How To Stay Afloat (BxB)

Chapter 6: Anxiety sucks and so do drug tests

There's gonna be mentions of self-harm.

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When I get home from school my parents are sitting in the kitchen.

"I'm happy that you're finally home." My dad greets me, his tone makes me realize he's mad and has definitely been waiting. I forgot that my mom wanted to eat together. Fuck. I stayed twenty minutes longer at school, talking to Carla.

"Sorry, I was talking to my bio teacher." I lie. I'm not good at lying. But I'm starting to get the hang of it.

My dad looks up at me while I sit down. "What about?"

"I asked him about the finals. And he told me what to focus on." I tell him what he wants to hear.

He smiles. "That's great. Have you already talked to your other teachers?" Of course it's not good enough.

"Not yet. They are busy, it's hard to find time to talk to them. It's only the third week." I tell him, trying to sound polite.

"I understand, you still have plenty of time." My mom assures me as she sets the reheated food down on the table.

She cooked potato goulash. She sets one plate without sausage down for me and the other two have sausages inside.

"Thanks, mom!" I say. I love goulash.

While eating they talk about Martha coming for dinner tomorrow. Why don't they move in already? Thank god I have school until 6 on thursdays and have an excuse to not sit with them.

"How was work?" I ask both of them when they finish their conversation.

My dad sighs loudly. "Stressful." He says. My mom looks at him sympathetically and strokes his hand. I try hard not to roll my eyes. "Lots of paperwork, it takes ages to find something. You'd think by now we would store everything on computers, but no." He says.

"Maybe Sam can come visit you and help you organize your files." My mom suggests and turns to me. "That way you can learn something and your father has time to concentrate on the rest of his work." Great. As if my voluntary job wasn't tine consuming enough.

"Why don't you just keep them in the right order in the first place so you don't have to search for everything?" I ask.

My dad smiles. I expected him to get angry actually. "It's not that easy. When you start working as a doctor yourself, you'll know what I mean."

My stomach twists uncomfortably. I barely ate anything. How can I be full already?

I nod. "Maybe I can come around if I find time, but I don't know if I'm a lot of help and I don't think it's legal for me to see the confidential files." I say.

He starts laughing. "I'm the head doctor in my ward. If my son wants to come and help me, no one's gonna say anything."

Wow. I'm glad I'm not a patient at the hospital.

I look down on my full plate and my stomach growls right on cue. I know that I should eat more but it just makes me sick right now. It's my favourite dish so why can't I eat it up?

"What do you think?" Dad asks me.

"About what?" I want to know. I forgot to listen to him oops.

"You coming over saturday afternoon to help me." He says. Does he think this is a gift to me? That I can't wait to come over and help him at work? Because it sure seems like it.

"Sure." I say to please him.

My parents smile proudly at me. Oh god. I don't deserve this, I keep lying to their faces.