Against Medical Advice (16 page)

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Chapter 66

I FLY HOME from Wellington and get to stay over for one whole night. Jessie’s there, and we connect like we haven’t for years. And I can’t tell you how good it is to see my mom, my angel.

The next day my mother and father drive me to the Devor-ough School, a private therapeutic boarding school in western New Hampshire.

As part of a plan I didn’t get to vote on, I wasn’t allowed to have any contact with my old friends during the brief stopover at my house. I’ve now been away from home for two and a half months. Going right into another strange new situation is like punishment when I think I should be rewarded. I hate the idea of it. A lot.

My parents have decided to send me right to the Devorough School because it offers me a chance to catch up to my junior-year class before it’s too late. This wasn’t even a remote possibility before wilderness camp and Wellington. Devorough has an intensive-study program, with more hours per day devoted to lessons than any regular school. Plus, like the other places I’ve gone to, they are set up to deal with kids who have special problems.

Devorough is in a very rural town and consists of only a few buildings, including a large structure for classrooms, dining, and other activities. Bicycles are the sole mode of transportation allowed other than feet. No friends, no cars, no cell phones, no alcohol, no cigarettes, no life.

We are met by Dr. Marianne Morgan, the founder, in a wheelchair, which reminds me of how far I’ve come from the days I used to go to school in one. She makes me feel welcome and promises that I will get what I need here. Even though there are many rules that must be followed, the other students love it, she says.

My mother and father are gushing with gratitude for her accepting me. A lot of other schools didn’t.

The first group of students I encounter quickly confide that the place is a prison and they totally hate it. Every one of them does. One of the guys I meet right away is a very sketchy, secretive type who seems to command a lot of respect from the other boys. When I try to ask about his past, he doesn’t tell me anything, but he’s really friendly. He shows me the layout of the school and how to get around some of the rules.

In the next couple of weeks, I undergo intense schooling, but I’m so far behind that I have to stay awake half the night just to catch up. The constant pressure starts to make my tics worse again, which makes studying take even longer.

The relaxation exercises I promised Mr. Roberts I’d keep doing aren’t on my mind at all, and even if they were, I wouldn’t have time for them anyway.

Because I really do want to catch up to my class back home, I put in an incredible effort, which impresses the staff but takes a toll on me. I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m frantic about falling behind, and I’m getting anxious again. This is the exact opposite of what the people at Wellington wanted to have happen. I’m starting to break down a little.

The pressure isn’t helped by a lot of whispering and private discussions going on around my room. I never find out what’s going on because the other kids make me leave and no one will tell me anything. I guess I’m too new to be trusted.

I also start having clashes with kids on the lacrosse team when I stupidly brag about how good an athlete I am. I pick a fight with one of the little guys, who easily beats me up. Even after all I’ve been through, and as good a shape as I’m in, I still haven’t got a clue about how to fight.

Every day I’m learning more, and faster, than I ever have before, but the work is still mounting up too fast. In some ways, wilderness camp, with all the snow and ice, was easier than this. I kind of miss the mountains.

Three weeks into my time at Devorough, I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown from the work pressure and lack of sleep. In my mind it’s pure torture and punishment. I plead with my parents to let me come home. After a lifetime of their supporting me in so many good ways, this is possibly the worst thing they’ve ever done and the only mistake in their intervention.

No matter what I say, and it’s all the honest truth, they tell me I have to stay until the end of the school year in May.

At night I drift off to sleep thinking about my old friends back home and how I could be with them in a way I never could have before. I feel strong and more in control and want to show them what I’m like now, how I’ve changed. With my new confidence, I know I can make it in my old high school, maybe even play football again.

I dream of being home, riding my dirt bike, hanging out, sleeping late in my own soft bed.

No one knows it, but I packed my cell phone and charger in a backpack when I came to Devorough. One night I make a call to my old friend Mingo. As usual, he knows what to do, because he’s a survivor himself, and he tells me something that hits like a lightning bolt. I’ve already turned seventeen, so I’m legally old enough to leave Devorough if I want to
without anyone’s permission.
No one can stop me, not my parents, not even the police.

My mind starts spinning with the possibilities. Soon, I can think of nothing else but getting away from the school.
It’s becoming an obsession.

The next night, after everyone’s asleep, I sneak out a side door and make a break for it. I run like crazy to the two-lane country road that connects Devorough to the nearest town, which I estimate to be ten or fifteen miles away. I feel exhilarated, taking my newfound power and strength and using it to escape from this prison of a school.

Just before midnight, in total spooky darkness, I’m walking on a desolate rural highway.

It’s another kind of wilderness, and not nearly as bad as the one I’ve been to, so I’m okay with it. After an hour, however, I begin to feel that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, because it dawns on me that I escaped without a plan. I left with only the money my parents had given me for school expenses, and I assumed that eventually I would be able to pay someone to drive me back to my hometown. I wasn’t thinking, just acting.

Some plan, huh? Talk about compulsive behavior and making bad decisions.
I don’t even really know how far it is to the next town or how far I’ve walked, and I’m not dressed for the cold night. After another hour passes, one of the few cars I’ve seen catches me in its headlights and slows to a crawl. It’s a police car.

“Cory Friedman?” the officer asks.

Chapter 67

“YEAH, WHY?” I answer back.

“Been looking for you, son. Get in. I’m taking you back to the school.”

I wasn’t expecting this. Apparently soon after I escaped, the school did its usual late-night bed check, found me missing, and called the police. It’s hard to decide what to do now — then I remember what Mingo told me.

“I don’t have to, do I? I’m seventeen,” I say very politely, desperately hoping Mingo knew what he was talking about.

“I don’t know about that. Even if you are, you have to go back to the school first.”

I get in the cruiser, and the policeman returns me to Devorough. The school calls my parents.

When I get on the phone, I refuse my mother’s request to stick it out a few more weeks and lash out at both my parents for sending me here. I tell them that I’m demanding my rights and that I’m no longer their dependent son but a legal adult. They don’t know how to answer that. It’s news to them, like it was to me.

The discussion ends with me hanging up. It turns out that Mingo was right. The police have no choice but to let me leave.

I sign a release that the school needs for their records — this is why I had to go back there. Then the police drive me to the nearest bus station an hour away. It turns out to be such a long distance that I never would have made it on my own.

I don’t tell anyone where I’m going. Just far, far away from this prison.

In a few hours I end up at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City and spend the early morning walking the streets. When I’m ready, I take a train to my hometown, where a friend picks me up and drives me home.

My mother and father haven’t slept the whole night. Now that I’m back, they are outraged by my behavior. I understand their position, but I had to do what was right for me. That school sure wasn’t. A little while later, I’m safe again in my own bed, and it’s the best feeling in the world. I sleep for twenty-two hours straight.

In a few days everything is peaceful again. My parents and I return to Devorough to officially sign me out. We have a final meeting with the school’s founder.

“You never should have left us, Cory,” she scolds me. I can see how hurt and disappointed she is, but also arrogant, it seems to me. “I don’t think you’re going to make it out there.”

Her words stun me. In my mind this is a cruel and destructive thing to say, but she can’t reach me on the inside. After all I’ve been through, my armor is titanium and a couple of feet thick. I don’t argue with her, just thank her for letting me attend. I can’t leave the grounds fast enough.

But as we drive away, I’m thinking,
You don’t know me. Don’t ever count me out. I’m going to make it this time.

The Emergency Meeting

Chapter 68

AFTER DEVOROUGH, there’s a sudden shift in focus. Now the job is to try to get me back into my high school to finish junior year. This is almost impossible given all the work I’ve missed, but not impossible for my mother. She’s been on the case, assembling piles of records, making notes, figuring out what we need to do.

We are now on our way to a crucial meeting at school to get me back into classes and discuss any accommodations that they can give me to help me get through the rest of spring semester.

But the moment we walk into the designated room, our whole idea of what the meeting is about explodes.

The first shock is that this is an actual large conference room, not the customary office space these kinds of meetings take place in, and instead of seeing just the special-ed and guidance counselors needed to take care of my accommodations, we find that the room is loaded with about a dozen people. This stops my mother in her tracks, and she looks as confused as I’ve seen her in a while.

“Please sit down,” someone says sternly, and we take the only two empty seats at the large wooden table.

I don’t recognize some of the people here, but there’s my history, math, and English teachers; my regular guidance counselor; and a social worker from the special-education department that I met a few times before.

I already have a scary feeling that something is wrong, and I search for the friendly, smiling face of Mrs. Tremaine, my personal caseworker. She’s been my best friend in the school administration and has fought for me for years, but for some reason she’s not here.

In a moment another woman who’s a lot older takes over the meeting. She identifies herself right away. “I’m Emily Hanover. I’ve been assigned as Cory’s new caseworker,
replacing Mrs. Tremaine.
”

For the second time in the first two minutes, my mother and I go into shock. The person who has always been my champion and who I need most in this meeting hasn’t even been invited.

Everyone can sense the negative tension. The room is eerily quiet, and I get the feeling that nobody really wants to be here. I know I don’t.

When my new caseworker starts again, the world is suddenly turned upside down.

“We wanted to gather everyone familiar with Cory and his history to help you understand why we’ve come to our decision,” she says, looking back and forth between my mother and me.

My mother is stunned by this unexpected announcement.

“What decision? I thought we were here to discuss the accommodations we could have for Cory as he reenters school.”

The complete silence that follows tells me how stupid I was to think coming back might be as easy as just asking. And it’s a huge surprise that the members of the group have already met on my case and seem to have made up their minds about something big. And bad.

“Basically, we’ve had to deal with the wisdom of Cory being able to continue in this school year,” Mrs. Hanover says. “It wasn’t really a question of how we could help him through the rest of the semester.”

I can’t help but notice that everything she’s saying is in the past tense.

“I don’t see any way to avoid the unfortunate fact that Cory simply didn’t attend enough of his classes in the first semester to get credit for them,” Mrs. Hanover decrees.

It’s as if a bomb has been dropped on us. A tidal wave of disappointment rises in my body. My mom looks like she’s been punched in the stomach. I want to start screaming but I know this is no time to lose it. Somehow I keep my mouth shut.

“Are you saying that you want Cory to repeat his junior year?” my mother asks, her voice shaking. “Entirely? Starting next fall?”

The magnitude of this thought is still sinking in.
Not going back to school for several months, and then starting over in the same grade?
It’s almost impossible to deal with.

It’s also almost impossible to understand why none of my “friends” at this meeting are saying anything to defend me, especially my English teacher, who really likes me. She looks as if she’s afraid to speak.

As I search from face to face, I see that the one with the most negative look is my history teacher. This doesn’t surprise me, since she never did have much patience with me. I don’t think she ever really understood that I can’t do all the work all the time or that I can’t help being somewhat disruptive in class.

“It’s absolutely necessary for Cory to move on,” my mother says directly at the new caseworker, confronting her and the whole unexpected premise of the meeting. “I don’t know how you can even be thinking about making him repeat junior year.”

As she forces herself to continue, I can see her gathering strength. “All of the psychologists agree that Cory needs a new start, and is ready for it. Going backward will only make him revert to where he was when he had to” — she stops short for a moment, then goes on — “when he had to take a leave of absence.” She’s choosing her words very carefully.

“Look, Mrs. Friedman,” my new caseworker says with a sudden pleasantness in her voice. “We’re all here because we want what’s in Cory’s best interest, and we certainly don’t want to set him up for failure. As I said, we don’t see how Cory can possibly complete the present term since he hasn’t really completed the last one.”

My mother is speechless.

“He’s missed too many days and too much class work. We have thought about this long and hard, and we’re in agreement that he doesn’t have a chance to succeed in spring semester because he hasn’t built the proper foundation for it.”

She looks around the room for support from everyone about my terrible crimes of the past, but she doesn’t find any. Her voice is still hanging in the air when she sits back in her chair.

“But since I’m the newest person in this,” she says, “maybe it would be appropriate to ask for thoughts from those other members of our staff who have worked with Cory . . . just to be fair.”

The room goes quiet again as all await her first selection.

“Let’s start with his experience in math class.”

My math teacher is a little nervous as she begins, and I have no idea what she’s going to say. She was always nice to me but not always happy with my performance.

“Cory has shown the potential to be good at mathematics,” she starts, “but frankly I don’t think at this point he’s been in my class enough to grasp a lot of the fundamentals of Algebra I. I tried to keep him up to speed, of course, and when he couldn’t attend class, I gave him assignments to do at home, but he didn’t turn most of them in.”

My mother is about to say something but decides not to.

“Given that, how would you assess his ability to do Algebra II in this next semester?” Mrs. Hanover asks bluntly.

My math teacher hesitates. “It would be very hard for him,” she finally admits. “I’d question the wisdom of letting him go to the next level.”

I don’t think she wanted to say it, but she did.

Mrs. Hanover shifts her attention to my favorite teacher.

“Let’s talk about English.”

My English teacher seems caught off guard but takes a breath and manages to smile at me kindly. She’s obviously uncomfortable.

“Cory has a wonderful mind,” she begins. “He’s one of my best writers and has a vivid imagination. But . . . he
has
missed a great many assignments . . . which isn’t to say he still couldn’t do well in the spring,” she adds as a hopeful afterthought. “English is a little different. His basic skills are in place, but . . .”

Her words trail off into silence.

“And what’s been the experience in history class?” Mrs. Hanover continues.

My heart starts pounding in my chest. My history teacher has been the hardest on me in the whole school. I don’t think she’s ever liked me. If I have an enemy in the room among the teachers, it’s her.

And what she says doesn’t surprise me.

“Quite frankly, I don’t even have enough work from Cory to say he really has taken first-semester history. He hasn’t turned in the majority of his assignments and didn’t take his midterm exams. I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t possibly pass him on the basis of the work he’s completed. He would be cheated of the learning that didn’t occur.”

What’s best for Cory. Question the wisdom of continuing. Cheated of learning.

All the things they’re saying are just polite ways of telling us they’re not going to help me.
Why don’t they just come out and say they don’t want to give me a chance, don’t even want to listen to our side of things?

In a while, when Mrs. Hanover finishes with the teachers, she thumbs through a stack of papers in front of her. “There are also, of course, the issues of state educational standards that have to be met. According to Cory’s record, he hasn’t attended school for enough days to meet the requirement for last term. Technically, the physical education he’s missed is enough to set him back by itself.”

This seems like a totally random problem to me. The state is very big on gym classes these days, but everyone knows that a lot of the time, nothing much goes on there.

“To be truthful, a good deal of this decision is out of our hands, even though, as I’ve said, our guiding principle has been to help Cory in any way we can. I think we all agree on that.”

Some of the people in the room nod their heads.

Yep, let’s help Cory. Let’s hold him back.

“So, as you can see, according to the rules, we really have no choice but to require that Cory repeat his junior year. We’re sorry, really we are.”

Even though this decision has been obvious from the start, I feel a rush of heat. Lucky for me, my mother’s hand is around my wrist, grasping it tightly so I can’t get up and blow any chance I might have of changing their minds.
If I have any chance at all, which I don’t.

Mom and I exchange glances, and she has to be thinking what I am:
This will destroy everything just when I’m getting better. I have to move forward, not backward. I have to get my life going again, get through high school, and move on.

“Just give me a chance,” she whispers to me calmly, but I can see that she’s anything but calm on the inside. I know my mother.

“What it all boils down to,” the guidance counselor says when it’s his turn to speak, “is that we don’t see how Cory can possibly make up what he missed in the fall semester while he’s taking on new work in the current term. Up to now there’s been some . . . difficulty just keeping up with the regular work — not that he hasn’t tried,” he adds in a feeble attempt to be kind. “Plus, let’s be honest, there’s very little time left in the term. It would be a lot to ask of anyone.”

“Not for me,” I blurt out before I can check myself.

Mom throws me a cautionary look, and I go quiet.

That seems to be the end of the speeches. After a lull, everyone turns to my mother to listen politely to anything she could possibly have to say, to get it over with and then leave. Up until now Mom has let them get more and more negative without arguing, but I know that she won’t leave without a fight.

But it takes me off guard when I look at her and see that the unexpected gang-up seems to have been too much, even for her. Her eyes are brimming with tears.

And that’s when I can’t take it anymore. Suddenly the issue is no longer what’s going to happen to me.

“How can you do this to my mother?” I stand up. “Look what you’re doing to her. You’ve made her cry.”

Her grip on my wrist tightens, really tightens.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” I tell her softly. “It isn’t worth it. I’ll do anything they want me to. I can do it if I have to.”

For a long moment, my mother sits there, collecting herself. I can see she’s exhausted, not just from this but from a lifetime of helping me survive an endless number of crises. At last she’s come to one that she doesn’t have a chance of solving. This is the end of the line, the end of her energy, and I can’t blame her for giving up. Too much pain. Too much work. Too many years.

I scan the room again. In the end, not a single teacher has really stepped up to fight the decision that’s already been made.