Just Breathe

Chapter Sixteen

Emilia was fuming. She ran her hand over her face, pushing the loose strands of hair away, as she fiercely scrolled through reddit on her laptop. She was trying to work out her Calculus problems and none of her solutions were making sense. She had been trying to get through the assignment since getting home an hour prior and it was going to hell. She was searching for any sort of quick problem solving solutions they wouldn't take her an hour a question- which was the rate she was at. As hard as she had been working lately, she felt so behind. She had been spending so much time SAT prepping and working on her college applications that she still hadn't even read half of the last chapter.

She finally found a document that looked somewhat promising and began printing it out, marking a check mark next to the full page to-do list she had created at the start of the week. She wasn't even a quarter of the way done with it.  She could have texted Miko or another one of her classmates for some of their notes, but she would rather die. She had garnered a reputation for being the overachiever and the one who others came to for notes. With her class standing still in jeopardy and seemingly half of her senior glass already garnering at least one college acceptance, there was no way she was going to lose that.

She let out a loud sigh as she stapled the pages, putting them to the side to look at in a few hours. Now that Lia had math, somewhat, in order she had to move onto her AP Government Exam that was the next day. She grimaced even at the sight of her textbook poking out of her backpack- knowing she hadn't even finished the last chapter and the exam would cover three. It was already nearing six. How could Dr.Sanders just let her sleep when she had a million things to do? And she knew this! This didn't even take into account the amount of SAT prep she had wanted to finish or the way her stomach dropped whenever she thought about the test being in less than 48 hours.

Lia went to grab her water bottle to take the two pills and get started on the government binge she had before her when a knock at her door interrupted her plans. She quickly pushed her book on top of the bag with seconds to spare when her father popped his head into her room.

"How's it going?"

"Dad, I don't have time for this,"

Lin leaned against the doorframe, pursing his lips as he could foresee the direction the conversation was headed towards, "Lia, we need to talk,"

Lia kept her eyes focused on the textbook she was opening, "I know mom sent you in here, and I know you want to talk about what happened at therapy and I already told you I don't have time,"

"Well, we are going to talk," Lin stated as he stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him. His tone wasn't loud or harsh, but it was firm. "And mom didn't send me in here. She told me about the call from Dr.Sanders and she's worried about you. We both are."

Lia rolled her eyes, as she flipped through her notebook and started writing down the bullet points from the text. Adults always manage to freak out over the smallest of things, "I fell asleep and then had to rush home to study, which I'm trying to do right now ... and what the hell ever happened to patient confidentiality?" She said frustrated, shaking her pen as it started to die not even a sentence in.

Lin ran his hand across his forehead as he sat down on his daughter's bed. He wasn't a stickler for cursing; Lia rarely let it get out of control. However, it was also a sign this conversation was going to go in circles, "Dr. Sanders didn't tell us anything you said," he assured her, "But she does have every right to call us if she has genuine concern for you. Lia, you're driving yourself into the ground,"

The teenager tried tuning out the conversation as she searched through her bag for a new pen, "You fell asleep during the middle of your session. You hardly come out your room anymore and you're getting more irritable by the day,"