Recovery.
Recovering was hard for Michael. It’s hard for him to hear things like “fag”, “useless”, “idiot”, “useless” without thinking of his dad. Everything triggered him into a constant state of panic. It was easy enough to say that all that abuse from his father, earned him the “right” to say he had Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
If anyone would so much as raise their hand towards Michael, he would flinch. Every time someone would go to high five him, he would cower behind his hands. Even if Jeremy lightly punched his arm, Michael would still freak out. He could not shake the memories of coming home from getting beat up, to getting more beat up from his father.
Jeremy and Christine had made themselves Michaels honorary body guards. One, nobody would hit a girl. Two, nobody would hit Jeremy in front of Christine. So now, the same applied for Michael. this was a put in effect as soon as Michael returned to school the next week.
Teachers had been notified about what really happened, so they were all going easy on Michael as he was forced to bounce back. He didn’t really have a chance to fully ‘recover’ for him it was all just, “recover as fast as you can.” He didn’t have a home to go to where he could sleep in his own bed. Every night for him was a non-stop sleepover.
Michael had officially been three weeks clean when he started to break again. School was not going easier on him anymore, Christine and Jeremy weren’t as ‘active’ as they were before leading to the occasional wedgie from Kurt or Ram. Everything started to sink in. He was still the loser who nobody liked, now he was the loser and the freak, that nobody liked.
