Bob was doing better.

And not in that artificial "I'm fine" and disappear into his locked bedroom for a week way.

Recently, he'd gotten it in his head that he wanted to take the GED. You'd known that he dropped out of high school, but you never pushed for more information.

It came out in time, asides, quiet mumbles when he thought you weren't listening.

The car accident, the ensuing addiction.

Not something that needed a bigger discussion, not when you knew the constant monologue he kept in his head.

So when he brought up studying, you were the first to support it. He needed to learn how to actually study, and you needed something to do that wasn't wandering around the tower in boredom.

You found yourself in his room, the soft, warm glow of lamplight around you as you held a social studies textbook up in the air. (You'd insisted on buying him lamps and unscrewing the bulb from his overhead light, murmuring something about the room they'd set up for him looking 'clinical'.) The Elliott Smith CD you'd bought him skipped from his over playing, restarting the chorus.

"What are the three branches of government?" That earned an eye roll from him, and a quick struggle to get the book out of your hands.

After giving up, he leaned back on his headboard, adjusting his laptop on his crossed legs. "That's the third time you've asked that. I'm gonna kick you out if you don't find a new page to pretend to read."

Okay, maybe you were guilty of zoning out on a single page about checks and balances. But it would be on the test!

You looked over at him, refocused on whatever practice test he was taking on the computer, his brow knit just barely as he reread a question.