N. came home at 9:30 PM. He wanted to come in. He admitted to skipping classes again but he said, once again, that he had to do it to be sure that Danielle was all right. He said he had seen her in the morning, at school. He admitted that he had been planning to cut his classes to see her and that he had lied to me to get bus tickets. He said that Danielle had told him not to cut classes again, and he promised he would not cut classes again. He wasn’t wearing his jacket. He said he had lent it to a buddy, which tells me how he spent the rest of his day. He said I did not understand his feelings, how badly he needed to see Danielle. I said that he had broken more rules, blown off school, and lied to me. I gave him another jacket and a bus ticket. I said he had to go to the shelter and stay in CFS care for at least a few days, and to keep going to the TRY program. He said he would be too upset and stressed to continue in the TRY program.

I told him that I knew he had been late or absent 10 or 11 times in the first 4 weeks and one day of the program. (At 13 he will be suspended or set back and required to take a remedial week). I said he had no choices and no chances left. He could not come home if he was suspended from the program and his mother felt the same way about his moving in with her*. I said he should go to the shelter or call CFS and call me after he has gone to school consistently for a few days.
He cried, he raged, then he kicked in the window on the front door. He is gone again. I went into his room to clean up and I noticed the smell of cigarettes was lingering. I found a butt in his waste basket, but I couldn’t find the ash. He had rolled up a sheet to block the door and smoked in his room overnight. Another rule broken, another boundary violated – and again I suppose my rule was just stupid and anal.
I don’t know how to maintain a relationship with him. I have to set rules, and he consistently tests and breaks rules.

*When he called me Friday night, he had said his mother had promised that he could live with her when he completed the TRY program. I doubt that she said that because she has not even given him her address, but she probably held out some hope. I don’t think she can stand him because he would pollute the divinity of her intentionality or disrupt her energy flows with negative thoughts(she does talk in those terms within her cult circle). He is an uncouth teenage boy, a particularly angry and offensive one who is very masterful at expressing the power of his own intentionality.