The Calling | The House of Voices #1

Ten - Arguments

Arguments

 

October wasn’t glaring at him.

She seemed to be focusing her anger at something directly behind him, but after turning around for a quick inspection, he couldn’t pinpoint what she was staring at. Maybe she’s just trying not to look at me, Parish thought sadly as he recalled his meeting with her last night.

“Jeez, October!” The leggy, almost-redhead girl – who he assumed was Kara – groaned. “Would it kill you to chill for a second?”

Parish watched October closely, noticing anger and fear flashing behind those deep hazel eyes of hers. “You’re the one who went all bipolar on me, and yet I’m the one who has to chill? What kind of logic is that?”

Kara rolled her blue eyes at her friend, crossing her arms over her chest in a show of indignation. “Okay, fine. I wigged out on you, yes. But that was no reason for you to scream and run away like that!”

Beside him, Sid coughed under his breath and shot Parish a knowing look. Parish caught the meaning behind the look without a problem. October had been hallucinating again. Even without Sid’s nudge, Parish probably would have figured it out on his own – the distress on October’s face made that clear.

“I’m sorry about that, okay?” The girl snapped irritably, looking everywhere but at the face of the person she was addressing. “I just got a little frustrated at your outburst.”

Confused, Parish lifted an eyebrow at Sid, who just shook his head. “Later.” He whispered, before nodding back at the angry girls.

Kara snorted. “Yeah, right. Funny how this is the first time you’ve gotten pissed off because of one of my outbursts.”

“Good grief Kara. Would you just drop it already?” October hissed through her closed teeth, her hands forming tight fists by her side. “I said I’m sorry.”

Seeing Kara’s mouth open for a rebuttal, Sid hastily interjected. “Calm down, Kara. This is all just a big misunderstanding. October said she was sorry.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Parish thought he saw something move. Glancing around himself warily, he turned to see what it was but was disappointed when he found nothing.

Funny, he thought.  I could’ve sworn I saw something.

Shrugging it off, Parish turned back to find that Sid had joined the two quarrelling girls. He took a small step towards them and halted in his tracks when he felt a familiar sensation creeping up his spine. Goosebumps prickled across his skin and made the hair at the back of his neck stand up. Suddenly, the sound of Kara’s whining made Parish want to slam his fist into something; the sight of October’s horror-filled eyes made him want to snap at her.

A small part of Parish desperately tried to grab hold of his calm once more, but it was too late. His disease – his curse – had taken over and his anger was in control of his body. No matter how much the voice inside his head screamed for him to get a grip on things, he couldn’t.

Fuming, the boy stomped over to the two girls. “Can the two of you,” he hissed through gritted teeth, “shut the hell up already?”

Sid and Kara whirled on him in astonishment, while October merely glanced in his direction. Apparently, she had been expecting him to behave like that. “Dude” Sid’s exclamation drew Parish’s gaze away from the girl who wouldn’t look at him. “What the hell?”

Parish shrugged at his roommate. “Their freaking yelling is driving me insane.”

“You were worried about them less than a minute ago.” The other boy countered, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. “What the hell happened?”

“He’s got a multiple-personality disorder, Sid.” October answered softly, shaking her head at Sid. “Just in case you forgot.”

Sid raised an eyebrow at her, frowning. “Yeah, I knew. I just didn’t think he’d me this… volatile.”

Parish felt his anger rising. “Can you jerks stop talking about me as if I’m not here?”

“Maybe if you calmed down for a minute, we wouldn’t have to.” Kara’s slightly high-pitched, feminine voice answered him.

“Yeah? Well maybe if you didn’t—”

“October? Parish?” A deep male voice cut Parish off mid-sentence. Slowly, the two people the voice had addressed turned to face the source of the voice. Parish wasn’t surprised to find Dr. Michelson standing in front of them, scrutinizing the group; he recognized his voice. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing, Dr.—” Seeing the look on his face, October swallowed her words and corrected herself. “Darren.”

Parish raised an eyebrow in confusion. October was Darren’s other patient? What were the odds?

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.” Darren replied, giving the girl a concerned look. “Parish, what’s going on here? Did one of you…?” He trailed off, not wanting to finish his sentence. Parish knew what he meant, though, and if he guessed right, so did October. The good doctor had wanted to know if any of them had experienced another attack from their diseases.

“Yes.” Parish answered, nodding before October could reply. “It was me.”

A small part of him had figured out that she had too. That was why she had freaked out on Kara instead of being the calm, collected girl she usually was. And for reasons unknown to him, Parish couldn’t let her admit that. He couldn’t stand the thought of her having to admit to her friends that maybe she actually was going crazy. Maybe it was empathy; because God knew how he’d felt when he’d had to admit that.

Or maybe it was him feeling guilty for the way he’d spoken to her last night, as well as how he’d treated her less than a few minutes ago.

He couldn’t tell for sure. What he was certain of, however, was that he could not let her tell Darren, as well as Sid and Kara by default, that she’d been hallucinating. He couldn’t.

Darren looked at Parish with a frown on his face, a dubious look if he’d ever seen one. Didn’t he believe it was him? Or had he seen the look on October’s face and realize come to the same conclusion that Parish had?

The doctor studied Parish’s face for a second longer before finally nodding. “I guess it’s a good thing that it’s time for our first session, then.” He smiled warmly at the group, expressing cheeriness that none of them felt. “Come on. We can talk in my office.”

He turned around and started towards his office, motioning for Parish to follow behind him. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he stopped and turned to address the group again. “It’s a nice day outside. It would be a shame to waste it indoors bickering. Go out, have some fun.” Kara and Sid glanced at each other warily, while October looked as if she was struggling not to roll her eyes at Dr. Michelson. “October?”

She gave in and rolled her eyes at the meaningful tone in the Doctor’s voice. Parish glanced between the two of them, slowly understanding their unvoiced conversation. Going outside was some kind of therapeutic way of keeping October’s mind busy and the Doctor was trying to remind her of his orders without making it obviously to the rest of the troubled teenagers in the room.

It was the only logical explanation that Parish could think of.

Not that I’ll ever find out if I’m right, he thought glumly. It’s not like I can ask her.

As if she could hear his thoughts, October turned to face him, slowly raising her eyebrow in a silent question.

Shaking his head at her, Parish turned on his heels and followed the young doctor into his office, already dreading his first therapy session.