Liars Garden

Chapter 9

Leslie was still there the next morning, to my surprise. Hanna was not, also to my surprise. Or at least, she wasn't at lunch. I thought I had been off to a good day till my last teacher walked up to me, a pink slip between her fingers. I took it like it was made of acid.

The school counselor wanted to see me.

Of course.

I couldn't think of a single time I was called down to the counselors office for anything other then changing my schedule around. It defiantly was too late in the year to change crap, so my brain turned to static. What was this about?

The counselor was a pretty young woman with dyed red hair and a bland yellow skirt/suit set. She had a single run on the back of one of her nylons. Her shoes were oddly dirt free. The plaque on her desk said, "Ms. Haringtom" but she told me to call her Val when I sat down on the little poof she had across from her.

"Hello, Annie. It is nice to see you. I just wanted to touch base with you today. Just making sure everything is going okay." If her smile got any wider it would split her face in two.

I sighed. "If this is about Leslie skipping yesterday, my mom's already taken care of it." I wasn't going to tell Val that my moms way of taking care of it was waking Leslie up at 2am and having her scrub every dish in the house with her toothbrush, regardless if it was dirty or not. I had felt bad and tried to help, but Leslie told me to fuck off five minutes into it.

I didn't even want to help. I just didn't want the nightmares anymore.

Val shook her head. "I talked to your sister already. I wanted to talk to you. I've had someone raise some concerns about how you're doing and I wanted to see if there was anything you wanted to talk about."

"What did Leslie say?" I snapped that. My heart jumped into my throat.

She didn't blab.

She knew she had to stay quiet.

I was going to be eighteen soon.

I could go to jail....

The thought nearly stopped my heart. If someone told could I go to jail?

"Nothing, really." Val's smile seemed to be mocking me.

"Well nothing really is happening. I'm fine. I don't know who told you otherwise." I smiled back at her. Her eyebrows knitted together. "Seriously. Leslie is just rebellious, but everything is fine. I think it's just middle child syndrome or something."

"I wasn't asking about Leslie, Annie. I asked about you."

This was playing out like it did in movies. Except I wasn't going tosay anything. I couldn't say anything. Ever.

"Everything is fine with me. Can I go now?"

Val frowned as I stood up. "Annie, someone close to you said you were having a difficult time at home. I'm just concerned. If there's anything you want to talk to me about..."

"It was Hanna, wasn't it?" I snapped. Val stared back at me. "Jesus christ, everything is fine. She just saw me and my sister having a spat. That doesn't mean things are horrible at home. Can't two sisters fight without someone thinking it means something deep?"

"Well, yes. They can...."

"Everything is fine. Leslie is difficult. My dad left. My mom works a lot. But everything is fine. And I would like to go back to class so I can graduate this year." As I reached for the doorknob the last bell of the day sounded and I used it has the perfect excuse to run out of the room.