BASKET CASE | mike wheeler

intermission | five

Neither Mike or El could have persuaded him out of bed that day as he lay in the darkness, contemplating the meaning of the Jim Croce song his dad had used to lull him to sleep in Murray's warehouse a lifetime ago.

Depsite how hard it was, there were lighter moments.

In those aforementioned handful of times he was urged downstairs, he managed quiet conversations with Dustin and Lucas that brought genuine smiles to his face, Will understood that conversing was a bit of a chore and that his social battery ran out very quickly so only communicated with him by passing him the other joystick for the Atari and silently challenging him to Mat Mania.

Nancy and Jonathan knew the plan of action almost as well as the Party and he was often subjected to Nancy deliberately sitting on the ground in front of him to read her book while her boyfriend discreetly exchanged the VHS in the player for movies he liked whenever he entered the room to try keep him interested and around people for longer.

Max sometimes acted out the comics she was reading for El while they were in his room and he failed to hide his amusement as his sister laughed jovially and called out an encore following each performance.

Eventually, it could even be said that he had partially improved.

Jordan only got threatened with violence a few times when he tried to lightly force the boy into taking his meds, Joyce could make eye contact with him again once he stopped glaring sullenly at the meals being placed in front of him, and on nights when Mike went barging into the upstairs bathroom at 2 in the morning with tears streaming down his face yelling at Jacob for being in there, he didn't even snap at him or tell him to get over his foolish nightmares or to leave him alone or argue about being checked for cuts anymore.

He just held him and apologised and promised that he was okay and called him baby and love and wiped his tears away, and it was all going to be fine.

It would be just like Mike said. Everything would be fine.

And everything was, until Sunday night.

It wasn't his worst night, but it was far from his best - and it was a particularly hard blow after he had been making gradual progress just to end up right back under the covers, locking out anyone but his sister.

Mike was quick to inform Max that there usually wasn't a reason when she asked what could have happened to cause the sudden drop in his improvement, but that didn't make it any easier for him to accept either.

Apparently the same went for the others, because the mood at the dinner table that night was rather dismal. The conversations were sparse and quiet - Dustin was trying to crank a few laughs from Lucas, Will and Max, Jordan was staring at his plate without eating anything, and Jonathan kept nudging him every few minutes asking if he was alright. He never got a reply.

Nancy was looking worriedly between the two brothers and occasionally at Mike himself every so often, but not saying anything.

The radio was playing softly, Joyce's attempt to lighten the mood - he instantly recognised one of Jacob's favourites from their album, The Killing Moon.

Jacob had threatened to propose to him with that song once.

The thought brought the smallest of smiles to his face as he finally lifted his fork to his mouth, a little more confident now. Jacob always hit bumps every now and then but it would all turn out okay in the end.