Delirium: Crash & Burn

Part II

I briskly continue my walking conscience of my time. I eventually found my way to the counselor's room. It was a small cupboard-like room which was hidden away behind the nurse's office on the 3rd floor.

The room was quaint and humble, I knew this room had heard it all. Every breakdown, every family dilemma, every heartbreak, teenage pregnancy confession, every self-harming proclamation and disaster in this school. I could feel it. It was like a haunting feeling which lingered.

The room was covered in posters. I looked around and began to scan them, internally answering the questions which they posed.

"Do you self-harm?" I used to.

"Are you a victim of abuse?" What classes as abuse exactly?

"Have you been tested for STD's and STI's?" I've never had sex.

"Victim of rape?" Nope.

"How's your cycle?" Regular, thanks for asking.

"Are you a victim of suicidal thoughts?" Occasionally.

I sit on the edge of the chair, tense. My shoulders pulling downward, my upper back leaning forwards creating a hunched shape. I could paint the story I wanted to my peers, but the school knew the truth.

They had me sign up for counseling sessions to help me cope with the 'pressures' of senior year. I knew they probably felt sorry for me.

A 17-year-old who moved around for 10 years from home to home. A foster child who was never wanted by her own mother. What a sad story.

You're a mess, Evie.

The ticking of the wooden clock in her room made me uneasy. Her eyes locked on me, boring into my soul, searching for something, the real Evie, not this plastic edited version who was in front of her.

The women had a warm face, one of a mother. She had thick eyebrows which were furrowed together giving her the permeate expression of being confused or slightly angry. Her skin was pale and her teeth were crooked. Her presence was kind and inviting, she played with her red hair slightly as she looked down at her notes. She looked up at me and sighed heavily, frustrated with my lack of interaction.

"Look, Evie, you're going to have to be honest with me if this is going to work."

I sighed. It's not like I wanted to be this way. I wasn't ashamed of the homes I had lived in the families who had looked after me when my own had given up.

"My current family is great. My foster parents, Pam and Mike Skyes have had many foster kids and picked me last Christmas."

She smiled slightly nodding her head, encouraging me to continue. My lips curled upwards into a smile.

"My foster sister, Kat is great."

At this point, my face dropped. I didn't feel like speaking anymore. My eyes darted down to my feet, avoiding eye contact. She reached her hand over my knee, as she did my leg stopped shaking.

She urged me to continue by stating in a 'matter of fact' tone, "this is good, talking is good."

I continue.

"But she's really sick, she erm has blood, cancer."

"Leukaemia?" she corrected me, I nodded sheepishly. I hated that word and by saying it, it made it feel more real. I hated the fact Kat was sick.

Kat was the encouragement I needed when I had enough and wanted to give up on myself. She only spoke well of people and never looked down on me regardless of my shortcomings. The fact she could be taken away from me without my consent irked me. It hurt me more than anything.

I continue, "I help look after her most nights and weekends. But she's dying." My voice was sharp and blunt. She smiled to encourage the conversation to continue.

"But I could be happy here." I looked around to imply I was talking about the school and settling in here.

"You seem really happy in this family, what seems to be the problem?" She asked interrogatively, the question was taunting.

What seems to be the problem, Evie?

I sigh frustrated with my own mental incompetence.

"It's just that each home I stepped into felt foreign, I was never home."

I was always an imposter, a pretender. I'm not justifying my behavior, I'm just saying. This is senior year, my last chance to be the girl I've always wanted to be. After this, I'll move away for college, but at least I would have been loved, even if the love was built on lies. I craved it, the feeling, the atmosphere of being adored, of being wanted.

I start to think to myself, had my mother not left would I have been different? My mom left me, put me up in a foster home when my dad died. I remember the day he died. His feet dangled centimetres from the floor. The gagging wrenching sound had seized and his whole body swung following the waves of the wind as it came in through the window.

The curtains breathed in and out as the wind picked up force. I stood, my young mind couldn't comprehend what I saw. It was neither in my vocabulary to express or my mind to understand. Once my mom left me I become good at making up stories that sounded so true that they tingled in my mouth like sugar and lemon whenever I tell them. It was addictive.

When I was growing up in foster homes, I would often make up scenarios. Lovely stories, the ones you wouldn't think were lies. I would sit with the other kids and state how my mom is coming to pick me up anytime soon.

As I went into my teen years, the stories turned into hallucinations. I would hide out in my room at the home on the weekends watching home renovation shows and the programs where happy girls would try wedding dresses on for their happy mothers and everyone would cry and be happy.

That will never be me. I could never be truly, undeniably and honestly happy.

It was out of my mother's own choices that I was left impregnated with the diseased of low self-esteem and self-hatred. I couldn't help but be angry. Life probably would have felt better with a mother's hand to hold, a mother's breast to lean on. But I didn't even have the option. I was left Motherless.

I was brought out of my coma-like state.

"Evie, this is your senior year a chance to end high school on a good note!" The enthusiasm rang in her voice.

Her words confirmed my plans, it was divine intervention.

I knew what I had to do, who I had to be and I would do it at any cost.