You Make The Pain Go Away

Chapter 5: Almost There?

Chapter 5

Get to bio class. Dana thought.

Dana tried to focus in on what she wanted to do. The split second that the last bell of the school day rang, where all the students thought in unison "thank goodness," Dana commanded her body to stand and walk out of class.

She didn't make it far, only stopping close to the class, but losing track of where her body wanted to go that it just froze up against the wall by the bathrooms.

Dana felt a hand touch her shoulder gently. Then it pulled her forward and around a corner. It kept pushing her, and Dana kept staring at the floor. Too fixated on all of the racing minds of her fellow schoolmates to even realize that it was guiding her.

Finally they stopped walking, then she was gently guided into a chair. Dana sat there. Unperturbed by the amount of time passing.

When she finally came back to life she looked up surprised to see Miss Queens marking up quizzes in front of her.

"Miss Queens. I made it to class then?"

Miss Queens looked up at Dana then at the clock. "You did. But then you left with all of the other students."

"Ah." Dana layed her head down on the desk, letting her backpack slide off her shoulders and into the seat behind her. "I'm so dumb, when the bell rang I thought 'get to bio class' not even remembering that I have you for Biology AND anatomy. Both first and last period."

"I thought so. I watched you walk a little ways then just freeze. So I knew you'd ran out of your habitual ways. I went and got you. Then I waited for you to come back to your senses."

"Thank you." Dana mumbles into her folded arms. The embarrassment already burning up her cheeks. "Ugh so dumb."

"You're not dumb." Miss Queens set her red pen down. The unfairness of this whole situation was criminal.

"I was just delt a lowsy hand. Nothing anyone can do about it." Dana turned her head up to face her teacher.

"No. We can do something about it. We can solve this even if we make you wear a tin hat around."" They both chuckled at the image that came up in both of their minds.

"Not happening!" Dana chortled. "We can try anything but that!"

"Okay okay. So let's get to business." Miss Queens restacked her papers on her desk only to pull out a binder full of empty sheets. "So I've been brainstorming and I think we need to first test out your minimums, maximums, brain capacity and such. I did some research on brain function and wave function. Maybe we'll find our secret there."

Dana listened, every sentence her teacher said sounded like another lie. Every verb, noun and adjective was just another forked tongue hissing. Even if she didn't mean it to be.

They can't solve something that doesn't exist. Two minds can't fix something like this.

"-anything occurred that was strange to you?" Dana zoned back in again, realizing her teacher was actually trying to solve her problems.

Then Dana sat and thought about it. Had anything occurred that was strange to her? Anything that couldn't be explained? Anything that actually gave her hope that she could have a life-

"Yes actually. There was something that happened. I'd met a boy... 2 nights ago."

"What was so strange about that?" Miss Queens folded her hands in front of her body. Leaning forward with interest... or for insight.

"I couldn't hear his thought. It was almost like he didn't have any. It wasn't that he wasn't thinking though... no it wasn't that. It was like he lives so much in the moment that he didn't think on anything. He was literally a live and let live kinda guy."