*6*

Sometimes, when things spin really fast, you can't even tell if their moving anymore. You can't tell if it's still spinning or if everything has come to a dead halt.

Kyle brings Tess over late Wednesday night, and I can tell by their faces that something happened. I don't see any new injuries on Tess but Kyle looks devastated.

Tess has got this vacant look in her eye and you can tell she's getting lost in her head.

I invite them in.

"I think it's her dad," Kyle says sadly, "But I don't know, she won't talk to me."

"So what do we do now?" He asks.

Tess breaks out of her trance for a few seconds to say, "Nothing, I've got it all figured out."

I've heard her say that before.

Don't worry little Lizzy Parker. Tess has got it all figured out.

I resist the urge to call Dr. Amos. We need more information. I'll call him tomorrow. Before Kyle leaves he kisses her head softly and whispers "I love you." I think he's about to cry.

Tess's voice becomes shaky when she says it back, you can tell she's struggling for control.

I feel a twinge of sadness that Max wants to break this up.

I give Tess some pajamas and tell her that she is going to stay with me for a while. I don't even bother asking her now. My mother will understand.

There is something different about me and Tess now. She clings to my arm when we watch television. I never thought I had any motherly instincts but their surfacing now. I taped The Breakfast Club so that we can watch it. After a while she actually starts smiling and laughing. "I'm the Molly Ringwald character," she says, "And Kyle is the Jock."

"Which one am I?" I ask.

"You're the crazy one," she smiles and looks up at me like she knows something that I don't. "Aren't you?"

"I don't know."

I don't know, maybe I am the crazy one.

That night I have a dream. Max is in it. I'm on a roller coaster that I can't get off of. It just keeps on going around and around. At the end of the ride is a tunnel with a huge drop. Before I go into the tunnel, Max waves at me from the sidelines.

This is what Dr. Amos would say my dream was about: sex.

This is what Dr. Amos says that all dreams are about: sex.

I think Dr. Amos sleeps with old volumes of Freud in his bed.

The bullet shaped roller coaster, he would say, is the phallic symbol. And the tunnel? Use your imagination and you'll figure it out.

And the drop? Climax.

Dr. Amos would say that I want to have sex with Max.

Think again, Dr. Amos.

-------------------------------------

I'm in Max's room.

The boy has parents.

He actually has parents.

And he reads books.

And I wonder when he finds enough time to stop thinking about Tess and read a book.

Good books: Vonnegut, Bradbury, Orwell, Ballard, Palahnuik.

Pre-apocalyptic fantasies, I call them. The world ending, one person at a time. One life at a time. Some of these books have hopeful endings. I usually ignore that part.

"What are you doing?" Max asks as he walks into his room. He just came from the bathroom.

I'm invading your privacy, that's what I'm doing.

"You read books." I state like an idiot.

"Don't we all?"

"You'd be surprised."

He shrugs and begins to open his backpack, but hesitates. There is something he wants to say.

"Did you tell Tara Fisher that I was gay?"

Uh oh....this is bad.

Of course, I could always use this opportunity to teach you the fine art of lying. First, you have to pretend that you didn't even hear the question.

I sit down across from him on the floor, "Huh?"

"Tara Fisher....she said you told her I was gay."

I can tell this makes him really uncomfortable. He's got this kind of scowl/frown on his face.

Next, you have to pretend that he's not even speaking English, like you don't even know what he's talking about, "Gay?"

He nods, "Gay."

Next, you take some of the attention off of the lie in question, don't worry, we will get back to it later. I widen my eyes in shock, "Are you?"

He shakes his head wildly, "No."

"Cause it's okay if you are..."

"I'm not" he says sternly.

See, now that you've got him thinking about something else entirely, it's time to deny the lie. "I've never talked to Tara Fisher in my life."

Dr. Amos says that the first step in getting over pathological lying is admitting that you have a problem.

When he told me this, I said, 'I have six toes.'

'We'll have to work on this some more,' he said.

Max shakes his head and opens some of his books, after a while he frowns down at the assignment, "I don't see how were going to get this done by next Wednesday," he says. "We might have to meet a couple more times."

I nod.

"Is Tuesday okay?" He asks.

I can't do this Tuesday, I have therapy. I don't want to tell him that.

"I have a dentist appointment." I say, "How about Monday."

"I can't Monday," he says embarrassingly, "I have therapy."

Well at least he's honest.

And I can't control the laughter in my head, "Where at?" I ask, "At Sunny Glen?" Sunny Glen is this huge shopping mall type building that is dedicated solely to mental health.

He nods.

"I go there too." I say.

"You do?"

"Yea."

"Who is your doctor?"

"Dr. Amos."

He smiles, "Me too."

HA!

"No way," I say leaning forward, "What is your diagnosis?"

"Umm," he looks up at the ceiling and lists off his identified problems, "Feelings of rejection and isolation arising from the abandonment of my biological parents."

"Wow, that's a good one."

"What's yours?"

Should I tell him?....oh what the hay.

"Pathological Liar." I say.

I think I just admitted to having a problem, Dr. Amos would be proud.

He narrows his eyes at me, "So you just lie a lot?"

He'll soon learn, you never ask a Pathological Liar if they lie a lot.

"Nope," I say, "Not at all."