Empty Spaces, Physical and Intangible

Michael knew that he had to get over this 'freaking out two seconds into being alone' thing. He knew his fear of separation was only causing problems for him; he couldn't even set foot in Room A2 when he first arrived and he had to wait until someone else entered the boy's bathhouse to use the bathroom. It was crippling. He had to get over it, but he just didn't know how.

Dr. Ivanova, before he'd left Michigan altogether, gave him a suggestion about his separation anxiety- 'Why don't you try distracting yourself?' She asked, her voice controlled and quiet, a tone all therapists seemed to have. 'You could start small- try reading in a park, but a good distance away from people. That way, you'll know that other people are there and you'll be so lost in the book that you'll never even notice they're gone.'

The only thing standing in his way of doing that was his trouble with reading. Because of his OCD, he had to individually analyze and make sense of each sentence as he read it. Maybe he would have read in his free time if he didn't have that compulsion.

Michael had a lot of free time, it seemed. He would have taken great lengths to not separate from anyone within reach, but he knew that his roommates had lives too. Nate was a nice person, but even he'd lose it if Michael didn't control his impulse to follow him around. Besides, as afraid as he was to be alone, Michael had a lot of things to think about on his own.

The scrawny brunette took a deep, long breath before stepping out of the Robertson Home for Boys. Sunlight hit his face and shoulders as he chewed on his sleeves to keep his thoughts at bay.

"I'm not alone," He mumbled nervously with fabric between his teeth. "I'm not alone. There's birds in the trees... and a dragonfly. See? I'm not alone."

All of this self-coaxing really hadn't been enough to calm his thoughts. All of the friends he'd met the previous day, and how much he was grateful for them, weren't enough to cover up what got him into this mess in the first place. Michael wandered around the grounds, his thoughts being enough to distract himself for the time being. His eyes filled with anguish and mixed with the gray and green of his irises.

Why did his mom give him up... really?

Was there some hidden secret besides the fact that his mom had lost her job and was drunk while making the decision to give him up to the Michigan state government? Was there another reason that the policemen hadn't told him as she was carted off to the Great Lakes Rehabilitation Center?

As much as Michael wondered about it, there wouldn't be any way of knowing now. Even when she wasn't drinking or grading papers or working, (Which was, essentially, 90% of the time) she was always very distant. Although Michael was dependent on her for a lot of things, he still knew how to do laundry, clean dishes, vacuum, mop... among other things that didn't involve cooking. He wasn't self-sufficient by any means- he used to follow his mom around the house constantly.

'You know, that would have been cute when you were four, but you're fourteen! Get a job and stop bothering me!'

So he did. He volunteered as an umpire at various tee ball and younger-aged Little League games, but that didn't make him any more independent. Michael guessed that the reason why he was so terrified of being away from his mother in particular was because she was really the only family he had. His father obviously wanted nothing to do with him; he wouldn't have ran off and had a second family if he did.

And now, he was away from her. It had only taken a month for his mom to be sent to rehab, for him to be sent to a youth home, to have a mental breakdown, to be hospitalized a second time and to be placed in the youth home again before he was shipped off to this island.

Michael's mind was plagued with uncontrollable thoughts.

'You did something wrong.'
'You did something wrong.'
'You did something wrong.'
'You did something wrong.'
'You did something wrong.'
'Your mom loves you, but you were too hard to handle.'
'You're a terrible person.'
'You did something wrong.'

That had to be it! Why else would she give him up to the police and not try to get a new job? The problem had to have been him!

The thoughts came in an overflow, speaking over one another, making his head hurt. In a desperate attempt to silence his own mind, Michael threw his shoulder blindly against a tree, biting his tongue so he wouldn't scream. He trembled as he sank to the ground, his knees hitting the grass.

Michael missed his mom, terribly. He worried about her and prayed for her every day, but all of that would be useless if she hated him.

His breath was choppy and quivered as he cried as quietly as he could. He didn't want to be a nuisance to anyone else.

Lex was Relatively new to this job, but she loved it already. One might ask, "How do you love a job where you're surrounded by 'crazy' kids? Isn't your job to protect everyone from each other?" Well, the answer would be yes, and that's why she loved it. She was helping people. She was able to watch as patients got better, thanks to the therapists and medications here. Sure, the job had it's downsides, like when she had to send a kid to isolation or throw herself between to people fighting, but that was all worth it to help these people grow to be slightly less... insane, was the word. She didn't like it, but that was the word that fit most of the people in here. It could have been worse, she supposed. She could have signed up to work in an asylum for the criminally insane, or whatever they called it these days. Like Arkham Asylum only in real life. Or she could have worked in a women's prison. That would have been extremely scary. So really, by working here, she was preventing herself from a lot of horrors. That's what she thought, anyways. There would probably be some nights where she hated this job and had to go crying home or something, and ended up this close to therapy herself. But that was a thought that had yet to cross her mind, because for now, she was just happy to be here, doing what she loved, helping people. Being happy was good, in a job, because then it wasn't really work, right? Right. Sure. Her job was still work. Physical work, mostly. Some paperwork when she found a patient doing something and had to add to their file. And then a whole lot of, what would be the appropriate thing to do at this time?

She was walking around the grounds when she saw the boy for the first time. She watched as he threw himself against a tree and fell to his knees. And it felt like her heart was ripping in half. There was no way he could be younger than maybe 13, since all patients here were at least freshman, but all she could think of was how he reminded her of Iz, her three year old daughter. This wasn't to be mean, not in the least; that's just what her heart felt like at the time. It was probably just her maternal hormones kicking in. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of what she would do if she saw her daughter on the ground like that. And then she heard the quiet crying. That was like the final straw for her. Her eyebrows pulled together and her mouth opened. It was all she could do to control herself enough to slowly walk over to the boy, instead of run, as her instincts were pushing her to do. This had to be the saddest thing she'd heard in her whole life, though that would probably change as well, in time. She hadn't felt this sad about anything since her post-partem depression, three years ago. She crouched down beside the little boy, then got on her knees. At the sound of his ragged breath, Lex's heart skipped a beat in a mix of pity and sadness. She couldn't take this, listening like that. The ground beneath her feet made a shuffling noise as her black Converse pushed back so that she could make enough room to crouch down to his level. She very gently put her hands on his shoulders to get his attention. "Hey, buddy. Hey. Look at me. It's okay."

That was all she could say at that time, just to get him to calm down a little bit. She hadn't seen this boy around before, but then again, she was fairly new. She would repeat it, if she needed to, for him to chill out. "It's okay, it's all right." She didn't know why he was upset. She didn't know why he was here. Lex didn't know anything, really, about this boy, and nothing to give her clues about... well, anything. She made sure she got him calm, first and foremost. Once he was a little bit better, she relaxed a little bit more. Standing, she brushed off her knees and then stuck out a hand to help him up. "Let's take a quick walk, okay?" She didn't expect him to protest or defy her, so she started walking. After a minute of silence, she finally got down to it. Looking at the boy, she slightly raised one eyebrow, looking expectant. "Now, what was wrong?" While she waited for his response, she pulled out her pony tail and began to redo it; it usually fell out about halfway through the day and today was no exception. She listened carefully for his response. It was part of her job to listen to this kid, and why he was upset, or at least it was to her. She figured that kids were never really calm until they had talked over why they were freaking out. She wasn't here to be his therapist, but she needed to make sure he was okay before letting him go off on his own again. When she did things like that, there was a chance that the people would hurt themselves or get back into trouble, and she'd have to go find them all over again. That was never pleasant, either, because she didn't like having to deal with the same problem twice.

Michael didn't even hear the quickened footsteps that approached him. He was too trapped in his thoughts that seemed to be taking his head by storm- all of these angry sentences mixing together and shouting over one another actually did resemble a brewing thunderstorm.

'You made your mom become non-functioning.'
'You've always annoyed her.'
'You're such a pest.'
'It's all your fault.'
'And you're never going to see her again.'
'Oh, you miss her?'
'That's too bad- you caused this pain.'
'You don't have a right to cry.'

Michael's thoughts were silenced as he felt warm hands grasp both of his shoulders. The thoughts dissipated- with the touch, the storm was broken. He didn't even look to see the owner of the hands, because he was enjoying the touch too much. That, and he was trying to regulate his breathing pattern. He didn't want to annoy whoever was kind enough to try to calm him down.

"Hey, buddy. Hey. Look at me. It's okay."

The voice belonged to a lady. Her tone was sweet and gentle, way too much like the tone his mom used with him when he was young enough to come to her crying after a nightmare. When she was sober, of course- that was an important detail.

"It's okay, it's all right."

Michael was compliant with the lady's request to look her in the eye, although he really didn't want to. He looked up slowly and reluctantly, the tears in his eyes making it difficult to see the lady's face. He took a shaky breath as he wiped his eyes with his sleeve, frayed and chewed at the ends from biting it out of nervousness. He looked again, his gray-green eyes staring into the nice lady's- his eyes showed the longing he felt for his mother, or anyone who reminded him of her.

As he looked at the lady security officer, her face was replaced with his mother's, then was reverted back. His mom's frizzy brown hair and the bags under her eyes from not sleeping disappeared in a blink of an eye. It was an odd phenomenon, and one that had only taken a fraction of a second. Michael rubbed his eyes again. Maybe he was seeing things. That wasn't the only thing that was wrong with him.

The security officer, the first non-intimidating one he'd met, offered her hand to help him off the ground.

"Let's take a quick walk, okay?"

Michael looked first at the officer, then her hand, and took it as he stood slowly. The warmth of her hand was enough to make him feel a bit better than he was. They began walking and Michael still held onto the lady's hand, but let go as she started to tie her hair up. He gripped his shirt at the chest level to not feel so anxious, longing to hold her hand again, which was an odd feeling. He thought he'd long since grown out of wanting to hold peoples' hands, but it was apparent that it comforted him a lot.

Michael realized he hadn't spoken a word since the security officer first saw him, not even uttering a 'thank you', but his words all seemed to be laying behind his teeth, crushed up and broken so even they didn't make sense when put together. For the first time in a while, it was hard for him to talk. He felt like he was nine years old again, back when he could barely speak a sentence without stuttering so he'd just given up on talking altogether. From ages 3 to 9 he only spoke when spoken to out of embarrassment and fear that he would be made fun of... more.

"Now, what was wrong?"

Michael gulped at that question. He really didn't know how to answer it properly without leaving loose ends or getting embarrassed.

"Um..." Michael's voice was quieter than usual, and much more monotonous. His voice left the emotions behind so that he wouldn't cry again. "... I miss my mom. A lot. And I don't know if I'll ever see her again."

She couldn't help but feel a little bit better for his well being when he did as she asked. At least he wasn't insanely rebellious, or worse, violent. To be honest, Lex hadn't even accounted for the fact that he might be violent and 'ready to strike'. She should have, but she didn't think. That was something that didn't exactly happen when something was going on. Her instincts were the only thing she needed to listen to, in her opinion. That was probably part of the reason she was doing what she was doing here. There was nothing wrong with it; she wasn't causing this boy any harm. It would have helped if she had known him before, so that she could have maybe read his file and learned some about him. It probably would have been the smart thing to do, because then she would have known about his dependency and his mother and everything about him. She probably could have avoided some potential problems that may come up. But now all she could feel for him was caring.

It was all she knew to do, to care for people in need. That was how her father had raised her. That was how her father had died.

His eyes only broke her heart more, the need and the despair that shone beneath the tears. This little boy honestly did need her, and Lex could see it. And she needed to do something about it. She felt like taking care of him. She actually wanted to just hug him and not let go, not until all his pain was gone. She was a bleeding heart and she knew it.

The way he held onto her hand only made her want to cry. She needed to go home and cry it out and eat a giant bar of chocolate. Maybe she could chalk all of this up to the effects of PMS... but not really. It was an odd feeling, to need to care for a boy she had only just met, as if he were one of her own (and much younger than he actually was). She wondered of there as anything wrong with her, or if it was natural to feel this way about someone. She doubted it, but Lex really did hope so. The last thing she needed was to be slowly losing her grip on her sanity, and end up here, which would be the worst that could happen. She couldn't even imagine the taunting that she would no doubt get from her former colleagues in this situation. She could hear them, she could, as they walked in silence for the first part. She shook her head, and her imagined alternate universe dissolved, leaving her back in the real world, helping this boy. She looked at him, carefully, noting the way he gripped his shirt. That was either nervous energy or he was uncomfortable. Neither one was any good.

When he answered her question, she stopped for a moment out of shock. The urge to hug him became ten times stronger. She was quiet for a moment. Lex didn't know what to say to that. She could tell him she was sure he would see her again, but she didn't want to make him any false promises. Those only led to trouble. So she told him something to help him get through it. "It'll be okay. You know, I lost my dad when I was twelve?" She looked at him and nodded in conformation. "He was shot trying to save someone. At first, it hurt, a lot. It still hurts. But you know what I did? I used the loss to make me into a better person. I swore that day that I would help others too, no matter what, just like he did. You think you can do that? Use being away from your mom to make something good? Because I think you can, if you try." She looked at him and smiled what she hoped looked like an encouraging smile. She was not going to let him be all upset over this.

It had taken a lot out of Michael to admit to why he was crying. This was strange for him; he usually didn't mind telling others if they were nice enough to ask. He truly was the personification of an open book- he couldn't keep a secret even if he wanted to. Perhaps his silence was because this was a whole different ball game- before he got to St. Christina's, he'd cry about something trivial like feeling guilty about not controlling his impulse to arrange another person's things or because he was frustrated with his inability to speak a sentence without stuttering. Now, he cried about something threatening- it was quite possible that he'd never see his mother again and he cried because he didn't know if that would become true or not.

Michael rubbed his eyes again because they felt dry from crying so much. He listened for the kind security officer's words, which were hesitated. Once he heard them, his eyes widened in shock.

"It'll be okay. You know, I lost my dad when I was twelve?"

That silenced him. His stomach twisted and his heart made a clumsy, hard thud against his rib cage. He felt so selfish. Why was he the one crying when the officer lost her father when she was two years younger than he was?

"He was shot trying to save someone.

That was even worse. Not only did her father die- he was killed. Michael could only imagine how horrible that must have been for the officer. It would have been so sudden... so merciless.

Michael looked at the nice officer, who nodded to confirm that what she was saying was true. He shivered as his gaze dropped to the ground again. He had no idea what it was like to suffer like that. His OCD had been right- he didn't have a right to cry at all.

"At first, it hurt, a lot. It still hurts. But you know what I did? I used the loss to make me into a better person. I swore that day that I would help others too, no matter what, just like he did. You think you can do that? Use being away from your mom to make something good? Because I think you can, if you try."

Michael looked up again, staring into the brown eyes of the officer's, this time in awe. What he felt was more than respect- it was admiration. She went through so much and yet she was strong enough to change her loss into something positive. The officer was the most selfless, genuine person he'd ever met.

Michael smiled weakly as he looked at the ground again. He had a hard time looking forward as he walked; this was probably due to his low self-esteem.

"I wish I was as strong as you," He practically whispered. "I've always wanted to help people someday, just like you are, but I really don't know how."

Michael realized while walking that he didn't even know the nice officer's name, even after she'd already done so much for him.

"S-Sorry," He said. "I usually don't act like this. I was just alone with my thoughts and that always causes problems. I'm Michael- what's your name?"

As he waited for her response, Michael couldn't control his hand reaching for the security officer's again. He hoped she wouldn't mind.

Lex didn't want to force the young boy to say anything. What he wanted to say was his business and he would have his own reasons for not answering. She wasn't his psychologist and she wasn't a doctor, she was just a security guard. The questions weren't to help him get better, but to help him feel better. To chill out a little bit. The boy, however, answered every single one, even though there was hesitation. She soon deduced that he didn't exactly want to answer all of the questions, but he answered them anyways out of respect for authority. That was a good, admirable quality in a young boy. It would make his time in the institution go down much more smoothly, sort of like good behavior in prison. Woah, woah. It wasn't right to compare this place to prison. She shook the thoughts out of her mind quickly. That could get her in a lot of trouble. And a lot of it, too.

She had watched him as she had told him the story of her father. It hadn't been an easy story to tell, but had seemed to take it well... ish. Lex figured that it could have gone worse, so she didn't feel any worse or better for it. But she did see the respect that shone behind his eyes. Inside, she should have probably been swelling up with pride, but at the moment, all she could think was that she would have to read his file when she made a note in it later about his small break down. She smiled at him, despite her thoughts.

She frowned and looked away as he said that he didn't know how. It wasn't a disappointed frown, or an angry frown, but more of a thinking frown. She stopped walking for a moment and looked at the boy. "You don't have to do anything great or drastic or amazing to help people. You can help people just by being there for them, or being their friend. You help people every day and don't even realize it. You are making a change, whether or not you realize it. That simple truth is sitting right in front of you, and all you have to do to see it is open your eyes." Her tone throughout this small monologue was not mean, or vindictive. She wasn't trying to tell him he was wrong. Her voice was clear and hopeful. She desperately wanted him to see what it was she was telling him. It was something she had realized soon after her father's death. He needed to realize it, too.

She smiled as he said that when he was alone with his thoughts, it always caused problems. That was the truth for pretty much everyone else alive on this planet. Even she did stupid things if she had enough time to think about it. Thinking allowed people to rationalize things, and the more they rationalized, the worse it got. She couldn't deny that. That was probably the reason most of the world didn't think, they just acted. She swore by it. Her instincts got her in trouble sometimes, but what could you do? Oh, that's right, nothing. What you get for it is what you get. Take it in stride and move along.

"Hi, Michael, I'm Le- Officer Garcia." She smiled at him, mentally kicking herself for almost introducing herself as Lex. Stupid! She hoped that wouldn't be an issue for her later. A minute later, she realized he was holding her hand. It had taken a second to process, because she was so used to holding someone else's hand since she'd had Iz, but she definitely noticed. She looked down at their hands for a second, noticing how big his was compared to his daughter's. At the most, he was only five years younger than she was. But he needed her. She turned the hand-holding into a late hand shake, giving him a smile. "I don't have a problem with it, but there are cameras everywhere here, and I'm pretty sure that this could get us in trouble, this hand holding thing, okay?" She was trying to make it clear that she wasn't letting go because she didn't want him to. She thought that it would help him feel a lot better. She just didn't want either of them getting in trouble.

What Michael said to the nice officer was true. All his life he wanted to help people. He was kind of used to listening to others- he preferred listening to talking. Whenever one of his teammates had problems at home or with their girlfriends or with other matters, they seemed to gravitate to him... because he was the only boy out of the entire baseball team, and perhaps Graveraft Middle School entirely, who wouldn't make fun of them. It was a guy thing, he knew, to keep problems bottled up out of pride or fear of embarrassment. Whenever they would talk to him, Michael wouldn't be able to effectively give advice, because he didn't truly have opinions of his own, but he listened to and supported them purely in altruism. He never expected anything from them.

He also remembered how he was an umpire, and sometimes assistant coach, to local tee-ball and elementary school-aged Little League teams. Another one of the qualities that he was probably born with, besides constant empathy, was patience. Since a lot of the qualities about him were childish, he could relate better to the kids, which one would think it would do the opposite. He offered them pointers for their mechanics and encouraged them to play at their best. Helping younger teams was one of the main things he missed about baseball.

The officer thought for a moment about his previous comment, before saying:

"You don't have to do anything great or drastic or amazing to help people. You can help people just by being there for them, or being their friend. You help people every day and don't even realize it. You are making a change, whether or not you realize it. That simple truth is sitting right in front of you, and all you have to do to see it is open your eyes."

"Really?" Michael exclaimed excitedly, his eyes lighting up. "I listen to people when they need me to... and I volunteered helping kids play baseball for awhile... and oh! I have a roommate who has trouble with speaking and writing- he has this electronic spelling game that can only be played with one person, but I found a way to play it with multiple players. I wrote a word in my journal but two of the letters were missing and Connor had to guess what the letters were to complete the word."

Michael was ecstatic; his mood completely changed. He didn't know that all of those things counted as helping people!

And now he finally knew the nice officer's name. She revealed it was Officer Garcia while smiling at him. Michael smiled back, trying to guess her first name she was beginning to say in his head. Lenore? Leigh? Leah? He didn't know, and it wouldn't really matter anyway. He wasn't supposed to know.

He let go of Officer Garcia's hand immediately after she mentioned the cameras, his face heating up to a profuse shade of scarlet.

"S-Sorry," He mumbled. "I didn't know about that."

He promptly changed the subject.

"Officer Garcia... where are you from? Where you grew up, I mean."

Michael really wanted to know more about his kind, new friend... and that was a good place to start.

It had honestly made her day, to see that boy light up the way he did when he realized how he'd been helping people all along. She smiled a smile from deep down inside of her, an honestly genuine smile. It made her smile, it really did. She wasn't sure if it was because she had sort of helped him find it, or the way he listed the ways he had helped others with such passion, such joy. This moment, a moment she wouldn't forget, was the reason why she did her job. The one and only reason. She lived for moments like this, where she could see that someone was changing for the better, and there was nothing else to it. She had begun helping people when she was about thirteen, when she had started to look for ways to help others. A lot of them had been only small ways, nothing too important, but it was easy to see the difference that it made to others. Helping people gave her that good feeling that wasn't replaceable with anything. Lex was glad that Michael was going to be getting that feeling a lot more in the future. He would be better off for it, too, in a place like this. Helping others would help him to make friends, which would hopefully keep him out of trouble. It all depended on whether or not he fell in with the right people. She really hoped that he would. It would break Lex's heart to see him turn into something awful, or to have to discipline him. She looked at him again, and decided that it really shouldn't be a problem. He seemed easily impressionable, but he also seemed innocent, and would hopefully be wary of people with bad reputations.

She smiled as he turned red. "It's fine," she reassured him, laughing. "Not a big deal." Her smile widened as he changed the subject quickly. That was okay with her, she didn't want him to be uncomfortable. He seemed like the kind of guy to avoid awkward situations. She wasn't one for them, either, but it was adorable when he was flustered. Lex swung her arms, wondering what it was she could tell him; what could she say without freaking him out? She decided not to worry about it. She'd just tell him the truth, all about Brownsville, no lies, nothing held back. "Well," she began, "I come from a border town in Texas called Brownsville. By border town, I mean that it was a town on the border of Texas and Mexico. There were a lot of drug problems there. Smuggling across the border and all." She paused, unsure of where to go. He wanted to know about it, but that was the hard part. She wasn't sure what he wanted to know. "It was a really dry, dusty place. When you think of Brownsville, think of the good Western movies, like the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly... or.... 3:10 to Yuma. John Wayne west. People rode horses, or bicycles, but not a lot of people had automobiles other than trucks." She nodded and bit her lip, thinking of how weird it had been for the first few days here to be able to drive around in her red pickup and not have to scrape the dust off the windows whenever she got back from a store. "The dust was thick, sort of like the Dust Bowl, but I don't know if you've learned about that yet."

She rubbed her hands in front of herself uncertainly. "People weren't friendly or good there. There were a few, like my father, but look what happened to him, right? So I guess that's another way it was like the Wild West. There were the bad guys, and they ran the place. They liked to have everyone do what they said, and they mostly did, but when a hero arose out of the ruins, there was tension, and eventually, war." She shuddered and remembered the time her father had received his own father's ear in a package. There were good days, and then there were the Blackest Days. Never a between day. "But other than that, it was a very musical place. A lot of folks played the guitar, and some played other instruments, like the piano or the drums. We had a lot of radio stations. Most people spoke English and Spanish fluently, because there were a lot of biracial families, like mine. " She took a deep breath, finally finished. She looked at him and smiled. "It probably sounds awful, but when you grow up there, it isn't so bad. You don't know any alternative. For someone to move there, though... new people usually left. It's hard to deal with, when you come from a better place." She shrugged, not any worse for the story. Where she grew up created who stood before Michael today. She was quiet for a moment, so that if he had any questions, she could answer them quickly and truthfully. When she was sure that there were no more, she asked him the same thing. "What about you, Michael? Where are you from?" She raised her eyebrows at him inquisitively, ready to do some listening for a change. Let him talk.

Michael listened to Officer Garcia's description of her hometown, and it seemed quite chaotic. It did remind him of a Western movie, like the officer had said. From the way she described her hometown, it sounded really dangerous. There was drug smuggling and a corrupt government who kept everyone in line by killing off good people like the officer's father? Officer Garcia must have been used to being around shootings and gang fights, or at least hearing them happen.

Michael shivered, and realized how truly sheltered he was. He cringed when he heard sudden, loud sounds in a movie theatre- he didn't think he was built for a town like Brownsville. It sounded really scary.

Officer Garcia mentioned that he might have known about the Dust Bowl, and he said:

"Before I had trouble with reading, it was my main hobby besides baseball. I read everything I could get my hands on. My mom, before she went to rehab, had a huge bookshelf full of stuff about English and grammar, but she also had stuff about history. I read a little about the Dust Bowl- that was when dust storms started happening in Oklahoma and made the farmland arid, right? And the people of Oklahoma went to California to live in shantytowns and be ridiculed by the Californians... well, my mom also told me about "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. She's an English professor- well, was, and she had a lot of the classics. That book is really big. I wouldn't be able to read it now."

"People weren't friendly or good there. There were a few, like my father, but look what happened to him, right?"

"Don't say it like that!" Michael suddenly protested. He paused, his face turning red again. He had no idea what made him say that. "S-Sorry. I didn't mean to yell. But... I don't think your father died for nothing. You said that he died helping other people- and not only is that brave and genuine enough, but he also inspired others to devote their lives to helping people... like you."

Michael smiled after that. "I know that's a terrible thing that happened to your father, and I'm really sorry, but he died to protect, and eventually that made you decide to become a security officer here, right? To help people?"

Officer Garcia then asked where he was from.

"Um... well, I'm actually from Michigan- in the opposite direction of where you're from. Marquette is actually a small city on the edge of Lake Superior. I lived in the suburbs. There wasn't nearly as much excitement in Marquette- it was definitely safer than Brownsville. I've lived there all my life and I think that's the reason why I'm not adjusting to this weather very well."

Michael looked up at the sun and wiped some sweat off his brow. "I'm really hot here. I think it's because upper Michigan never got hotter than 65 or 70 degrees. Oh, did I tell you it snows practically half the year? And it snows a lot too, because Marquette is right on one of the Great Lakes- 6 to 10 inches in the norm in the winter."

Michael definitely felt better than he did a few minutes ago. He would be sure to thank Officer Garcia later.