Rules

Never tell him that he’s looking bad today. It sends him into a downward spiral, and he’ll look ten times worse before the day is over. Yes, trust me; it is possible for him to look worse no matter how bad he is.

Don’t ever ask him if he’s going to sit down and eat. It will either frustrate him because he’s “too busy” to eat, or make him sad because you’ve cooked a meal that he hasn’t had. Either way, he’ll run through the kitchen and shove anything he can find down his throat.

If he hasn’t come to bed by the time you’re ready, don’t ask him to. He’ll growl that he’s much to important to sleep and spend the rest of the night pacing the house, quite probably in the bedroom, and neither one of you will get a minute of sleep.

On the occasions that he hasn’t come home when he said he would be, very casually call his cell phone to ask where he is. When someone else answers, ask very nicely for him. He hangs out with people you don’t know, never will know, and wouldn’t really want to. Don’t ever demand that he come home, or you won’t see him for days.

Of course, all these things are only problems when he’s high, when he’s using and abusing and you’re the one who suffers. And that isn’t all the time, I do promise. The times when he isn’t high more than make up for the times when you’re on your hands and knees, picking up broken glass or washing his face because he’s crying so hard.

When he isn’t high, Pete is the most wonderful person in the whole world. I’m sure of it. He brings home flowers he picked from the field, or chocolates, or a pretty rock he found. He’s the best father in the world to Astile, calling him every night to tell him that he loves him and to dream well. He’ll curl up on the couch with you, bury his fingers in your hair and tell you that you’re the most beautiful thing he has EVER seen, and you start to believe him.

There are just rules for being with Pete that you have to remember. If not, everything is going to fall apart. These are things that Carl told me when I first met the boy, told me so that I would not end up like he did, wasted and withered and bitter.

Make no mistake; Carl loves Pete. Carl loves Pete very much. But he did not follow those rules, and so now they are both broken. I love Pete, and I am determined not to become as such, so I follow these rules. They are my Bible, my whole world.

Pete is both the light of my life, and the deepest dark. He lifts me up and drags me down. He is the reason I can sleep at night and the reason I pace the floor, waiting and worrying. He is everything pure, and so to balance out the universe, he is also everything that hurts me.

I don’t think I would change him.