Just A Bad Day

I

It's as if a bucket of ice were poured over her head; for a moment, she's frozen. Either in fear or shock, it doesn't matter. She follows the woman through the crowd of high school students out of the foyer and around the corner. She makes eye contact with Dean, of all people, and is embarrassed. She already knows what's happening, and she's crying. She definitely doesn't want him seeing her like this. He's already seen the cuts on her arms and refuses to let it go, going so far as to bring it up in front of other people and loudly at that. She knows he does it out of concern, but it's not like they're friends; he's dating one of her friends and they're paired up in the school musical, but they don't actually know each other. At least not enough for her to be comfortable to cave in to his demands to talk to him. She already has people to talk to, anyway.

Although they certainly haven't done her any good this particular morning. School hasn't even started yet and already they are pulling her to have a talk with the 'crisis counselor.' This time is different from all the others, a fact that worries her greatly. They'd never bothered getting her this early before and never using another member of the faculty either, even if the woman in front of her is just some office woman. She knew she shouldn't have trusted Justin last night. If she had used some foresight, she wouldn't be in this mess. Fuck. They're gonna tell Mom and Dad.

Her inner worries occupy her thoughts until they reach the counseling suite of her school. She hates even the hallway outside of the counseling suite, and simply walking in causes her to tense and shake slightly. The woman leads her to a door she's familiar with and opens it for her. She's forced to go inside, and the door closes behind her. Sighing, the girl turns and sits in the chair to the immediate left of the door. This way, she's sitting on the same side as Mr. Sheppard, and it's easier to avoid eye contact or looking at his face.

"Hello, Marie," Mr. Sheppard says, making her jump. The office is tiny, barely four feet by six feet, and his masculine voice is booming in the cramped space. She hates being alone with him. It's hot, too; they're in the center of the school and she knows that right behind Mr. Sheppard's office is the catwalk above the auditorium, where all of the stage lights are. They make this area and the few classrooms next to it just a little bit warmer than the rest of the school. This certainly doesn't help her when she's already hot with anxiety.

"Hi." She mentally curses herself when her voice shakes.

"How are you?"

"I'm good," She lies. Her voice is stronger now; she's been through this before, and she can do it again. As much as she believes Mr. Sheppard is an asshole, she also knows he's easy to placate with lies.

"Your friend, Justin, emailed me this morning. He doesn't seem to think so." I knew it was Justin. That's the last time I ever confide in him, the jerk. Outwardly, she doesn't react, playing innocent.

"Well, I'm fine," She says, confidently. She's had a while to perfect this act and has come a long way from the first time she was pulled out of class to see Mr. Sheppard two years ago as a freshman.

Mr. Sheppard changes his line of approach. "Do you ever think about suicide?"

For a moment, the girl is actually jarred, but she manages to school her features to keep up her facade. "Of course not, Mr. Sheppard," She says, her voice less confident than before. She looks anywhere but him, focusing on the covers of the many comic books laid out on the walls.

"Well, Marie, Justin sent me these texts between the two of you," Mr. Sheppard begins, and her blood runs cold. She visibly tenses, clenching her fists beside her. Discreetly, She presses her wrist into her thigh, drawing relief from the feeling of her newest cuts burning at the contact. "You have a plan. A mixture of cutting, alcohol, and pills to overdose. You were thinking about suicide enough last night to come up with a concrete plan, Marie. I can't ignore that."

"It's not like I'm actually gonna do it!" The girl says hurriedly. Panic is blooming in her chest; she can feel the anxiety coming in waves. He fucking showed him our texts, I can't believe Justin sent him the texts. She feels like she's about to cry but pushes back the tears; she cannot lose it right now, not when everything is falling apart like this. "I'm too fucking weak to actually do it; just because I say I want to doesn't mean I'm going to!" She's desperately pleading her case. She doesn't know what's going to happen if she can't convince him.

It doesn't take her long to find out, for he had his mind made up before she'd even walked into his office. "I have no choice, Marie. If any student has a set plan, they must be sent to the hospital; I can't let you leave when you're at risk of harming yourself."

The dam breaks, and tears rush out of her eyes. She chokes in a breath of air and pleads desperately, "No," even though she knows it's futile. Her chest is tight, it feels as though her lungs are being squeezed tightly, and she can't breathe. Her breath comes in short pants, but she keeps her panic quiet.

"I've already contacted your mother, and seeing as she works in the school, she's here to drive you to the emergency room." No, this is happening too fast. He opens the door, and she sees her mom, standing with a look that was simultaneously dejected and disgraced. She pities me.

"I'm not going," She says, gripping her hands to the seat of her chair for good measure. Certainly she can just wait out the day refusing to let her mom drive her to the hospital. At some point in the day, she'd inevitably convince her mom that Mr. Sheppard doesn't know what he's talking about and that she should just go home.

"If you don't go with your mom, I'll call 911 and you can leave in an ambulance. Would you rather have that?" She never despised Jeffrey Sheppard more than she does in that moment. Defeated, she stands up and follows her mom to their car in the teacher parking lot.

She doesn't talk the entire ride to the hospital. She sits through her mom lecturing her on putting her through this once again. She feels awkward when her mom calls her dad and explains everything. Couldn't she have waited until I wasn't here to do that? She wants to yell at her, scream at her that she doesn't know what she's doing and that she's making everything worse, that she's always making everything worse.

She doesn't, though. She doesn't need to have yet another fight with her mom right before going to the emergency room because she's suicidal. God, I wish I just did it last night.