rock solid inside out; he's strong

( she remembers the date too late, realizes what’s passed   in her absence. with guilt sitting heavy in her belly, she   adjusts her bag so that it sits higher on her shoulder and   unlocks the door to her apartment. she doesn’t even know   if josh will still be there, or if the apartment will be cooler,   emptier without his presence even when her own is sorely   lacking. 

  she drops her bag by the couch, makes sure she makes   enough noise to announce her presence. there’s a bottle   of whiskey tucked under her arm that she doesn’t feel right   giving to him, but she realized, standing in the aisle with    roman at her side, that she doesn’t know what josh likes so   much anymore. this feels like an olive branch, but a broken one,   somehow. 

  sliding behind him in the kitchen, she places the bottle on the   table in front of him and steps back. )

         I’m late, I know.

He's been out of sorts, stewing about it since the last of Josephine's trick-or-treaters had come and gone, and since she had gotten back from some party with Lance. That doesn't stop him from slapping a smile on his face and assuring; ]

You didn't have to get me anything.

[ After all those nights of Josephine stealing his stolen bottles away, it feels strange to take this one. It feels forced; this isn't what friendship feels like, or at least, this isn't what it used to feel like. But still he takes it with only the slight bit of his smile being tainted, and he wraps his fingers around the familiar feel of the bottleneck; it's wrong, but it's comfortable in the way faded memories often are. ]

Thanks, Josephine.

[ Between the gifted bottle held tight in his grip, the spark of thirst the weight of it triggers, and the look on her face that he imagines is expectation, the small kitchen space seems to be readying itself to suffocate him.

But that doesn't stop him from wanting to crack the seal. If anything, it fans that flame. ]

Besides. I might go back to teaching eventually. Can't have that on my record.

[ He laughs, shrugging casually before hooking his thumbs into his pockets. ]

Aaaaand if I didn't?

  he doesn’t want to go all the way back to HQ it’s   better than nothing. he has the next two days off,   and just running doesn’t feel quite right. his upper   body needs a bit of work out to keep up with his   life. )

  Sure.

( he doesn’t really mind, as long as the other guy   doesn’t expect him to be a social butterfly. )

[ Josh isn't necessarily a social butterfly himself when he's outside his typical comfort zone that consists mostly of Josephine's and Westchester, but the gym atmosphere is familiar enough to get him talking--probably more than Roman would like.

As he positions himself to be of help, should he need it, his hands hover just above the bar. ]

Dr. Bruce Perry, a child psychiatrist and senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston, explains the mental and physical toll that solitary confinement takes on kids.

Learn more in the full Q&A with CIR reporter Trey Bundy here.