don't speak.

chapter fifteen

           

I looked around the office. It was a nice place. She had pictures of her family smiling cluttered around her desk and hanging crooked along the walls. College flags and fliers littered any other available space. Mrs. Aidez anxiously clicked her pen as she waited for me to speak. She'd heard about me – I was sure of it. With all of the theatrics I'd done in the hallways it'd be impossible for anyone within a ten-mile radius to not know who I was.

In retrospect ten miles is hardly anything – given the great big world out there. But if you're in the right situation, ten miles can be everything.

Aidez went to open her mouth and that's when I started talking,

"It's said that just sitting in a room with a counselor can help." I blurted out – not wanting her to tell me my time was up or that I had to go to class. "just being in their presence can improve your ability to make sense of things and ... cope." My voice trails off as I see her smile slip an inch – I start to wonder if she ever stops smiling.

"And is it?"

"Is it what?"

"Is it helping?"

I looked back to the wall. These walls promised a future. But I didn't want the future I wanted the past. More specifically I wanted to reach up to the clock on the wall and turn it back until the day before the party and relive it and do it right this time. I wanted to get caught in that loop and never have to move forward and never have to think back.

"Look sweetheart," She reached across the table and placed her hand on top of mine, "I don't know what brought you in here but I know people don't just waltz into my office for the heck of it." Her nervous laughter seemed to ricochet off of the walls and aim directly at me.

"I – uhm," Now I was the one with the nervous laughter, I tucked a chunk of my hair behind my ear, "I promised a friend I would get some help..." I paused, trying to get the words out of my mouth.

"You know what? It's stupid, I have class, I should go." I started to push myself out of the chair when Mrs. Aidez pipped up.

"Whoa, hold on there Miss Maya take a seat, I'm officially calling you into my office – so you can't leave."

She had trapped me, and I obediently took my seat. My fingers curled up around the arm rests on my seat as I got the itching feeling that the walls were closing in around me. This room suddenly looked far too cluttered and there wasn't nearly enough space for everything – there especially wasn't enough space for me. Above all the panic Aidez's voice sang to me,

"Maya? This is okay." I felt her move over to me and she placed her hand on my back, but it doesn't startle me. It felt natural – as if she were my mom snuggling up to me after work. "You're okay." She repeated.

Slowly but surely my heart rate slowed and I found myself sitting across from Mrs. Aidez once more. Her grin had dropped down to a tightly pursed smile.

"Maya, have you experienced an attack like that before?"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her. She must have thought me to be some kind of idiot. Even if she'd stayed cooped up in this room every day she would have heard about the Infamous Maya Hart. The spaz. The freak. The slut. I looked down at what I was wearing today. It's just a t-shirt and jeans – courtesy of my mom's closet. After the nurse sent me home yesterday and my mom saw not only the state of me but also my closet she suspected what she called a 'compulsory teenage identity crisis'. She loaded me up with a few of her most indistinguishable outfits to help me "blend in while I figure myself out".

"You've got to be kidding me." I humph, crossing my arms over my chest, "I know you know. Everyone in this school knows." There it goes again, I watched her smile slip a fraction of an inch and then bounce right back into place.

"I've heard... things. But I'm only trying to hear from you right now Maya. Tell me what brought you in here."

I looked back to the wall, doing my best to lock away the tears that I could feel forming in my eyes. Against my permission, a few rogue drops slithered their way down my face. I quickly bat them away. In the end I turned to face her, my eyes were red and puffy and my entire body was starting to shake.

"You want to know what brought me in here?" I shouted a little louder than I intended to, I adjusted my voice accordingly but it still came out as an angry rasp. "A few weeks ago at a party a boy brought me into a bedroom and held me down onto the bed. He held both of my wrists above my head with a single hand and with the other he pulled my hair. No matter how much I fought him he ripped off my best friends dress and what was once my favourite t-shirt. He then proceeded to-" I stop. I couldn't say it. I didn't want to. And by the looks of it I didn't have to. I'd completed my promise. This was enough. I pushed myself up from the chair and made my way to the door, turning back only once to look around the room. But only one thing caught my attention; Mrs. Aidez was no longer smiling.