The Cascading Waves of Caden Lee

40

CADEN LEE

"Mr. Lee, We've brought you here because—" The counselor starts, a middle-aged brunette woman, but I interrupt her before she can say much. "Caden."

"Excuse me?"

"I go by Caden," I correct her somewhat rudely, not caring enough to feel bad.

"Oh! Yes," She shuffles the papers on her desk somewhat awkwardly, "Of course."

I don't respond, just shift in my seat. She continues on, "We need to talk about your grades, Caden."

This feels eerily similar to the 'talk' me and my mom had not too long ago. "What about them?"

"They've dropped. Drastically. You're a junior now. Are you planning to go to College?"

I hadn't really been thinking about that recently. I know I should, that I don't have too long until I'll have to start applying to colleges—But I have other shit to deal with. Like my mom, my dad, the pills...

Like Scarlett.

"Yeah," I lift my head from my lap, eyes making contact with hers, "I am."

She sighs, "Okay, any specific ones you'll be applying to?" Typing her fingers rapidly on the keyboard of her desktop computer, she glances up at me from her thin, wire-framed glasses.

"Uhm, I haven't decided that yet." I say lamely. Without a doubt giving off the impression that I don't care about my future.

"That's fine," She types some more, probably about what I just said. "You have some time to decide. But you need to be thinking about that, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Now lets go over your grades..." Her words halt as she pulls up my report card, "You're failing three classes."

"Oh." I say, stupefied. "Which ones?" I had forgotten about that. My mom's gonna be pissed when she realizes I never brought my grades up.

"Algebra Two, Chemistry, and English. Three core classes."

"Yeah, okay. I'll get those up." I lie once again. I rarely ever do my homework anymore, how am I supposed to fix three failing grades?

I'm just too tired. Always. I don't have the energy to do anything productive ever.

And I know it's catching up to me; How more and more people are catching onto the fact that somethings off. How if I continue down this path, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to leave.

How this could tear my life in two—and how I'd just let it happen.

I'd do anything for the Oxy. It's toxic, but it's all I know. It's like my brains been re-wired into this completely new being—One with deep bags under his eyes and a permanent slur to his voice.

"You will?" She asks, "Because if you don't I'll have to email a guardian."

"Yes," I promise, "You won't be needing to do that."

There's a tightness in my chest that hadn't been there before. And what's sick is that I can't tell whether it's the guilt of my lies—or the Oxy disagreeing with the scarce contents of my stomach.