Page 50 of Hearts of Fairlake

"Don't know," he answered in a perfect recreation of his mother's irritated voice. "She just said we had to be nice and told me to stop yelling at her."

"You were yelling at Grandma?"

"At Amber!"

"Oh."

"And then Grandma."

"I see," I said, knowing it was not a good idea to let my amusement show. He might have calmed down for the moment, but as Bennett had learned, laughing too soon afterone of Colin's emotional moments was a sure way to start it all over again. Sometimes, I worried about how sensitive Colin could be; the world was hard enough without adding extra sensitivity into the mix. Then again, with the way Amber was shaping up, hopefully, the two of them would get along better because she would make a good protector. "Well...should you have yelled at Grandma."

"I didn't mean to," he muttered sullenly. "But she wouldn't listen!"

"I know, and that's frustrating," I agreed, rubbing his back. "I don't like it when people don't listen to me either. But what have we said about yelling?"

I could see he didn't want to respond from the way his face screwed up and then fell. “Not to do it."

"What else?"

"That loud words aren't better...that I should talk, not yell."

"Right," I said, giving him a little hug. "And I know you were really upset, and I don't blame you. Being bitten and then ignored like that."

"I was! It hurt."

I took a breath, reminding myself that if I wanted him to learn how to deal with his emotions, I would have to be a good example, which meant not losing my patience because he was singularly focused. "I bet. But what should you have done?"

"Talked."

"Right, but first?"

"Ummm...not screamed?"

I chuckled. “Take a break so you don't feel like you're going to scream when you want to express yourself."

"Oh yeah," he said, looking pleased that he was close to the correct answer. Not that I blamed him. He was five, not fifteen. I wasn't expecting him to remember the concepts wetried to teach him, let alone be able to put them into action consistently. Hell, some adults didn't know how to take a breath before exploding with emotion, far too many of them at that.

"Oh, and before I forget," I said, looking into his eyes. "Do not ever, and I meanever,take off on your own like that again, understand? I know most people around here are friendly and nice, and I know you, but that doesn't matter. If you got hurt, someone might not be around to help you. You always stay with whoever's in charge of you, got it?"

"But—"

"No, absolutely not," I said firmly. "There is no but. You could have been hurt, and you scared Grandma and Grandpa."

"They were mean!"

"And you don't get to hurt their feelings just because you're mad at them. If you can't agree with me, we're going to have to make it so that you're not taken out of the house for a while, understand?"

"Yes," he said miserably.

"Good," I said, kissing him on the forehead. "You're a good boy, and we all love you. We don't want something to happen to you. Now, where did Amber bite you?"

He pulled back the collar of his shirt to show me the mark on his shoulder. “There!"

"Okay," I said, looking it over and seeing that his sister hadn't broken the skin but had left a few imprints. "I'm sorry about that, buddy. I'll talk to Amber later, okay?"

"Okay," he repeated, apparently over the bite but not the outrage of being silenced.

We emerged from the large park area that made up the town center and came out where the police station and firehouse sat side by side. It was one of the few areas downtown that weren't cordoned off. Having access to the firehouse andpolice station was important. Even then, since most of it was cordoned off, this was the quietest I’d ever seen the downtown area during the day. That was if you didn't pay attention to the music streaming from the firehouse which told me Chief Borton wasn't in at the moment, otherwise he would’ve been throwing a fit.

---