11.

 

I can’t skip school today. I really wish I could. It’s not like Dad cares, but I have to act like everything’s normal…at least for now.

            It’s second hour right now, art. I don’t really like art, because I don’t really see the point. Mrs. Perklin says my work is “macabre, haunting, and shocking” but most kids just ask, “Which goth painted that?” when they view my painting.

            Today I’m working on something kind of interesting. We were assigned to paint a “self-portrait” today. Oh, very unique, Mrs. Perklin. Everyone is busy making they’re eyes look just so, or making sure they have eyelashes, or whatever…but I just am doing something a little different. I don’t know if its good different, but I like it.

            It’s a painting of me, the long, messy swarm of black hair, the green eyes, and everything smiling at a mirror. The reflection in the mirror is me crying. But that’s just how I felt about myself when I decided to start the assignment. It’s kind of what I look like, I would say I got my physical attributes pretty precise, and…the mirror looks okay…so I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal about it. Okay, Mrs. Perklin. You say self-portrait, I paint.

            Maybe the fumes of the paint are getting to me, I don’t know…but I think my phone just beeped. I don’t know who would try to contact me. Nobody knows the number; I don’t have any friends…the only person that I talk to is family, which is really one person, Dad. So as I pull my Nokia from my pocket, I know its Dad. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

            It’s a text message that reads: “Where are u?” Nice word shortening, Dad. Trying to be cool. Where does he think?

My fingers slide over the keys, tapping back “At school. Where else??” I wait for a response, but after a minute of no beep back, I go back to filling in detail on my face in the painting. The second my brush makes contact with the canvas it goes off again. Mrs. Perklin is pretty cool about cell phones, which is fine for all the text addicts in my class.

“I don’t know. OK….I’m srry. Just checking up. U ok?” the text reads. Like he cares how you are.

“What do you think? I know what happened. Where are you, NE-Way?” And I send the message. In compulsion, I add “Run off because you beat your daughter?”

My face smirks but my heart is being twisted and wrenched around. Things just aren’t right.

The next message sounds sad. “Can’t believe we’re having this convo over txt messages.”  And then another, “I just want to know that ur OK.” I sigh, and just feel like smashing my phone into a million pieces.

“I’m fine. Ok?” I type, and then reiterate, “Where are you?”

No response for a long time, then “At hospital. It’s Wednesday, Remember?” Why would Dad be at the hospital? I frown at the phone.

“For what? Are you hurt?” I type back.

No answer. Then finally, “You act like you can forget.” He responds.

 My heart picks up tempo the second I read the first word of the message. No. I feel like I’m rolling down a hill…Accelerating, and going, in constant motion....Accelerating, until……

“Jilly, honey?” It’s Mrs. Perklin’s voice, and I look up. She always uses weird nicknames for me. She looks at me through her purple paint-speckled glasses. “Office?” She offers me another one of those freaking pink slips. And while I sigh heavily and walk out the art room door, I hear her critique trail after me…

 “Oh! The tears look amazing! So haunting and vivid!”

 The door clicks shut, and so do my emotions.

My footsteps echo in the desolate hallway, a light above me flickering precariously. A tear slips down my cheek. But I don’t know why.

I can’t believe this…being in the office for the third time, very recently. I can feel the hot evil stare of Mrs. Larn from across the office, and she says gruffly, “Whatcha do now?”

I was hoping you could tell me. I think, but say nothing. I am counting posters on the wall. 28. That’s pretty impressive. Ones that are meant to change your life or something, like a picture of a giraffe trying to pick an apple from a really tall tree, with the words “Never give up!”  Yeah, right.

And the door opens. And I know who it is. And the voice affirms my guess.

“Hey, Jill! You remember me, right! I felt like we should chat some more, we should get together!” I raise my head slowly, knowing its Dr. Sandburg. Lucky guess. It sure is.

“Hey.” I say mildly.

She sticks out her crooked elbow for me to take and smiles. “Shall we?”

I don’t take her crooked elbow and just grimace. I don’t know what’s in store for me today but I kind of know I don’t want it. Or maybe you do.

We are walking down the hall to her office in an awkward silence. She tries to hum away the silence, but her awful rendition of “When The Saints go Marching In” makes my eardrums feel like they are going to bleed an any second. Not a great way to scare away an awkward silence at all.

We slip into her office, secluded in the corner of the building. Her room smells like sweet spices or something today. Kind of like hot apple cider, a couple of flowers, a cinnamon stick, and chamomile. And then she breaks the mystery with her half-hushed excited reveal.

“I told you, I’d bring tea!” She looks so happy, so I smile back weakly.

She has an enormous variety of teas. I really wonder how she got all these teas here. There’s everything; green tea, lemon soothing tea, English teatime, peppermint, spearmint, weird looking African teas, vanilla bean tea, (I didn’t even know that existed…)

Dr. Sandburg clasps her hands together, expectantly, like she is waiting for the reaction from me like that of a kid in a candy store. “So…what’ll it be?” She says.

I just stare at all the random teas just sitting on her desk. “Uh…”  There are too many choices, and lately I haven’t liked choices. Especially the choice about running away. Some things are just too difficult and complicated to think about.

I mean, I offer Dr. Sandburg my condolences. I feel bad for her. She is trying and everything, but there’s nothing she can say, do, or think to help me. She should file me under the “LOST CAUSE” file in her big shiny black cabinet. Because that’s what I am. She knows I just can’t connect. Barriers are meant to block out. And I don’t have a hammer to break down that barrier.

Back to teas. What tea? I don’t care. Surprise me. I close my eyes and reach for something, anything. I open them and find a long, wooden cylinder. It’s one of those African teas. Okay, whatever. I wanted a surprise.

“Oh, I like that, Jill! A risk taker? But healthy risks! Oh, and that tea is delicious, just…amazing. You will love it! It’s made from all natural tree root of Kenya!”

Maybe I don’t like surprises, after all.

“Okay, so here comes the fun part!” She trills. She pulls out two hideous mugs, one with a teddy bear that says “I LOVE YOU BEARY MUCH”, and one with a leprechaun that says “KISS ME I’M IRISH” on it. She lets me pick. Whatever. The teddy bear is a little less obnoxious.

When I first met Dr. Sandburg I thought she looked all sophisticated and all that, but not really. At least not her taste in things that aren’t clothes…I mean, “I love you beary much?” I know nothing about style and fashion and all that crap but this lady is crazy.

I stand there holding my ugly mug and she lowers her voice. “Okay, here is the great part!” What, are you going to take me out of my misery? Don’t think like that.

She takes my arm and pulls me out the door, with the weird tea cylinder. She lets the door shut quietly. She is really being overdramatic about this. I don’t care about this freaking tea. She literally tiptoes down the hall, pulling me along with her.

“Where are we going?” I don’t ask, I just state it in a monotonous voice.

She grins mischievously at me. “Remember, I told you last week? We’re sneakin’ into the teacher’s lounge!”

The she says the most atrocious of all she has done or said yet.

“Boo-ya!” She cackles dragging me off into something I don’t care about.

Why am I being dragged down this hall of this lonely school by this crazy lady just to go get something heated up in a microwave? Why am I here, at this point in my life when I’m considering running away…when I think about dark things, when I’m constantly confused?

How did my life get this way?

Dr. Sandburg doesn’t seem to notice my serious misery in my mind, or if she does, she doesn’t show it. We just go along down the hallway…this is the one hallway nobody uses in my high school. It’s the 2,000’s hallway…our school is split up into hallways based on the numbers of the rooms…and there are basically no classes in this hallway. Maybe one and all the empty looking rooms I always saw…apparently not empty, though.

We snake into a random room on the hallway and go inside. It’s the teachers lounge. There are a few teachers in here, grading tests, guzzling coffee, doing whatever they need, I guess.

Teachers get it pretty nice. The coffee machine is cranking out fresh coffee, there’s doughnuts on one side of the room along with other stuff like muffins and other snacky foods…there’s a TV showing a basketball game on in one corner, which, of course, all the younger used-to be jock teachers gather around, staring intently and then grunting every once in a while.

Nobody even notices us. Dr. Sandburg tried to make this sound all daring and dangerous. Well, she succeeds. My adrenaline is rushing, okay. I think I may just lie down right here and take a nap.

When we’re back from our little extravaganza I know this is when the bad part is destined to happen. I wish I could just be out on my little word right now, at the tree with Bethany, someone where I could just count everything…like a library. Maybe I could say I need to go back to my locker for something, and go grab a form to fill out. That always helps.

She starts all casual and everything. She is sipping her tea and adding sweetener- to it.

“How is your tea, Jill?” She grins. I haven’t even tried it. It’s a suspicious pea-green color, and if that says anything about the flavor, then I would really not like to try it. I eye the mug when she asks. So I try it. It is basically what I would imagine rotten milk mixed with grass or leaves to taste like.

I literally gag when I take a drink. I don’t think she really needs a verbal explanation of how my tea is.  She briskly changes topics.

“So, how is your day going? Tell me everything about it? Or yesterday…or anything. Just talk to me.” She says, welcoming me to so many topics. I don’t know what to tell her. She puts down her mug and opens her hands up, as if in a just-please,-anything!  Gesture.

Is there anything to talk about? I mean, I have been avoiding Molly and Staci for the past few days so I can’t really talk about my life as a living hell…. I could tell her about… No, she doesn’t care. Does she really care what I have to say? Or is she just sitting here, drinking this disgusting tea, and waiting for the hour to be over so she can get paid? Is this worth my time?

She sees my resistance. I can feel her scholarly eyes analyzing me, probably searching through a textbook in her mind to see what diagnosis I should receive. I am most likely “Depressed.” There you go, Ms. Poplar. You guessed right.

“It’s okay. Here, I have an idea. Tell me one word you are thinking of, feeling, hearing, anything. Just one little word.” Dr. Sandburg offers.

“Tetherball.” I hear myself say, and I am surprised. I didn’t think I was thinking about that. Dr. Sandburg nods, and wants me to go on.

“I used to love tetherball.” I hear myself say again. “Really, I, I almost always won…it used to be this ritual in the warm evenings after school.” Dr. Sandburg nods.

“Ah. You like routine…and, so then what happened? Why did you stop?” Her curious red pen is hovering over a paper from my file, ready for some profound answer. She is waiting for something, hoping for something.

“I don’t know.”

Dr. Sandburg looks disappointed, stands up, returns my practically empty folder to the file cabinet and says, “There’s always next time, Jill. We’ll keep trying.”

I don’t know what she is talking about.