Meadow

two

ONE CLASS PERIOD LATER

(DESIGNATED PAMELA TIME)

It's strange to walk into Pamela's office with something worth sharing. Still, I'm not planning to utilize my makeshift therapy session the way I'm intended to. Honesty and progress would just be too easy. I enter calmly, serious but not too serious, and plop down in my chair.

Pamela's desk is messy as always, littered with papers, cracked coffee mugs, haphazardly stacked file folders, and enough yellow legal pads to make an attorney salivate. She's searching for my file as I come in, stray tendrils of hair falling into her face. At least with Pamela, all is as it should be. I can't say the same about my classmates.

After a few moments, Pamela makes her way to the foamy couch across from me, precariously balancing a fat file folder with L. ROEHL scrawled across the front, an overflowing mug, her phone, and several pens and highlighters in her arms. Finally, she drops everything on the coffee table in front of her and collapses on the couch. Blowing a wisp of hair away from her mouth, she straightens up and crosses one leg over the other. Pamela composes herself faster than anyone I know. She goes from utter stress to complete stillness in a split second. Her legs shine like they've just been shaved, and her outfit is meticulously planned, all the way down to her silver earrings matching the tiny buttons on her blouse.

Giving me a tight-lipped smile, Pamela begins the session the way she always does. 

"So...how is Lane today?"

I take my obligatory pause and scrunch my eyebrows. You know, the give me a second--I'm reflecting look. Pamela waits patiently. This is the part where I make up something completely untrue just to see how deeply she's willing to wade into my fictional problems. In my eyes, I'm doing her a favor. She'd drown in my real ones. 

Sometimes, she'll interrupt me with  objections like, "That doesn't sound like you," or "That's really the way it happened?" To these questions, I laugh quietly because if I've been feeding her lies all these years, how would she know what I sound like? Still, she never fails to play along, whether she believes me or not.

For all intents and purposes, I have written a fictional Lane for Pamela to talk about. In this story, Lane is a timid girl who lives with and lovingly takes care of her elderly grandparents because her parents died in a fiery car crash when she was little. Soft-spoken Lane is terribly shy and afraid of social interactions because she's "awkward." She develops hopeless crushes often, on boys that go to the private school on the other side of town or on nice freshmen at the community college. Her dream is to study art at a wonderfully far away college where she can escape the confines of her shyness to grow wings and fly. This is the Lane that Pamela just gobbles up. The one that she looks forward to talking to on Monday and Friday mornings. The one that she will happily write a glowing recommendation letter for. 

In all actuality, not even half of this is true. I'm not quiet because I'm shy or afraid. I'm quiet because I don't give a single flying flip about anyone or anything in this place. Because I detached myself so long ago, I have zero desire for meaningless small talk. I'm quiet by choice, a concept people can't seem to wrap their heads around. I've given up trying to explain it.

Yes, my grandparents are old, but they take care of themselves. The only thing we have in common is that we live underneath the same roof. I barely belong to them anyway. I don't even have their last name. 

As for my parents, they aren't dead. They're just dead to me, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the same thing. 

My "crushes" are code for hookups. Something tells me that Pamela would frown upon a high school girl flippantly sleeping around. She is a school counselor, after all. I'm just trying to spare myself some cringe-worthy conversations about protection and self-respect. For the record, I am fully stocked on both. 

There is one shred of truth that I'm willing to share--I do want to study art. 

"You seem pretty thoughtful today," Pamela observes, bringing me back. "What's going on?"

And for the first time in a long time, I consider telling Pamela the truth, only because there actually is a lot going on. I have college applications to think about, especially the second recommendation letter that I'm gonna have to pull out of thin air. I still can't believe that such a stupid technicality is going to undermine all of my plans. It worries me, and it complicates my future in a way it's never been before. I don't really know what my future has in store anymore, and that's just about the most terrifying thought I've ever had. Being set and certain on my future is the only thing that gets me through my days.

And then there's Ruben. Who the hell does he think he is, trying to chip the wall I've so diligently constructed? How dare he make me feel so insecure about where I am, what this place is, and how things are here? He took my simple, clear reality and shook it violently. Everything's uprooted and lying sideways. How am I supposed to reposition everything just right? It's like he's trying to re-integrate me into a town that I have no desire to be a part of, and I'm pissed about it. 

All of this and more is going on, closing in on me from all sides, and these are the things I should talk about. But I don't. 

Instead, I revert to my old ways. I lie about class and say that Mrs. Sonner called on me with a question that I didn't have an answer to. How embarrassing, right? Pamela paints her face the color of sympathy and tries to commiserate with me. She shares a similar anecdote from her days in high school, assuring me that it's a common experience.

We spend the rest of the period talking about shyness and its impacts on studying. It's one of our less scintillating conversations. As usual, the staple of the session is an appropriately selected pamphlet from Pamela's cavernous filling cabinet. She's really big on them and must have hundreds. Today, she hands me When Emotions Come Out at School. I take it and shove it into my backpack, promising to read it later. 

"We're making progress, Lane," Pamela assures me, smiling wide. "Don't worry about a thing."

I know she has good intentions, and anyone would be grateful to have a counselor as encouraging and bubbly as Pamela, but I am just so far removed from every other human that the connection just never quite reaches all the way. 

I eye the clock. The bell's set to ring any second now. I perch myself on the edge of the seat, ready to go. 

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about before you go?" Pamela checks. What I should've said was, "I interacted with someone for the first time in nine years, and it's threatening to shatter my entire worldview. Also, what if I can't go to college?"

I can feel the words on the tip of my tongue. I'm just gonna say them. I need to say them. But then I see my file clasped between Pamela's perfectly manicured nails, stuffed to the max with papers and notes, and I remember that the only true piece of information that that file folder contains is my name across the front.

"Nah," I tell her. "See you Friday."