the drawbacks of being kind

"How could my mom, do this?" Dewey said over his Android to his girlfriend Angie.

Strangely, things had been going so well for him over the summer and into his last school year. Dewey actually felt he had a future.

He winced, almost tears, thinking his mother was the worst. She'd always doubted him. Always... and then she goes and brings in some kid to foster.

"Its like..she's not the crazy cat lady with a houseful of stray cats, but somebody who's crazy enough to invite strangers to live here." Dewey was full of angst. Just once, he wanted some recognition. He wasn't nearly as bad a kid as his mother always assumed.

She never let him go out on Halloween.

"Hey, she isn't all bad." Angie pointed out. "She's helping out her friend, Doris."

"Yeah, but..but what about this Ed guy, she met at the grocery store?" Dewey fretted, as he paced his room. He looked at his thin twin bed. He'd been in that bed since he was five. Couldn't she think about him, once? Why didn't he have a bigger bed?

"Do you even talk to her?" Angie said she thought he was venting to the wrong person. "I'm just your girlfriend."

Dewey sighed. He didn't mean to make Angie mad.

Perhaps, she was right. They had stopped talking, a long time ago.

"Its just." He hoped Angie wouldn't get upset. "I have you now..and..and you mean everything to me."

"I know..I know..I love you, too." She told him there was a lot to do in the future, ahead of them. He would be going to Lincoln when he finished high school, and she planned to stay home and work on an educational degree in pre-school. They might not ever be together.

He thought of how she used to talk about how they would get a place together. But it wasn't like, right after high school. It might be a decade before it happened.

"I dunno if..if I can stay here." He hated to be this weak, but this was killing him. Angie was the only one who really loved him. Not his mom. Not now.

"Calm down. Just calm down." Angie's voice was kind, yet he sensed she wanted him to be patience.