Hollow

Chapter 12

 That's what I saw, Dr. Minoka . Don't look at me crazy too. "I'm not." She said. "This is a safe space, Hollow. Whatever you saw, or think you saw, I'm not here to judge, i'm here to understand you."

" I just saw her. In the living room, on her rocking chair. I mean, I think I handled the situation pretty well, anyone else would just scream.

"Let me ask you something, Hollow." She said out of nowhere. "How did you feel, seeing your Ma'am?"

I looked down, wondering how I should answer that question.

"This... shock. Ran through my whole body. It felt scary." Like, as soon as I saw her I felt a shock run through my whole body, and then it alerted my stomach to instantly swell up.

It wasn't a good feeling. I know it's not real though. I shrugged. Had to be a hallucination or something.

She was silent.

"It isn't real, right?" I asked.

Look, she said. I'm no person to ask about spiritual things, but me speaking, from what you're telling me, I think it's real.

"And why do you think that?"

The smell wasn't fake, you can't smell imaginary things. People usually say when a loved one is near, you smell them, like they're typical scent.

Ma'am would have said something to me, it's not like her to not talk, that's all the woman did. I said.

Well, You experienced it, not me. She said.

"Changing the subject, how did you fall asleep that night, did you?"

"Of course not! I chuckled.

See,

Timmy woke up for a snack, because his mom wouldn't let him go to the kitchen after a certain hour, and Timmy being Timmy did not listen to those rules, and while he snuck out of his room to feast on a few gummies, he saw me facing the wall in the hallway.

Hollow, What are you doing?" Timmy asked. "Wow, are you sleepwalking?"

"Is she gone?" I asked quietly.

"Who?" He asked.

"You don't.. See it?" I turned around slowly.

I passed him and looked in the living room.

I stood still for a couple seconds, which.. Well, it turned into a couple minutes.

"Mom! Hollows acting crazy again!" Timmy called out.

Then, a couple minutes later I ended up in Mrs. Toledo's bed. Waiting hours until 6AM to get out of bed. I stared at her window. Watching the sun take its sweet old time to get in the sky. I couldn't sleep.

Why should I tell you what I was thinking about that whole time? You already know anyway.

Miss Toledo knows? Dr. Minooka asked.

I nodded. "Why do you think I'm here?" I joked.

"Your managing with your grief Hollow, that's why you're here. SInce you experienced a significant loss, nobody really knows how to help with that. " Dr. Minooka said.

I sighed.

"I don't understand my life. " I admitted.

"What don't you understand about it, Hollow."

"I don't understand my life, like.. The most random things happen to me, I have to be the only girl that can't go in public, I have to be the only girl who has no involved parents, I have to be the only girl who lost the only person who mattered in her life, I had to be the only girl that has to deal with everything that comes her way, and I have to be the only girl who... can't be normal. " I said.

"Like I said, I didn't choose for any of this to happen, it's just the way it is, and it's like god is telling me to deal with it."

"Hollow," Dr. Minooka said. "You have a point, and I understand where you're coming from, but listen.. Your time will come, only with patience. Things may be rough now, but just remember that, everything that starts out small, comes out big." She said.

"You will get your time Hollow, but now you just have to start out small."

I get what you're saying, Dr. Minooka. I said, "But I feel like whenever I start out small, my life just comes out smaller."