Help Me Understand

Chapter Twelve: Five People, Five Words

Camden's POV:

I've been doing work with Doctor Kennedie. Making a start to try and get better. I like that Angie and the others made this compromise with me. Now I won't have to go to the hospital and be away from everyone. I look up at the ceiling fan.

It's spinning. I like watching it spin. Sometimes my eyes play tricks on me and it spins the other way. I know it's not spinning the other way. It only spins one way. I look over at my stuffed bunny, Cuddles. She's perched playfully on my pillow next to me.

Kendall the Koala is next to her. They're best friends. Like me and Angie, or Bosco and Daya. Willow has a best friend, Kornbread, but Kornbread doesn't live with us. She lives a few blocks away. She lives downtown. So does Deja. And Kerri and Maddy and Orion and Jorgeous.

I get off my bed. I've been in bed all day. I don't know why. I look at the carpet of my room. It's pink. Pink is my favorite color. Daya's favorite color is yellow. And Jasmine's favorite color is green. I can't remember Bosco and Willow's favorite colors though.

I head downstairs. Daya and Bosco are doing karaoke, they're using their hairbrushes as microphones. They're singing a song. I smile at them, but they don't notice me. That's okay. I head into the kitchen to make myself a snack. I can still hear Daya and Bosco's extremely loud singing.

Willow is doing the air guitar to the song playing from Bosco's phone. I grab a box of cereal and pour in into a bowl. I go to grab a spoon. We're out of tiny spoons. I have to use a big spoon. I'm not the big spoon when Angie and I cuddle.

Angie's always the big spoon. I'm the small spoon. I look at my hands. They're still a bit red. I've been washing them a lot recently. I don't like germs. They make you sick. I take my cereal to the table and I start eating my cereal.

It isn't long before I feel someone's gaze. I look up. Willow is staring intently at me. I slowly raise my hand and wave "hello" to her. She waves back before coming over to me. She hugs me. Why is she hugging me? This is random. I got a random Willow hug.

"Hi Willow. What's up?" I try to make conversation. She hugs me even tighter. I don't know what I did to deserve a Willow hug, but I'm not gonna complain. I like Willow hugs. She mumbles something. I didn't hear what she said. I ask her to repeat herself.

"I'm proud of you. You've been doing some really hard things. We all love you, Cam Cam," Willow spoke. Willow gives nice hugs. I hug Willow back and thank her for her words. She smiles. She lets go of me and I continue to eat my cereal. It's tasty.

"Good morning, sugar!" Angie calls upon seeing me. She was out shopping. I was napping when she left, but she gave me a kiss before she left. She comes over to me after putting the bags down. I hug her and she hugs me too. I stand up and follow her.

"I'll help you put the groceries away," I tell her. She smiles and thanks me. She got raspberry soda. That's my favorite kind. She also got a type of iced tea, it's mixed with lemonade. I like that type of tea. It's not too sour and not too sweet.

Angie says I'm sweet. Bosco says I'm so sweet that I give her a cavity just from looking at me. Daya says I'm sweet and so does Willow. Bosco says I give her cavities, but that's not true. She's with me almost always. If I gave her a cavity, all her teeth would need fillings.

Bosco doesn't have a filling. At least not one that I can see. Not one that she's told us about. I can't actually give her a cavity. I start thinking about flavors that start with the letter S. There's quite a lot of them, actually.

Sweet, sour, spicy, salty, savory, there's five of them. There's five people living in this house. Five people, five flavors. I can't really match us up with the flavors. We're all too complex to match up with just a simple word. We're all really complicated people. Really really complicated people.

I'm weird. I do compulsive behaviors when I have a thought that I just can't get rid of. I don't like the compulsions. Doctor Jasmine says it's OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Jasmine, for some reason, lets me call her by her first name. She's nice to me like that.

Angie is loving and caring. She hardly ever gets upset. That makes it all the more scary when she does get upset. I don't like it when Angie gets upset. She doesn't like it when I get upset either. We both want each other to be as happy as possible.

Bosco is really complicated. So are Daya and Willow. They're mostly very loving. But sometimes they get angry, scary angry. Bosco is sassy and always stands up for what she believes in. I like that about her. She never gives up and she's extremely passionate about what she believes in.

Daya is similar. She's hard headed and a little stubborn. I wouldn't have her any other way. Willow is brave and she loves to have fun. They're both similar when they get upset. They often double down and defend themselves, but they always eventually apologize when they're in the wrong.

We're all very complex. I don't know if those five words, sweet, sour, spicy, salty and savory, can really describe us all, but they can try. Five people, five words. I'm sweet, apparently, so that's one person and one word, that leaves all the others left.

Four people, four words.