girlfriend and her friends home. Their parents need to know.” I would want to, he thought. He hated ‘ratting’ people out, but found it sometimes necessary as an adult.

“Uh, Okay.” Max looked at Crystal. It was the first time his dad had called her his girlfriend, and he wondered how his dad knew… This was all just so humiliating. “Come on, let’s get Steph and Meg up.” Crystal and Max woke up the slumbering girls, told them Max’s dad was home, and that he was going to give the three of them a ride home. Some begging and pleading occurred between the two girls towards Gary; imploring him not to tell their parents. Gary said he would talk to them about it on the drive, but he knew it was best that he approach their parents with the partying issue. However on the drive home, he listened carefully to each girl, and probed lightly, to see how best to approach the individual’s home situation. He was concerned about them, both in their drinking, and in how a parent might overreact. Crystal however didn’t say much. She concerned him the most, and he decided to drop her off last. The first two girls parents seemed to handle the news appropriately, and Gary promised them he would keep a better eye on his son. He had lost some privacy rights. The conversations were brief, but they exchanged numbers and e-mail addresses in effort to get to know each other better and work towards preventing a similar situation from occurring again. Crystal, however, would prove to need help he could not provide her. He did get her to open up on the way home, and saw some beautiful pain; a pain Max empathized with and partially loved her for. Gary could see some of his wife in her. It meant she had a big heart.