Devante was looking at Janina. He thought she looked like she was okay now and what she did on Friday never happened.
“What exactly is wrong with you, anyway?”
“Dr. Lutkin says it’s a depressive disorder, ‘not otherwise specified’. And that I have some features of schizotypal personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder. He’s let me read some psychology books. It’s like another language.”
“You speak it well.”
Suddenly, the little boy stomped on his balloon and popped it. Devante was so startled by the sound that he screamed and ducked under the table. It sounded like a gunshot. He was so paralyzed by fear that he couldn’t move.
“Are you okay?” Janina asked him.
But all he could do was sit there, frozen.
“Are you having a flashback? Can you hear me?”
He couldn’t. In his mi
