Story [Parenthood] The Good Boy Disorder -- Drew Braverman-Holt stream of consciousness

Title: The Good Boy Disorder
Author: karebear
Rating: G
Timeframe/Spoilers: The scene in Episode 1.9, ?Perchance to Dream?, with Drew in Adam?s kitchen.
Standard Disclaimer: These characters and this world are not mine, they are used without explicit permission, and I write this for fun, and never for profit.


Oh my God, in what universe is any teenage boy jealous of his sister? But that has always been his situation. He squirms in his seat and resists the urge to bang his head against his uncle?s kitchen countertop (and hello, even the countertop is perfect, better than anything he?s ever had), instead halting his movement at an extended, but still respectable, blink.

He doesn?t even sigh, just breathes, deep and silent, a trick he?s perfected over years sitting in the background of the world-shaking fights between Mom and Amber. And out of the corner of his eye he sees his cousin?s lacy black bra go flying across the room, and Uncle Adam looks so simultaneously funny and frustrated that all Drew can do is bite his lower lip to keep from revealing that Amber?s been dressing like that for as long as he can remember, which is probably since he was eight and she was ten.

And that?s why he?s jealous? because she doesn?t care at all about the rules, and never has, and she gets into fights with Mom at least twice an hour but is still the favorite, probably because they both have boobs. Amber is not scared of anything, whereas he can?t even walk into a lamely decorated high school gym and instead runs to this living room where everything is neatly put away, so that he can watch a baseball game, even though it?s too early in the season to matter at all.

Max doesn?t look at him, doesn?t react to him in any way, and a light starts to flicker on in his brain, a spark of recognition, that maybe that is why he comes here. His autistic cousin doesn?t care one way or the other what Drew does or doesn?t do, and Uncle Adam is so conditioned for wild tantrums and fights that he will never ask what?s wrong when Drew is quiet and follows the rules. He ignores Haddie?s bra and watches Max, but only out of the corner of his eye, because Max will go ballistic if he thinks that someone is staring at him.

Drew thinks about how Haddie probably has fought more than one battle for her younger brother, the same way Amber did when some fourth grader was picking on him the year he was six and she was eight. She thought she was helping, but in fact she made things worse, because now in addition to not being able to stand up for himself, he was actually worse at fighting than a girl.

He knows that Uncle Adam likes when he comes over here, because then he can pretend that Drew is the son he wishes he had, the one that will let him watch sports and in fact will enjoy watching them, the one that has never been kicked out of school nor even been suspended, as Drew knows Haddie recently was (though he also knows Uncle Adam does not know about this) when she was caught breaking into the nurse?s office to steal condoms.

But Drew knows that Aspergers is all about not being able to make connections with people, because he?s been looking it up sometimes lately, because of Max. He thinks about how he couldn?t make eye contact with anyone in the gym, how he couldn?t form words into any coherent sentences even though usually he gets the highest grades in his English class, how he ran away. He wonders if, in fact, he also has something like Aspergers.

He hears Uncle Adam repeating his name, each time more urgent, more questioning. He blinks again, and looks up, stopping just short of meeting Uncle Adam?s eyes.

?You okay??

Drew doesn?t nod, but instead just shrugs his shoulder. He does manage to say, out loud, ?I?m fine.?