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Colton's good health insurance meant that he got an appointment that same afternoon. He asked for a double one and still ended up over-running by ten minutes. I barely spoke, but all the time he kept looking at me, glad I was there.

Dr Comfrey was as well. Wouldn't you know it, he got the same doctor who'd given me my sports physical for the last three years, an otter who I'd always thought was good at her job. She looked equally glad to have me there with him, and I wondered what Colton's past with her was. He didn't say sorry for any previous, but I got the feeling he'd been difficult, and now she was seeing a different side of him.

'So,' she said at the end of it. 'We're looking at a medication review next week and a therapy session as soon as you can book it. In the meantime keep taking the migraine medication, because it sounds like they're mostly working. Have a think about what I've suggested you add to them.'

There was a list of mood stabilisers. He'd asked if he could research them himself before saying yes. I could tell he didn't want to go on another cocktail of drugs, but I was relieved at his lack of protest.

'I'll have a look at what specialist treatment I can refer you for. This trial you're talking about, I'll see what I can find on it and get a few second opinions. How's all that for now?'

'It's fine,' Colton said, looking tired but relieved. 'Doc, there's something else I think I need. Can you get me sorted for an HIV test?'

'Yes. You can book that at the sexual health clinic on your way out.'

'You don't need...' I started. 'Look, that stuff I said before...why don't we just forget it? You were probably right. There's no sign you're infected.' I looked at my feet, then up at him. 'Is there?'

'No,' he said. 'But let me just do it. Then we can't argue about it again.'

'I'll do it too then,' I said.

'You guys keep it safe,' Dr Comfrey said.

* * *

'It'll come back negative,' Colton said, dragging thankfully on a Marlboro once we were down the street from the clinic. 'Promise. I only had unprotected with two others besides you and they were virgins. Trust me. One of them was Albie. The other was some sassy chick from a bar downtown who cried when she admitted it.'

'Why didn't you just tell me that?'

'It doesn't matter now, does it? We're both getting the test. Soon as it comes back clean, rock on. Right? Once we've sorted serious stuff out. Halfway there. You call Alfie yet?'

'He'll go round as soon as Dad gets back from the road.'

'Todd, be honest with me. Have I killed all our fun?'

'Of course you haven't. We're just...call this an extended time out,' I said. 'I don't want this to stop you being fun, of course I don't. It's only one thing about you that needs a little fixing. Have _I_ruined our fun? I don't want you on a leash, Colton. For about half a day I thought I did, but that won't work. I want you -'

'Oh. I should have known.' Colton smiled as he took another drag. 'Mum's leash talk. I should have warned you.'

Damnit. 'But it worked, right? I got you to that clinic. And you want to get this sorted out for you. Not me. Right?'

'Well yeah,' Colton said. 'But I'm sorry it came to last night.'

'So am I. Friends again?'

'Hmm, yeah, I guess that's a good idea.' Colton smiled and flicked his cigarette. 'Just gotta know one thing though. Are you glad the Tarbucks' place caught fire or secretly a little sorry for them?'

All I could think of was everything Drew had said to me in the bar, and how I was now effectively banned from the swimming club. 'Fuck 'em.' I mimed striking a match and throwing it onto a pile of gasoline.

'Yeah. Thought so.' Colton shook out another cigarette, then put it back. 'I still bet they did an inside job.'

'What if they didn't?' I said.

'Then...I guess they got really unlucky when the wrong person came to town,' Colton said. 'Unlikely though. Unless...I dunno, something does seem odd about it. You get in a fight and then someone who's definitely not you and not me and not your nutcase brother burns their place down. It's like someone was waiting for something to kick off with one of those guys and then maybe use it as a cover. Who else do you think they've pissed off?'

I shrugged.

'I've got another question for you,' Colton said as we got back to the car. 'Why don't you drive yet? If my thing's swimming pools, is yours cars?'

'Can't afford lessons,' I said. 'And what car would I use? Alfie borrowed a friend's, Rocco's only got the truck thanks to work, and he's always using it and I'd never get chance even though he'd offer to lend it if I asked.'

'I can help you take care of this,' Colton said.

'With what? All your wealth belongs to your parents.'

'Uh-uh, raccoon. It's called rich grandparents who pissed their daughter off by leaving everything they had to the grandkids. That's mum's one big hang-up, the one thing she can't be all laid back about if it comes up. I got half the stuff she was meant to inherit. Courtney got the other half. Mum was rich already but it's still a bit of a kick in the teeth, right? Especially with how I sometimes spend money.'

I couldn't help myself. 'How much are we talking?'

'Let's just say I wouldn't need a college fund. Even after two years of being a complete dick with money.'

I whistled.

'If you're going to be with me, maybe we ought to set some ground rules on how much I'm allowed to spoil you.'

That didn't sound like Colton. Before today, he would have told me just to get used to him spoiling me. 'Nah,' I said. 'Just do it if you wanna.'

'Seriously? Alright then. What kind of car do you want?'

'Let me think on it,' I said. I'd pick a cheap one, if I could be bothered to learn to drive at all. 'So this is why you're socially popular,' I said. 'Money.'

'Yeah, mostly,' Colton said. 'But not always.'

I looked at him as he drove for a few minutes. He pulled up at The Hub Box, a burger joint that I knew did the most amazing milkshakes. 'I saw you liked this place on Facebook. Strawberry, isn't it, your favourite? Shall we?'

'Sure. Why not? I'm probably banned from Argle's now. Let's see if this makes the grade for a new hangout.'

We sat with milkshakes, neither of us feeling hungry despite the smell of cooking meat and fries and onion rings all around us. 'Banana?' I said. 'I had you down as a chocolate fox.'

Colton looked like he was trying to interpret it as something dirty, then just smiled and looked at the pictures on the walls around him. All black and whites of good old American diners. The jukebox in the corner was on a perpetual loop of surf guitar music.

'The Shadows,' Colton said as a new track came on. 'Apache. Dad used to play this record all the time.' He looked into his drink for a moment, then gave me the same soft look he had right before he'd told me about his amnesia. 'There's something I want to ask if you'll help me do.'

'What?'

'Something just for you and me.' He ate a spoonful of whipped cream from the top of his milkshake and then wiped his mouth. 'The reason I got so many likes for that story on social media was that ever since the accident I've been documenting my life on it. It's my version of a diary. Just in case it ever helps remind me of who I was. Just think about it: one day people could tell me I did anything, and I could protest it might not be true, but I'd never really know. not unless I had some sort of idea of who Old Colton was. And who might remember. That's my diary. And the people who paid attention. Some of them, maybe I could even trust. You get it? But I want something better.'

'You want to write a diary together,' I said. 'The two of us. Because I'm your trusted person. And all the stuff that goes in it is the kind that doesn't go on social media. The real Colton.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'The good and the bad. The stuff I'd rather be and the stuff I need to know was there, even if it wasn't all good. First I loved you. Now I trust you.' He took another slurp of his drink.

'Yeah, we'll do that together,' I said. 'It's a good idea. But I still don't believe you'll ever be permanently gone.'

'I don't want to either,' Colton said. 'But I'm the one who lives with this. Trust me, it's a real fear. However much I don't want it to define me, it could be a long time until I feel like it doesn't. But why do you doubt it so much?'

'I've seen you fighting it,' I said. 'You don't lose. You come back because you want to. Despite all the stuff you end up thinking it would be a mercy if you could just forget. Because deep down, you know none of it's really that terrible. You're not a bad person. You don't really want to forget anything. That's why you come back.'

Colton stared at his drink looking unsure of himself, maybe unsure it was true, but then he sat back and said 'See? This is why you're my man, Todd-coon.'

'Why did you never tell any doctor about how you knew stress could trigger everything? As soon as you told Comfrey, it was like it was starting to get better for you already.'

'I dunno, Todd. What am I meant to do, play shrink to myself now? Why was no doctor ever smart enough to see it was something simple like that? And it's not just stress. It comes on when things feel like they're going well too, just when I always think it's stress. You saw Comfrey take my blood pressure, it was perfect. Only a day after all that?'

'Maybe it's not just that then,' I said. 'But if you manage to cool your head a bit more often, maybe that's a big step away from making it worse until you get to your gone day.'

'Yeah. Maybe.'

We sat for a moment, neither of us sure what to say, until eventually I brushed my bare feet down his legs, as if making a small peace offering by breaking our hiatus. He let me for a moment, then deliberately got his tail in the way so I could brush my toes through it and tickle myself, and we both smiled.

'I punish myself,' he said, sitting up as if to withdraw from our moment.

'What do you mean?' I said. 'That's the reason you never spoke up about all this?'

'Yeah. Deep down, I never wanted to be treated. I felt like I had everything. Luck, money, family, and people like me, even if it's not always for the right reasons. And let's face it, I am kind of effortlessly cool.' He struck a preening kind of pose at that one and smiled, but I knew it was making light of how he really felt. 'Why do I deserve any of it? When people who try harder at life than me just get nothing, for no good reason? I always tell myself I don't apologise for good fortune. But I do. I feel like having a nasty temper sometimes is my bad thing. And what it brings on is the rest. There's pretend punishment, like you pulling my tail and spanking me with my pants off. Then there's getting it for real. And I pray for it all to go away, wondering why the fuck I secretly ask for pain like that, and then when it does I feel like I beat it. And then the next time I really screw up, I deserve to go through it all again.'

'We need to write this down,' I said. '_That's_what you never let any therapist get from you.'

'It's not a magic release, Todd-coon.'

'But it's a start.' I got my phone out and hit the sound recording app. 'Say it all again. Like you just did.'

Colton leaned in to the microphone and looked like he was about to be serious, then sniggered. 'Forget it, buttstuffer. I'll remember it.'

I clicked the recorder off. 'I'll play you that next time you're on a blank day.'

* * *

When we got home, Colton came out with the sort of thing I'd been waiting all afternoon for. 'If we're going to do this who no sex till we've sorted life out thing can you just let me keep jerking off as a concession? I've got a condition to manage, raccoon, and with you in the house I'm going to be needing to scratch that itch despite the meds. If it'll help, I promise not to think about you while I'm doing it so it doesn't violate our agreement. I'll think about Trick and Dolphin doing it together. Deal?'

'Colton,' I said. 'Only you could have come up with that.'

'Alright, seriously, I do have hypersexuality and you know it's real. Be fair to me, let me do something even if you don't wanna watch.'

'It's your home,' I said. 'What can I do to stop you? And hang on, last thing I knew you were telling me you were exhausted and sore everywhere.'

'Why do you think always having a boner's not always a good thi...' He'd pulled into his street and seen the police car in his driveway. 'Aaaah Jesus_._ Okay, here we go. Ready to handle this? Let's just think about this.' He was driving at about two miles an hour to buy us more time. 'I'll confess I never went running. Then we'll throw the residents near the skatepark thing at them. They've got nothing. They can't arrest us. Just stick to what we already said apart from my confession. Agreed?'

'Agreed.' I wasn't even dreading it.

Not until I saw the two cops. The same two from the night of the fight, only this time they didn't look ready to confront me or set me straight, let alone arrest me for anything. This was a look I'd never seen before, but I still knew it.

'Mr Aldrington,' one of them said. 'I'm Sergeant Romero, this is Sergeant Riggs. I think you'd better sit down.' He looked at Colton who'd clocked the same thing I had, as if approving that he sat down with me. Not approving, but insisting.

My mind was blank, apart from the room around me and the hollow chasm in my stomach.

Which one of them? I thought. It has to be one of them. This was the kind of call Mum and Dad always feared they'd get about Alfie, but I knew it wasn't him. I knew it because the only thought I let in, past all the others that were surfing around like tidal waves in my brain, was what Rocco had said to me about how Dad was used to driving tired.

There was tired, and there was what he'd taken out on the road with him. I'd seen how exhausted anger could make Colton, and Colton wasn't even half my dad's age, and didn't spend hours behind a wheel, alone with just his thoughts.

'There was an accident this afternoon on Highway 51,' Romero said. 'Just before the turning your father would have taken to get back to the depot.'

The slip road down the hill. Nobody wanted to crash going down that, let alone a truck the size of which Dad drove.

'He was in a convoy with three other drivers. We don't know exactly what happened yet, but apparently a car on the other side lost control and crossed over in front of them. The two drivers in front of your dad were both killed pretty much instantly. Your dad smashed into the second one but he kept his truck upright, didn't go over. He got out the cab after it happened. Apparently he went to a woman in a car and tried to help her and her kid get out from where they were trapped. He got them out, but he didn't realise he was carrying a serious head injury. They both ended up helping him after he collapsed at the roadside.'

I felt Colton take my right hand in his left, and I was back, everything sinking in. 'And he got to the hospital, right? And he's okay now?'

I knew they wouldn't be here if it was that simple.

'When they sent us out with this,' Romero said, 'he'd made it to the hospital but his condition was going downhill pretty fast. Last we heard, they managed to get him stable but critical. They're not sure what's going to happen next. We went to your mum first and Rocco, and he got Alfie round and they've all gone to the hospital. Your mum asked us to come to you because she wasn't sure if you'd pick up the phone to anyone right now or answer the door. And she says she'll understand if you don't go. And she said to say when your dad wakes up, if you didn't go, she'll tell him it was all his own fault for what he said to you.'

God, that sounded like mum, even when faced with losing the man she loved. And she'd have known how I'd react: I didn't care about any of that Saturday morning anymore.

'Get your keys,' I told Colton. 'We're going.'