II: Meet Virginia

"Well she want's to be the queen. And she thinks about her scene. Pulls her hair back and she screams, 'I don't really want to be the queen!' Meet Florence Kenneth."

"Dr. Anderson with Florence Kenneth, session one."

The silence stretches in the office, because its not like those rooms on TV with the plush arm chair and the doctor in a labcoat and glasses with a notebook in his hands and glasses perched on his nose asking 'And how does that make you feel?' If anything, he is as normal as any of my other teachers, dressed down in a simple sweater and jeans, with his hands holding a recorder in his lap, yawning as he glances at the clock in the corner.

"If you want to talk, you can do it before the hour's up, I got lunch break in a bit."

My hands twitch in my lap, and somehow I feel offended, sitting here in front of a man who is being paid to listen to me talk about my problems. He seems to pull out a stack of papers from a drawer I didn't seem to notice since I entered the room. I recognize it instantly. "Sudoku?" he gives me a look, slightly amused and bewildered, and smiles. I hesitate for a moment, somehow feeling embarassed that I had spoken, the sound of my voice was timid, hoarse from disuse. "Can I play?" I asked after a moment, a hopeful glint in my eyes. His eyes crinkled and he handed me a sheet, void of numbers. I closed my eyes, but instead of the relief of numbers, my life flashed before my eyes.

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"What happened to your hands?"
I stare blankly in response. "Pardon?"
"Your hands- they're all calloused and bruised...were you bullied?"

 I turn my hands over, and true to her word the tips of my fingers have popped callouses, the scent if steel stings my nostrils, and there are bruises formed around horizontal sharp indents. I scrambled for an excuse, blurting one before I could think it through.

"I-I was concentrating during a test and the pencil was so sharp it kept pressing into my fingers and, and-"
When I look up, its not mom's cold, calculating stare I find that she usually wears, but a smile so rare it throws me for a loop.
"Slow down! I'm not mad." she sips quietly at her coffee. "I'm proud of you honey."

Guilt washed over me like a proverbial tide, sweeping me under like the ones on TV.

"Thanks mom." I say with a crooked smile. Feeling adventurous, I turn my eyes to my lap. "Can I have some coffee too?"

"Just don't make it a habit."

Author's Note

The story is YET to unfold ;)