****THE NEXT DAY****


I walked into Mikey's room and leaned against the door jam, folding my arms across my chest. He was texting on his phone furiously with headphones in his ears. He pulled them out and pressed pause when he saw me.

"Texting your girlfriend, Mikey?" I teased.

His face turned pink. "No," he replied stubbornly.

I laughed. "Well I gotta talk to Dr. Chris so I'm gonna take Frank over there." I turned to leave but Mikey spoke again.

"Can I invite Ray over?"

"Sure. Just don't break the law, burn the house down or put a fork in the toaster."

I walked into the hall and heard Mikey call behind me, "one time!"

"Let's go, Frankie!" I called from the front door. He bound over like an energetic child and we walked out to the car.

Once again, I held Frank's hand as we walked inside. The receptionist paged Dr. Chris and he took us to an examining room like before.

"Is there a problem, Gerard?" I handed Frank his book and he sat in the corner, reading.

"No, but you said to come see you if it ever happened again."

"So tell me what happened."

"I'm sure you know Frank was kidnapped," I whispered. "Well, he'd stolen somebody's phone and called me and he called me Gerard then. And I went to where he was being held and his da caught me and put me in the basement with Frank. I told Frank I would get us out and he kissed me and told me he trusted me then went back to his eight year old self."

"That's very good."

"What is?"

"Well, not only is Frank showing progress but even when the person who onset is PPS was involved he was still able to pull through. That means the kidnapping, which normally could've made it worse, didn't and quite possibly made it better."

"Really? Does that mean it'll happen more frequently? I mean it's been a year since its last happened. Could that change?"

"Quite possibly." Dr. Chris handed me a business card. "I changed my number. Call me if it happens again."

"Thank you, Dr. Chris," I smiled and held Frank's hand as we walked out.

I unlocked the front door and walked in with Frank behind me.

Mikey was straddling Ray on the couch. And they were kissing.

Notes