Okay, the second chapter. Figures as soon as I finally post it, I forget most of what I wanted to say in the first post after having remembered it afterwards.
But what I do remember: the title of the story seems strange, but it's the line that made me write the story. It taught me something (hint to a major spoiler, anybody guess?) and I just want to spread it around. Also, this story will probably only be 10-20 chapters, then I'll be sharing another story.
That actually didn't come out how I previously planned it to, but that's not really important compared to the actual story, so I'll just post it. Remember, I really appreciate your reviews and would love to answer any questions you might have. Still not an exciting chapter, but it's getting there I hope.
Chapter One
“I hope you didn’t think you had gotten rid of me,” Mrs. Swan said with a smile, looking back at Cass. They entered her office and he sat down on the chair that wasn’t filled with papers and other various things. After closing the door, she took a seat as well, at her desk.
The room was filled with many different types of items that related to the beach. A large picture of the beach hung on the wall next to her desk, an umbrella shaded her desk and beach ball figures and sandcastle figures, among other different types of objects, were scattered around wherever there was room.
“Now I know you’ve been saying you’ve been fine,” she started, crossing her arms in her lap, “but teens sometimes just say that because they think they will get in trouble if they tell someone they’re not alright. You, for example, don’t want to see an outside counselor, so you might be hiding your true feelings because you don’t want to be sent to one.” She paused, and started thinking of what to say next. “But if you’re truly feeling depressed and having those dark thoughts still, you need to tell me so I can try to help. No one wants to lose you; even the people who don’t like you will be affected by your death.”
Once it was clear she wasn’t going to speak anymore, Cass assumed she was waiting for an answer. He tried to think of when he last had any dark thoughts, but they were all a month and a half ago. True, he had purposely injured himself the previous day, but that wasn’t because he was feeling depressed. First of all, it was a compulsion, an overwhelming urge to do it. Second, it was the only guaranteed way of relieving anger and stress that he knew of. Him being confused all night had stressed him out, so the compulsion reacted and made him do it.
Shaking his head, he said, “Nope, I’ve been feeling fine. Those thoughts were all a month and a half ago.”
“That’s good then,” then she paused, thinking of what to say next once again. Deciding to get off of the topic of depression, they started their normal talk of what he wanted to be when he grew up and his goals for the future.
After the bell rang, they both got up and started getting ready to leave. “I’ll show you a shortcut to the buses,” she said. Leading him through many different hallways and doors he had never been through or even knew about, they eventually reached a large, rectangular door. It didn’t look like any door he had seen inside a building before. When he stepped out, he realized it really would have been quicker if he went the way he had come in, but he liked exploring so he didn’t say anything. It would be rude as well.
Exiting the building from the door to his right, he walked to his bus, the wind blowing his hair around. It wasn’t long (compared to what “long” was to guys these days) but it wasn’t short either. It was soft though so the wind had no trouble whipping it up.
As he stepped up into the bus, he thought,
I hate the wind.
~-~-~
“Hey,” said an instant message from Becki. After a few seconds, another message popped up asking for his number.
Uh, okay, he thought, typing his number into the box and hitting the enter button.
I hope this isn’t someone else using her account. It was more likely than it seemed really.
“Cool, I’ll text you,” she replied.
Sure enough, a minute later, his phone vibrated, and showed an unrecognized number. “Sup,” he wrote in, then sent it. Turning back to his computer, he closed the IM and then logged out of Facebook.
His phone vibrated again. “Not much,” it read. “Hey, you said you go to counseling for the scars right?”
Not surprised that she brought that up, he replied “yes” then went to the kitchen. At school earlier, they had talked about it as he heard she had hurt herself before once as well. He knew a lot of other people that also did it, but Becki was someone that he could talk to comfortably about it. He knew she was going to bring that subject up because: a) after they were finished talking about it at school, she said she would and b) to eighth graders, it was an interesting topic.
As the familiar rumble sounded, except more obnoxious because it was on a different surface, he answered his phone once again. “I have to go to it too. It sucks doesn’t it?” He replied “yes” but didn’t really think so. He got time out of class and could comfortably talk with an adult for once about he was feeling, with the assurance he wouldn’t be judged or made fun of, but rather helped.
After grabbing a bag of Lays from the cabinet, he shut the light off and went back into his room. With nothing else to do, he sat on his bed and just ate, waiting for the vibrations of his phone.
After talking for about ten minutes, she finally brought up the questions he was expecting. “Why do you do it? And how long have you been doing it?”
He didn’t want to share the real reason with anyone as to why he did it in the first place. He hadn’t even told Mrs. Swan or any of the other counselors he talked to because she was gone. However, he decided to and hoped he wouldn’t feel bad later because the subject was too special to him.
“You know Colton?” he asked.