The Best of Her

Chapter eleven

Mavis.

I wonder if I would die if I open the door of the moving car and jump out.

"Mavis, Mavis, I'm talking to you," I look away from the window and stare into my father's concerned eyes. "I hear you," doesn't mean I was listening. But I've already memorized his words by now. "Mavis you should go back to therapy," "Mavis it's time you start taking your meds again," "Mavis you need to be more careful," and so on.

I'm honestly tired of it. I know he does it because he cares, but it's honestly suffocating at some point. At twenty-one years old I still live with my parents and my father still drives me to school. All that because he dims I'm too unstable to be driving around since I burned down a house. I am perfectly fine and I was completely sane in my head when I decided to start that fire. If I was unstable, I would have burned it down with its people inside of it, but yet I didn't.

The girls of that sorority deserved worst than that.

"You're zoning out again," he remarks and I snap out again. I take a deep breath and hold his gaze. Maintaining eye contact with him is the hardest sometimes, he can be so intimidating and I hate looking at people in the eye for too long. But I have to do this now, "can I please have my car back?"

"Will you start taking your meds again?" he asks a question that I've answered a hundred times before. "You know my answer to this,"

He looks away at the road with a stern look. "Then, you also know my answer to your question."

I sigh and fall back into my seat. I can't even say he is not being fair, since he bought the car with his money, and he pays for everything else that I own. After my failed attempt at working, my parents just decided that I don't need to since they make enough money on their own. I appreciate and I'm grateful for it, but deep down I somehow feel like a burden.

"Mavis, sweetheart," there it is, the soft side of dad. When he uses the word sweetheart I immediately know. "I know you struggle. Don't deny it, I can see it. So why? Why do you put yourself through this when there is a solution to it?"

Because I want to be able to control my emotions without the help of stupid meds. They can indeed make it easier, but some have horrible side effects that my parents tend to shrug off. They are not visible to them, so they don't think it's a big problem. I don't blame them, I don't talk about it. When it comes to my mental health I don't talk much. So they think me taking the meds is better for me, will make my daily life easier. But it took me a big will to stop taking them. They can be addicting.

"Why can't you understand that I'm trying to be better in my own way, I don't need medication to survive dad, I'm doing just fine." it wasn't true, but I'm working on it.

He sighs in defeat and shakes his head. "So do I get my car back?"

"When I start to see your improvements, I will think about it."

That means not until you do what I say.

He drops me off at campus and I make a straight point to my sociology class. I'm early which is why the classroom is pretty much empty only for the few students scattered around. Then I saw him, sitting on the fifth row. His eyes already plastered all over me. I forgot I had this class with him, I'm not prepared to face his unraveling gazes and too curious questions.

I had put the situation of that night far away in the back of my head, refusing to acknowledge that it even happened. That's why I stay away from people, and mostly people like him. The ones that want to know too much, that try to dig too deep to know you. He wants to know the real me but he would run away quickly if he saw the real sides of me. No matter how much of a nice person he is, he will not like what I have to offer.

So I do what I do best, ignore him. I make my way to the opposite side and take a seat, acting like he doesn't exist. I could feel his eyes on me, burning holes through my back.

I had fun that night. He is easy to talk to, and the way he looks at me like I have his entire undivided attention was nice. I usually hate it when people stare too hard, but it didn't feel creepy from him. Everything was nice until he asked that question. And I was hurt, because of how right it hit me. I tell myself that I don't hate myself, only a part of me but is it true? Or am I just delusional? My mind is one tricky place.

Do you know why it's a tricky place? Because a part of it expected that June would try to talk to me. I expected him to ask me why I was avoiding him, and tell me he still wanted to be a friend. I would have ignored him, or told him to leave me alone. Then why was I disappointed when the professor came in and June didn't try to speak to me? Why did I even care? I never needed friends, I don't need him nor want him to be my friend.

The lesson started and the lesson ended, and so many questions went through my head, and it wasn't related to anything of the lesson. Maybe he thought I was weird for the way I reacted? A freak? Too sensitive? Pathetic? Fuck, I hate this.

I saw him leave the room, and I did what I shouldn't have done. I followed after him. He was a few feet away from me, slow walking with his backpack thrown over one shoulder. Messy chestnut hair, that looks soft and shiny, fresh out of a shampoo advertisement. People passed through us while I thought about if I should call out to him or not. And I did. "June."

I didn't think he would hear me, be he turned around and held me with his heavy gaze. He waited, not uttering a word. I am an idiot. "Stay away from me,"

He smiled the smile that annoyed me so much when we first met. Maybe because it was genuine, and I was jealous. I'm still jealous of that smile, it's more real than I will ever be. His brown eyes gleamed with joy like he just won a conquest I didn't know we were playing. And then he says, "do you want to grab a coffee, Mavis?"

Without thinking, I nod.