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November 5, 2011. Saturday.

I spend most of the afternoon cleaning, and as the day stretches on into boredom, I decide to decorate the house. Not with turkeys, but with the boxes of Christmas decorations stored in the basement.

So what if it's too early?

Buggy makes the process harder than it needs to be by trying to eat the garland.

November 6, 2011. Sunday.

"It's not even near Christmas, Dorothy," Alan says as he helps me with finishing touches on the tree. By finishing touches, I mean placing the ornaments high enough up the tree that Buggy is unable to either swipe them off with a tail wag or, worse, easily reach and eat them.

It's an odd looking Christmas tree.

"Buggy insisted," I say. I battle with the star on the top and give up when it continues to sag to the right. "He's spirited in that way."

"…he's also pulling the stuffed Santa off the windowsill."

We sigh. Buggy is spirited, indeed.

November 7, 2011. Monday.

"Danny?"

His jaw clenches, and I immediately decide to change the questions I had about Friday. We're in a delicate place; saying the wrong thing now has the potential to have him shy away from me entirely. What help will I be if he decides confiding in me is to none of his advantage?

"Do you want a candy, Danny?"

He eyes me like Buggy does when I pretend we aren't about to drive to the vet. I yank open the somewhat jammed drawer—I need a new desk—where I keep my personal ashtray of assorted, wrapped hard candies. When I set it on the edge of the desk, his wary stare changes as one eyebrow slowly arches. He glances between the green crystal bowl and me, and I bite the inside of my cheek.

"I used to smoke," I inform.

He gives a drawn out nod of his head, and I can nearly hear the sass in his voice, even as he stays silent and chooses an orange peppermint. He pops it into his mouth and twists the plastic wrapper in his hands.

"Have you ever smoked, Danny?"

He continues staring at me with a clear expression of amusement. At least he's in a better mood.

"I'll be honest with you, Danny," I say. "I started smoking in my sophomore year of high school and I only quit about three years ago. I liked my ashtray, so I keep it to remind myself I quit and conquered that part of my life. Just because you start something doesn't mean you can't stop. You can always change—"

"No, you really can't," Danny cuts in. Like that, the bright turnaround in attitude is gone and he's somber as he focuses on the fingers crumbling the wrapper. "With some things, maybe. You can change your clothes or your eating habits. You can change what you watch on TV. You can change whether or not you go to the gym." His gaze flicks up to mine. "You can change whether you smoke or not. You can't change everything, though. Sometimes, when you start something, there is no out. You can't stop. And if there is an out, it's not going to make you feel any better about yourself, so what's the point?"

He gives attention to the tree outside the window and hides the candy wrapper in a tight fist. I put my ashtray away and smack my knee off of the stuck drawer while trying to close it.

Rubbing the pain away, I ask, "What is it that you can't stop?"

"…I can't stop the fact talking to you will never change anything."

I feel there's more he thinks he can't stop, too.

"You'll never know, Danny, if you never talk to me."

"Believe me, Mrs. Collin." The wrapper flutters to the floor as he brings up tired eyes. "Talking usually just means more trouble."

November 8, 2011. Tuesday.

Danny's five minutes late when my door unceremoniously bangs open and he's shoved inside.

I sit back in surprise as Sam firmly points at him and states, "You are not getting suspended over this, you jerk. Sit your butt in the chair."

She slams the door shut.

Danny blinks a few times before perching on the arm of the chair and murmuring, "Normally she's all about defying authority and breaking rules…"

I smile and shrug. "I suppose when it comes to her good friends, she's a bit more serious. She must really like you."

He hears the hinting in my voice and scowls at me. Without another word, he gets up, plucks Cujo from my desk, and crashes back down to hide his face among the pages.

I log on to my email. "I kind of wondered when you'd want to continue reading that. I finished a while ago, so when you're done, let me know what you think." I delete more than a handful of spam messages and then check the news. "Oh, look, five foods you should never eat. What do you like to eat, Danny?"

"I'm reading," he clarifies as he flips a page.

So he is.

November 9, 2011. Wednesday.

I'm leaning against the windowsill when he walks in. He awkwardly stumbles to a stop and stands in place. When I don't sit down behind my desk, he shuts the door and folds his arms.

"You don't mind me standing, do you, Danny?"

"Mind you standing? Of course not. It's your office."

He minds. I changed the normalcy of the room for him, and now he's on the defensive. "So do you want to play?"

He frowns, pulls his lips tight as he tries to work out what's going on. "…play what?"

I drag a beaten down hacky sack from my pocket and toss it to him. Both arms snap out toward it out of reflex, and the not-so-circular ball hits one of his palms before plummeting to the floor. He stares at it, stoic as he eventually toes it with his foot.

"We're going to break something," he finally decides.

"Not if we just throw it." He humors me by picking it up and throwing it back. As we get a rhythm going, I ask, "What do you want to be when you graduate from here?"

He snorts. "You've seen my grades, right?"

"A few slipups doesn't mean you can't graduate and go to college. Unless you don't want to go to college. Either way, what do you want to do?"

He chews on the corner of his lip and shrugs.

"Ghost hunt?"

He fumbles with the sack and struggles to catch it. Warily, he eyes peer through his bangs as he keeps his head tilted downward. "What makes you say that?"

Every time I bring up ghosts, he gets antsy. Why? "Your parents are into it. The family business, right?"

"Oh." The nervousness melts off of him as he appears like he's about to ridicule himself for being silly. "Yeah, I don't think ghosts are my thing." He tosses the sack back.

"No? What's it like growing up with ghost hunters for parents?" I'm honestly curious, as well as trying to draw him into a deeper conversation.

"Weird? I guess. I dunno, I mean… Like, when you're in elementary school, you hear kids saying their dad is a firefighter or their mom works in an office, and I just… My parents make experiments in the basement and believed in ghosts far before we knew they actually existed. It's not exactly normal. Dad lost the house in a parallel dimension once." The confusion on my face must be obvious. "Oh, come on. Ghosts are real, but you can't believe in my dad doing something like that? Have you ever heard of the Ghost Zone?"

I laugh and shake my head. "I guess anything is possible, Danny. And I don't know much about the Ghost Zone. And your family…" I try to think about what I do know. "They have a portal? Is that it?"

"The portal that connects to the Ghost Zone happens to be in our basement." Danny doesn't look thrilled by this fact. "We keep it shut so nothing gets out, but ya'know, stuff happens…"

"Does that freak you out at all? Scare you?"

He ponders for a moment and stops to hold the hacky sack between his hands. "…not really, actually. It's… I mean, having it in the house isn't always easy, but… I don't mind it." The tone of his voice suggests he's surprised by what he has to say. "…it's not bad all the time."

I wonder what he's realizing. "And you don't want to take after your parents?"

He chuckles and rubs the back of his neck. "Ghosts? I think I've had enough of them at this point. Plenty of them, so following after my parents would be just too much."

He's nervous again as he makes a throw. "Then what do you want to do?"

"It's never gonna happen, but I'd love to be an astronaut."

"What do you love about astronauts?"

We go past our time as he prattles on about every space-related topic that pops into his head.

November 10, 2011. Thursday.

"Do you have a lot of friends, Danny?" I know he doesn't, from what other teachers have said, but I still ask.

He crosses his legs in the chair and rests his hands in his lap. "I have enough."

"Sam Manson and Tucker Foley." I doodle in the margins of my pad. My stars are all uneven. "Anyone else?"

"Valerie Gray."

I nod my head. She'd been in to see me a few times since her father lost his job. "Good friends?"

"I'd like to think."

There's sadness there. "Were you really close at some point?"

He scrunches up his nose as his face burns red. "I mean, nothing lasted—"

A smirk plays at my lips. "But something had bloomed?"

"We're not so compatible. Well, we are, actually, but…" He suddenly grins at me. "We fight a lot, you see."

I don't know why he's so proud of that fact.

Unless he's proud of something I'm not realizing.

November 11, 2011. Friday.

Danny sports a black eye when he quietly steps inside and sits down. "Don't ask about it," he says.

I have to ask, though. "Dash?"

He shakes his head.

"…someone else? You can tell me, you know."

"Sam says that you're not allowed to tell anyone what I say." He rubs his thumbs over each other. "You're not a real therapist, but since you're counseling me, you can't tell people what I say unless it's, like, a risk to someone else or something."

"Pretty much. So you know what that means, right? You can tell me anything. Including how you got that black eye."

He's silent for a while, and I think, that just maybe, he's about to tell me something important.

Instead, Danny slouches back in the chair and rolls his head to a tilt as he stares at me. "I don't trust you, though. So that means I can't tell you anything."

Understandable. "What would make you trust me, Danny?"

He gives a little smile. "Nothing, to be honest."

At least he's honest.