Mystery Girl

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next time I saw Alana was Wednesday, 12:30. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get her to tell me just why she tried to commit suicide. If I was going to help Alana, I needed to find out just why she did what she did. I asked her all the questions I could think of, but nothing.

"Were you being bullied?"

"No."

"Were you having family problems?"

"No."

"How about self confidence issues?"

"No."

So what was it that drove her to trying to kill herself. I asked her about school, friendship groups, boyfriends, grades; and honestly I couldn't see anything wrong. She was head cheerleader, popular but not mean, she didn't have a boyfriend, and she got straight A's. That's when it hit me? How about ex-boyfriends?

"Alana, how about ex-boyfriends? Have you been getting harassed or stalked or anything?"

That's where she stopped.

"Alana?"

"Look River, I haven't exactly been having the best situation with 'boys' lately. And I can't afford for it to get any worse."

"Alana, if someone's harassing you, than you need to tell me. I can help you get rid of them. I can help you stay safe."

"I can't afford do that River."

"And why is that? If you're scared there's no need to be."

"Nothing can get better if you don't tell me."

"And telling you, could make this 10 times worse. It's just...it's...complicated." and she turned her head down, playing with her thumbs.

"And it can't get any better if you don't tell me," I told her, folding one of her hands into both of mine

She looked up at me with fear, hurt and so many other emotions playing across her face. Then she looked down and my hands and slipped her hand out. She reached to get something out of her drawer. Her phone. She unlocked it and opened up her photos. She showed me a photo of her and a guy. They were both smiling.

"This is my ex-boyfriend. We broke up 5 months ago. I found out he was cheating on me so I dumped him. He threatened me, saying that if I broke up with him I wouldn't hear the end of it. I thought it was just a stupid threat but about a month after I dumped him, he started harassing me. He followed me home. He started saying that he was coming for me. This went on for about a month. Then one day I was walking home and I walked past this alley and these guys ganged up on me, they beat me and then left me. After I recovered I just stayed out of his way. I don't know why he kept doing it but about 2 months ago he started harassing me again. And this time I just couldn't take it."

The entire time she told that story she didn't look at me once. I took her chin and made he look at me.

"I can help you. We can talk to authorities and get him arrested. We can do this...together. You're not alone."

"River, I know about all that stuff, but I..." she continued in a mumbled tone and looked down, "There's more to it than."

"Well, if you don't want to open up just yet, I won't force you. But for now, we can start off with this guy. Look I have another patient now but we'll talk about this again on Friday. Ok?"

"Yeah sure." Alana replied. Still looking down.

I took her hand, gave it one last squeeze and walked out.

Woah. So there was an ex-boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend who was harassing her. Now this was going to take more time that I thought.