Losing Grip

Chapter 3➷ You Know What They Say

My therapist was an insufferable ball of positivity.

Maybe that's why I stopped seeing him.  

He had this quote he said every week when I saw him about the value of the sunrise because it promised 1,440 minutes of opportunities to make that new day count.

For me, each of these minutes was painfully identical to the previous one. Though I tried not to plan every detail of my days, I had fallen into a demoralizing pattern—moping, pretending But there was something about the sunrise every morning that almost made me hope.

I was at school earlier than usual that day. I propped myself onto the wall fence on the side of the building. It directly faced a human-sized hawk iron sculpture with Penn-Griffin written on its wings in bold letters.

"Only in North Carolina," I mumbled to myself.

As good a place as the fence was for mocking the elaborate designs of the school, it was also the perfect place for people-watching. A newfound hobby of mine was to try and guess what these students' lives were like outside of school. What were the masks hiding?

Among all the heads shuffling their way through the crowd and doors, it took me a while to find the hand waving my way.

The distance made it difficult to confirm that Jacob was waving to me, but I waved back, anyway. After hesitating, he continued on his way. We were not on a talking basis now, but we used to be friends. We had known each other since middle school, but somehow, we were strangers again. I knew it was probably my fault. Eleven months ago, I pushed everyone away, trying to get some me space.

A drilling and persistent beep came from inside the building, officially starting the school day. I hated that sound, but I still jumped off the wall and slowly pushed my way into Psychology class.

I sat in the very last row of the room. Mrs. Heather, who taught the class just loved to pick on me, just like Mr. Scott. So, I figured, 'out of sight, out of mind'.

Arson didn't notice me coming; he and another guy were sitting in the row in front of mine.

The guy he was talking to pulled off the most horrible color combo I'd ever seen: neon green and mustard yellow shirt with bright blue jeans. I didn't know much about fashion, but I knew this had to be a crime. He had also wrapped a bright orange headband around his head, slightly tangled in his hair.

The worst part of it was that this mess looked good on him.

"... postponed it again," the guy in the headband was saying.

"Are you kidding me? We're not getting any younger here!"

"He said something about family situations," the guy said, fiddling with the hem of his long-sleeved shirt.

I realized he was the guy who was sitting with Avan at lunch yesterday.

"We need the practice. He can't just keep bailing on us. We have so many newbies in the team, there's no way we'll win."

The guy shrugged and turned in his seat as if he felt me staring. Arson mimicked his friend and turned to me.

"Oh, hi! Didn't see you come in."

He introduced the headband guy as Matthew. Matthew smiled at me until I gave him the closest thing to a smile I could manage. It worked because he stopped staring but I didn't.

He looked familiar but I couldn't tell if we had met before. His clothes were like a magnet for curious eyes and even the teacher stared at him, confused, as he entered the room.

"Good morning. My name is Colin Andrews. I'll be your Psych teacher while Mrs. Heather is on maternity leave."

He seemed to be in his forties but the relaxed clothes he was wearing made him look like a teenager.

Mr. Andrews wasn't nearly as boring as Mrs. Heather, but there was just something about this classroom that made it impossible for me to concentrate on the lesson.

For lack of a better past time, I gazed up at the ceiling and counted all the dark spots on the white ceiling tiles. I went over all the lyrics of my favorite songs in my head and traced lines over the tops of my notebook papers until finally, the period ended.

"Catch you later," Arson said to me, patting my shoulder before walking out of the room.

Once everyone left, I walked up to Mr. Andrews's desk. "Hi. I'm Avery. I'm Mrs. Heather's office aide for second period."

"Taylor?" he asked, flipping through his notes.

I nodded, and he motioned for me to take a seat by his desk.

"Would you mind sorting through these stacks for me? Mrs. Heather seemed to have had unconventional methods of classification." He sighed. "I can barely find the papers to grade."

I laid the stacks on the tablet arms of my chair. Among the sheets, there were turned-in homework, future class assignments, notes, and personal papers.

I took almost half an hour to carefully separate all of them, even the homework based on Mrs. Heather's five class periods. I enjoyed doing it; organizing things required enough focus to take my mind off things I didn't want to think about. I would even separate them based on handwriting, but I didn't want to come off as a freak.

"You know," Mr. Andrews said as I made sure I didn't give the papers any dog ears. "I met your sister."

Thanks for that.

"Oh?"

"I gave a conference last year on the schizoid personality disorder, and your sister came to speak to me after the presentation. Clever young lady. I'm sorry for your loss."

I cleared my throat. "Thanks." I handed him the stacks. "This is all the ungraded homework. This is graded homework, split into her five periods. These are the upcoming assignments. These are her notes on lessons. And these are just random papers that have nothing to do with the class."

If he realized that I was avoiding talking about Riley, he said nothing about it.

"Thank you. Nice work. What kind of work does Mrs. Heather usually give you?"

"Um, I mostly fix chair positions and help her out with her computer."

"I don't suppose she ever asked you for help with her desk," he said, pulling on the drawers to find them just as messy as the surface of the desk.

"I don't think it was an issue for her." I shrugged. "She never asked."

"Well." Mr. Andrews smiled. "You know what they say, those who don't ask are the ones who need help the most."

I wouldn't have thought much of it but our previous conversation about Riley made me think he hadn't been referring to Mrs. Heather anymore.

"Um, did you major in Psychology?" I asked, in a desperate attempt to make him forget about whatever it was he was thinking about saying.

"Yes. I switched to it after my first semester. I initially majored in Pre-med. Just thinking about it makes me want to yawn; it never really suited my personality," he shook his head as if shrugging off a thought. "Do you plan on attending college?"

"Maybe. Probably? A year ago, I wanted to study English Literature. It's just, um... a lot has changed since then."

He nodded to show understanding. It felt like he would understand everything, but that was probably the psychological trap: get you to spill all your strangest thoughts, then diagnose you with a disorder with a name you couldn't pronounce.

"Avery, it's okay," he said with a sympathetic tone. I flinched, startled. "You don't need to have your life all figured out... just yet."

I cleared my throat, searching through my mind for something clever to say. For the first time, I welcomed the drilling beep from the school's speakers with open arms.

I wished him a good day, grabbed my backpack, and ran off to my next period.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to run away from whatever became a problem, but it certainly felt convenient.