Manic

Chapter 9.

For Ms. Hale's writing assignment we have to write about our greatest example. We worked on our short stories all day in class today. I sat myself down and started jotting down my thoughts and then began the rough draft. By the end of the class period, I had almost five pages full of writing, when everyone around me was still on their second page.

I was feeling pretty good about myself until Ms. Hale asked the class how many pages they had and Rivers Thomas raised his hand and announced, "Seven." I turned around to gawk.

"I'm impressed Mr. Thomas. Not as impressed as I would be if you had listened to my instructions to cut your hair. I'm afraid I have to send you to the office today to be sent home."

"Sent home?" Rivers raises his voice, "For my hair?" He chuckles. "Sent home my ass."

"Excuse me?" Ms. Hale says and a few students around me snicker.

"I said where's the office, ma'am?"

"Who would like to volunteer to show Mr. Thomas to the office?"

Silence.

Well to everyone else there was silence. To me, there was Danny.

"NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!" Danny shouted.

To my own surprise, my hand shot up in the air and my mouth began forming a sentence on it's own. "I will," I say, completely not in control of my own body.

Delilah turns to me and makes a face, perhaps trying to ask if I was crazy. To which I would have to be honest and say, yes, yes I am.

I get out of my seat and wait at the door for Rivers to collect his things. He looks at me with an expression that I couldn't read. Confusion, maybe? He was probably thinking I was persistent as hell to volunteer to show him to the office after he so obviously shot Delilah and I down yesterday.

In the hall we are silent. The only sounds were my Voices.

"Hey I got you this far kid," Danny says.

"Yeah, thanks for that," I whisper.

"What?" Rivers asks.

I silently curse myself. "Uh nothing. So where are you from?" I ask, knowing full well he was from New York, New York. Knowing almost everything about him after stalking his instagram with Honeymaren.

"New York." He replies.

"What brings you to Arizona?"

"Do you always ask so many questions?" He retorts.

"Uh... No?" I didn't know how to answer.

"Good, shut up." He smiles a little and keeps walking. But my feet stop in their tracks. He turns around, "Are you gonna show me to the office?"

"Are you always such an ass?" I ask.

Rivers blinks. "I'll find it myself." He says and turns around.

I couldn't believe what just left my mouth. "He deserved it!" Danny said. "The way he talked to you was codswallop!"

So you can imagine what I decided to open up to Adriana about after school in therapy.

No, not the homosexual thoughts. I wasn't ready to share those thoughts with anyone.

"So today, my Voices spoke from my mouth. And made me raise my hand. And made me stop walking." I recall all the moments to Adriana -while she's expressionless- taking notes.

After a few moments of silence she puts down her pen and notebook and looks at me. "Elijah, can I ask you a question?" I don't answer her, but she doesn't need me to. "Have you been communicating with the Voices?"

"No," I lie.

Adriana looks at me skeptically, as if she can see right through my lie. "Good." She says finally. "I want you to continue to ignore them because the more you acknowledge them, the more control they will gain over you, and things like what happened today will happen more often. We don't want a repeat of freshman year, do we?"

I shake my head furiously. "No,"

Oh freshman year. Adriana was of course referring to the time I completely lost it.

I was being bullied by a group of assholes. They were calling me names and spitting at me during class and of course, the teacher didn't see a thing that they were doing. She only saw me turning around to tell them to knock it off.

And, well, I lost it.

"I am gutted!" The words came out of my mouth in a british accent, but I wasn't the one talking. "You are absolutely off your trolley if you can't see them spitting at me and calling me names!" I shouted at the teacher.

"Excuse me Elijah, sit down now."

"No." I had my american accent now, but it wasn't me speaking. "You sit down or do something with your dumbass self and notice these assholes behind me are tormenting me and everyone around me!"

My teacher was astonished. "Go to the office."

"No, I am here to learn. These assholes are distracting me, send them to the office, not me."

In the end, security was called and I was dragged from the room kicking and screaming.

Literally.

"Okay," Adrian says. "I didn't think so. Now. is there anything else on your mind that you would like to talk about with me today?"

My thoughts immediately go to Rivers. "No," I lie again.