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Chapter 14

Charlotte O'Brien

My dad walked out of the house first, dramatically throwing open the front door and yelling into the crisp air, "Her royal highness, Queen Charlotte of the land of Sarcasm and Sassiness has graced you with her presence and her wit." My mother laughed from behind me. Her tone was the same one she had when she ruefully sighed his name after he said that next time we go to London, he wanted our whole family to dress up as characters from Alice in Wonderland and hold random tea parties all throughout the city, or when she informed him that his shirt was both inside out and on backwards because we had both slept in late and he had rushed to put on anything half-decent before he drove me to school. It was the tone she had whenever she was reminded just how odd and unique the man that she married was, and just how much she loved him for that.

She squeezed my left shoulder, her thin fingers strong and skeletal-like as we both walked to my father's mom-van. My mother had cleared her whole schedule for the day, and after our meeting with the counselor, she and Dad were planning on having a "date" by going to a museum, eating an unpronounceable lunch, and sifting through old antique shops and book stores. My parents got to go paint the town purple and I was stuck in a maze of crowded hallways, rancid breath, and stabbing shoulders.

The morning felt bright and chilly; my hands started shivering slightly as I unfolded my sight cane in my left hand and slid my earbuds into my ears with my right. They were essential for me to get through the school day. Other people could look at a clock in the classroom or sneak a peek at their phones if they wanted to know the time; I had to have a robot voice tell me as my fingers tapped around on my smart phone's smooth surface. At the beginning of the year, the teachers had tried to make me remove them, saying I could always ask them or another classmate if I absolutely needed to know, but when I blatantly disobeyed them and kept wearing my earbuds, they gave up. They reasoned that it didn't hurt anything because I was still getting my work done. That was when I still cared about doing my work.

Mother opened the sliding car door with a grunt and I boosted myself inside, reveling in the scent of sandalwood and vanilla. On a day with so much anxiety, it felt good to be surrounded by my favorite scents, almost like Braylynn and Ric were in the car with me, riding with me to my ultimate doom. I shoved my backpack to the floor, my NoteTaker rattling against the useless binders and the math book the school had to order specially for me. Mom closed the door with a click and slid into the passenger seat in front of me. Dad was humming as we all fastened our seat belts, but not his usual merry and relaxed tune; it sounded like something just to fill the empty air, to distract himself. I turned my head to the left, wondering at the warmth that seemed to be radiating there in the chilled car. I had felt it all morning, like a happy thought or memory, but in corporeal form. I had felt it in the dream I had the night before.

Dad started the car and pulled out of our driveway, and Mother flipped the radio onto a classical station. I could hear her heels tap on the car floor. I reached into my right pocket and pressed the unlock button of my phone. Immediately the robotic, feminine voice told me that it was 7:34 A.M. Our meeting with the counselor was supposed to be at 7:30 and it took ten minutes to get to school. I felt my heart sink lower.

I had been trying not to think about the counselor, about what the meeting would bring, but now it all flooded my thoughts, turning my veins to ice and filling my eyes with tears. The counselor's office was where you were supposed to feel safest, where you felt secure and comfortable, but it was the only area of the front office that I dreaded. It felt like an ice palace, where if you spoke too loudly you would cause an avalanche and disturb some sobbing freshman who just realized that most of her friends probably don't like her. It also felt like the counselors just gave off judgement, like it dripped from their pores like sweat. Why haven't you applied for scholarships? Why aren't you doing better in class? Why aren't you rising to your potential? As if high school wasn't enough, we had to struggle under the weight of our "untapped potential" and "upcoming future." I usually drowned it in a sea of clay, slip, and murky water, but when it was shoved in my face, I had no choice to acknowledge it.