Dark or Light?

Chapter 24

Obviously, my parents heard about the incident and they want to talk about it with me. My mom just calls when she hears I’m home, again, and asks what happened. I give her a summarized version of it. He was trying to get back together or fishing for something and I snapped. She asked if I wanted to talk about it. I told her no. We argued about how I never talk to her about anything and after about 5 minutes, she hung up on me. She always has to have the last word.

            I sit on my bed, trying to calm myself down for the conversation that I’m about to have with Dad, when there’s a knock on my door. I open it and am surprised to have familiar arms thrown around me. Elane holds me in a tight embrace.

            “Are you okay? I heard what happened and came over as soon as I could,” she says in the most concerned voice I’ve heard come from her. “Are you okay?”

            “I’m alright, I guess.”

            “What exactly happened? I heard it from people that heard it from someone else that wasn’t even there, so basically, I was one person in a school wide game of Telephone and I know the version I heard isn’t the truth.”

            “What did you hear?”

            “Just that you and It started working together on an assignment and out of nowhere you started freaking out and some people swear you started arguing with yourself before you started screaming that you hated him and totally lost it and then Henry swooped in and calmed you down and that you 2 got locked in a room until someone could come pick you up.”

            “There’s more to it than that.” I see Dad stand at the end of the hall, waiting for me to come into the living room. “I can explain more, later.” I look up at Dad and pull from the embrace. “Can she stay?”

            “That was the plan, but we need to talk, first.”

            “I’ll wait in here,” Elane says as she slips into my room and shuts the door behind her.

            I take a seat across from my dad in the living room. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, loudly.

            “So, what happened at school, today, Dam?”

            “Well, Aiden and I had been paired up and we bickered about the work distribution and how we were going to work on it and then he brought up fixing us and we argued about that and I kind of just… snapped.” I look up at my dad to see if he believes my doctored story. I think he does.

            He looks down at his hands with a thoughtful look on his face, trying to pick his next words wisely. “Dam, you snapped badly enough for the authorities at school to lock you and Henry in a room. They want you to be evaluated by a psychiatrist. A lot of the kids who witnessed the incident are afraid. It was bad.”

            They don’t understand. “I don’t need anyone to evaluate me. I’m not crazy. I’m totally fine.”

            “The story I heard from the school and you say different. You’re not fine. We need to find out what’s going on.”

            “Stress. It’s been a really stressful past couple of weeks with school. Break will help. I swear, I’m fine.”

            “Are you sure, Dam? The school gave us the number of a place, here in town. It could help.”

            “I don’t need their help. I’m totally fine.” I’m not crazy. I don’t need that kind of help. I just need to get rid of Samolio. I never should’ve let him in. None of this would be happening if I hadn’t let him in.