The In Between

14: The Anthem

What I'm saying is this is the anthem

Throw all your hands up

Y'all got to feel me, sing if you're with me

Another loser anthem.

I texted Annie before counseling started. "Hey, Cam and I are going to the park after school and he asked if you wanted to come."

"did u tell him yet???"

"No. I don't know if I should."

"u could tell him, it might make his day," she replies, saying exactly what I told her yesterday. She texts again, "dont be nervous. Idk that he'll feel the same but he might hug u n smile n stuff."

I roll my eyes, and then text back, "Oh look, you are my sister. You have my sass."

"C u @ the park bro"

Counseling was a bit different today. "We're not splitting up into our pairs today. I have an activity we all have to do together. We can redo this every month or every few months, if the need arises, but for right now, the project stands: We need a name for this group other than 'peer counseling' or, as David told me earlier, 'Ms. Wyatt's group of crazy suicidal misfits.' Come on, man, don't let them get us down. Let's start thinking of names. Write them down and we'll share them with the rest of the group. We can pick from that."

I started thinking, and the first thing that popped into my head was the last thing I expected. I wrote it down on the paper I was given. I continued to think of ideas and wrote them down as I went.

"Alright, does everyone have at least one idea?" Everyone mumbled an affirmative reply. "Good. So let's go around the circle."

Brian suggested 'F*ck off.' Ms. Wyatt said it would never be approved by the principal. Aaron said Killjoys, and Kaylyn jumped down his throat about not steal MCR's fandom name. Heathens was his next one, which Ms. Wyatt wrote down. Kaylyn says, "I don't suppose 'Crazy suicidal misfits' is a good idea?"

"No."

Kaylyn's other idea was 'Unicornia taco paradise'. I swear she's on drugs. David's idea was 'Blurryfaces'. Not a bad idea. She wrote that one down, too. Cam suggested 'Buzzkills'. Another one that got written down.

Finally, it was my turn. "Well, this is gonna sound really stupid, but Kindergarten."

Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot, except for Cam and Ms. Wyatt. But Ms. Wyatt did look confused. "Why is that your idea?"

"Well, the kids that landed me with Ms. Pines, and then in here, kept referring to counseling as 'Kindergarten.' I don't know if anyone's said it to any of you, but they kept trying to taunt me with it. If we take the name ourselves, whether officially or not, it takes away their fun."

"Hmm. Not a bad idea. Any other ideas?"

"The In-Between. Because we were in between a rock and a hard place. Now we're in between our problems and our solutions."

She wrote those down. "What do you guys think?"

Everyone seemed to like The In-Between, but half still held out for Kindergarten. Finally, she says, "What if this is The In-Between and you guys are the Kindergarteners? Would that work?"

And that was that. I was now a Kindergartener in The In Between.

"Okay, I can recognize that this was only started a week ago, exactly, and on a mandatory basis, but after talking to the principal earlier today, and realizing we'd both had the same idea, we're going to change something. Starting tomorrow morning, anyone can sign up to join, it will be counted as an extracurricular activity, and when your period of mandatory attendance is over, you can choose to keep coming, or to quit, but you have to let me know. You can also choose to change how often you come; again, letting me know. However, it could mean having to switch partners. We'll work on a couple of other ideas over time, but for now, that's what we've got. The activity for today is thinking up ideas you wouldn't mind seeing here. If you're planning on running for the hills as soon as you're no longer required to attend, then you don't have to worry about it, but if you have some ideas, write 'em down and hand them in."

We spent the entire period thinking of ideas and activities for the group. Neither of us planned on leaving The In-Between anytime soon, it seemed.