It was around four in the morning when Kya got back. No lights were on when she approached the house, and she didn't bother turning any on when she walked in. Everything was quiet; she was the only one making any noise; her footfalls and the sound of the fabric of her clothes all merged together in a disruptive song, until her sister cleared her throat and everything stopped.
Ezra was sitting at the kitchen table, darkness under her eyes and a frown on her face, watching Kya. Kya didn't know if she was supposed to watch back, so she smiled and tried to turn away. That, apparently, was all that Ezra seemed to need. The scrape of the chair on the tile shattered the silence. She couldn't tell if Ezra had done it on purpose. Kya watched her sister disappear up the stairs.
There had been some kind of dialogue in the way Ezra had looked at her, but she wasn't exactly sure what it was. Kya wasn't thinking straight and anything that was supposed to be said seemed muffled and distant. She sat at the kitchen table herself and laid her head on the cold, wooden surface.
Kya didn't really know what she was thinking, but none of it was helping her out. Living was strange. Living a lie was even stranger. Clearly, Ezra knew she was lying, but there wasn't anything anyone could do. Kya smelled of cigarette smoke and she knew that. Everyone thought that she got out of Dalacine because they thought she was better enough to only go back to counselling. That hadn't been what had happened.
The truth was that after Kya had spent some time crying on the floor with Aaron, he took her back to Dalacine where the woman at the desk informed them that they had been just about to call her parents and asked if they still wanted her to. Aaron had given Kya a look that told her she should, but Kya told the woman that she just wanted to talk to Jeffrey. As much as she wanted him to stay, Aaron left without saying much else other than telling her to stay safe.
When she knocked on Jeffrey's door, he had been expecting her. He called for her to come in and then told her to take a seat. She did both of these things without saying a word, listening to the ticking of a clock on the wall and trying to pretend that she was just in a classroom, waiting for the hour to pass so she could leave again. But she knew that this was a bigger deal than that. She thought they were going to discuss why she had run away from the place that was supposed to keep her safe and ask her what she had done in the short time that she was away.
Jeffrey, instead, asked her who the boy who brought her back was. Kya stared at him for a moment as if he had just asked her if she knew she had a second head. "He," she paused, "he's Aaron."
"How do you know Aaron?" He had asked her.
"My friend," she had said, but she wasn't sure whether that was what she would call it, "I met him when I used to go out to, you know, that place."
"Did you go to him?"
"No, I went to where we used to see each other," Kya had explained, "I don't know why he was there, but I guess it helped me out."
Jeffrey had paused to walk around his desk and take his seat opposite Kya. He didn't have a notepad or anything to hand. He was just there to listen. He said, "Do you think he cares about you?"
Kya resisted the urge to tell him that no, she didn't think he cared; in fact, she didn't think anyone did because if they really cared they would have made sure that she didn't end up in a mental hospital in the first place. But she knew that didn't make sense because she was the one who had been hiding her problems for so long and letting them continue until a mental hospital had been the only option. She just wanted someone to be able to understand what she was thinking without her having to tell them. Everything was easier if she didn't have to verbally address anything. That didn't make sense either though, because she didn't know anyone who could read minds, and even if she did, she didn't think they'd have a nice time reading hers.
