Free Trigger by Susan Vaught

just sat there, Mom and Dad staring at the table and me mentally counting the number of new bruises I would have. Spoons. I had lots of bruises already, and I wanted to try to talk to Leza, needed to ask her a question before I went to see Mama Rush. Between having snot on my face last time I saw her and bruises this time, Leza was really going to think I was a freak.
    Finally, I remembered Mom had asked me a question, but I couldn’t remember what it was no matter how hard I tried. When I asked her, she just shook her head.
    I counted to ten, picked up my pen, and held it poised over my memory book. “Did I ever take drugs?”
    Both of my parents stared at me, spoonfuls of Dad’s nutritious oatmeal frozen in midbite. Dad had added a slice of whole wheat toast to this meal, with sugar-free grape jelly that looked like glue mixed with Kool-Aid.
    Mom actually spoke first. “Excuse me?”
    Dad stopped chewing his oatmeal and Kool-Aid glue, but he didn’t seem to be able to talk.
    “Pot, meth, speed, alcohol, steroids, crack, crank—”
    “I know what drugs are, Jersey,” Mom cut in, speaking precisely, like a banker. “And of course not. Why would you ask that?”
    The pen tapped the table when I shrugged. “I need to know if I was a junkie. If I was, you can tell me. I read through all my hospital records and none of my labs showed Kool-Aid. I mean, positive results. Glue.”
    Dad put his bite down. “Is that why you wanted to read through all that junk? I thought you were trying to—ofcourse you didn’t use drugs. You were a good student, a great athlete. You were a good boy.”
    In my mind, the Mama Rush djinni landed right behind Dad, carrying Kool-Aid in one hand and glue in the other. You were a good boy , she whispered. Were. Were. As in not are, right?
    Mom stared at me, frowning.
    I started to tell the djinni to shut up and go away, that I didn’t need a smartass djinni downstairs when I already had homicidal ghost-boy upstairs, but I kept my mouth shut. Pragmatics, Hatch. Kool-Aid glue. Mom was staring. And frowning. Dad still wasn’t eating.
    Okay, maybe I wasn’t a freak, at least not the drug kind. Still, I couldn’t cross it off the list just because my parents said so and the records said so. I needed to talk to one other person or Mama Rush would never be satisfied. I wouldn’t be, either. Kool-Aid. That’s why I needed to talk to Leza. She was just in middle school back then, but Leza—she was smart and she knew stuff. She always knew stuff.
    Of course, it was Saturday, like last week, so Todd would probably be there and he would probably crush my skull. For the moment, my skull was safe enough, even though my sanity wasn’t. I blinked really fast and kept blinking until slowly, slowly, the djinni image behind Dad faded away.
    Acting braver than I felt, I took a big bite of Kool-Aid glue toast. It tasted even worse than it looked, like Dad had added shredded paper into the mix. Blech. It was the first time I remembered being glad my sense of taste was less than what it used to be.
    “The therapists told you you’d have to work harder on focusing outside the hospital,” Mom said. Her voice shooka little bit. “I’d appreciate it if you’d try concentrating on normal conversation rather than coming up with off-the-wall questions.”
    She still hadn’t started eating again, unlike Dad, who was wolfing down his oatmeal until he stopped and said, “Sonya. He can’t help that. It’s worse when he’s tired or nervous. Adjustment time, remember?”
    Mom stiffened in her chair, but she didn’t back down. “He wasn’t so bad at Carter even when he did get nervous. I think he can help asking crazy questions.”
    “Brain cells.” I put down my spoon, careful not to drop it. “Crazy questions? About what?”
    “About drugs—and Elana Arroyo.” Mom looked at me a little like Mama Rush did, when I thought she might be counting my brain cells. “And the way you’ve been talking to