Exotic - Chapter 17: Chapter 17

"How's your week been, Miles?"
Alba had moved her chair around to the side of her desk, so the desk didn't sit as an obstacle between us. She was dressed in a red blazer and bell-bottom pants, her delicate fingers laced together on one knee. Her nails were painted a deep navy, complementing the whole ensemble beautifully. Her cheeks were dusted in highlighter which complimented her complexion, and I was desperate to ask her what brand she used. I was far more eager to discuss her effortlessly elegant style than delve into Tuesday. But whenever I diverted, Alba pulled me firmly back on track.
I flicked the Newton's cradle. "Pretty bad."
"I heard you were present for a fight?"
I shifted my focus back to her. "I didn't fight anyone."
"I know," I disliked how obvious her tone was. She might have well ended it with no, duh. "But how did you feel about it?"
"Worried for my friend," I said truthfully. "Satisfied. I thought the other guy kind of had it coming."
"Why would that be?"
I sighed guiltlessly. "That wasn't a hint into my psyche. He was being disgusting. And he called Aaron a... slur. Max can take a sledging pretty well, but he has short fuse when it comes to family. Anyone who wants to rile him up uses Aaron."
"Aaron and Maximillian Sanchez?" Alba asked, and I nodded to confirm. "They're good boys. Good friends?"
"Amazing friends," I emphasised. "Have you... do you see them? Have they ever come to you?"
Alba smiled tightly. "You know I can't say if they have. Do you have any other friends?"
I thought about Zsa Zsa. Jamie. Most people I worked with would call me a friend. But even though Alba knew more about my life than most, and it wasn't awful having a person bound to secrecy to rant at, I wasn't about to reveal the gory details of my semi-illegal nightlife to the school councillor.
I thought about Caleb as well. He'd texted me that morning.
Better?
My response had been packed with all the allure and ingenuity of a fourth-grader on MSN.
better.
Alba took note of my hesitance. "You don't need to name names if that would make you more comfortable."
"It's not that," I assured her. "Well, it kind of is. My life would over if I... you don't need to hear it."
"I'm here for you to talk about anything, Miles," Alba reminded me. "School, family, love life..."
I snorted loudly. Alba tilted her head, obviously catching on.
"You need to know that whatever you say to me outside what we established in our first session, I'm not going to tell anyone. Not anyone at school, not anyone socially, not even Rory," she continued. "Whatever is plaguing you, it obviously goes beyond what's happening at home. Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No," I said quickly.
"Are you seeing anyone?"
I rested my head on my fist. Alba waited as I thought, long and hard, before opening my mouth. "There's a guy I... like, and he knows I like him but nothing's ever going to happen between us. He's made that much clear. But sometimes he does stuff to make me think I stand a chance, and then he'll ignore me for days, and... yeah. That's my love life."
Talking about such things, even without invoking Caleb's name, felt like I was letting a dark secret. Our pact had apparently evolved from something with strict rules to a treaty. If I was half as vindictive as I'd pretended to be that night, the second he'd let me in that his sister knew about Sephora, I would have been on my way to Crescendo to get the damning evidence. And if he disliked me as much as he claimed, he wouldn't have called me back, twice, the night before to talk me through a panic attack out of the goodness of his heart.
Hypotheticals did me no good. I'd come to the conclusion the night before that Caleb was probably a good person. Lingering on whether the night before had been anything other than altruism would only make me heartsick.
Alba was tapping her pen, lips curled upward. Her highlighted cheekbones lifted along with her semi-smile. "Are you telling me it's complicated?"
I snorted again, shoulders hunched up at my ears. "You must get that all the time,"
"Some of the stuff I've heard would rival Riverdale in believability," she smiled. "Teenagers tend to dramatise their realities, but I think most people would be surprised how much of it turns out to be true. Because your brains are still developing, you tend to love with your heart alone. Your whole heart. And that can get you into trouble."
I felt my forehead crease. "I don't love him. I think he's nice when he's not being an asshole and he's hot. I don't think it's that deep."
Alba stopped tapping her pen. "In what way is he an asshole?"
"He's not. I mean, he is but... I know what you're thinking," I exhaled. "He's never hurt me. It's more that he doesn't acknowledge me unless we're alone. We're not supposed to be friends."
"I've heard that one before," Alba leaned back in her seat. "I say this to boys and girls alike, there are a lot of young men who have difficulty expressing and vocalising their emotions. It's often how they've been raised, with very particular ideas of the roles of men and women. And it's very easy to sympathise with them because you can see they are feeling things, and you can see they're hurting. But it isn't your responsibility to coax him out of his shell. The more invested you get in his mental health, the less conscious you might become of your own, and how he might be affecting it."
I felt bad for tuning her out because she was hitting the nail on the head, but I didn't want to dive deeper into a discussion about Caleb. I turned my focus to her office, rolling my eyes over the cliché-ridden poster and outrageous colour palette. It didn't suit Alba's quiet introspection at all. "Were you a proper psychologist before here?"
Alba's dark brows raised, and her smile parted over her teeth. "Before I became a pretend psychologist?"
"I don't mean..." I flustered, and Alba laughed lightly.
"I did work for a private practice for a while," she told me. "I got a little tired of making progress with clients only to find out they'd run out of their government-funded appointments and wouldn't be returning. I get to see my progress here. I get to see my clients' faces in the assembly hall. I get to know they're getting by between appointments."
I thought about the brave face I'd put on yesterday, which had only cracked in the sanctity of my own room. I wondered if Alba even knew what yesterday had meant to me; I had been yet to disclose it. "How do you know they're getting by?"
"I don't, really," she admitted. "Sometimes just seeing their faces is enough. Knowing they've made it to school."
Alba probably dealt with cases much worse than mine. Kids with real problems. I knew there was a girl in my year who lived in a caravan, who came to school with her uniform unwashed. There was a boy in middle school who wore a bandana to hide the aftereffects of his chemotherapy. There was an eleventh-grader who had social services show up to school to tell her that her mum had OD'ed last year. Even though I lived on the lower planes of the social hierarchy, word drifted down to us surprisingly quickly. I knew there were people with much harder lives than mine in Alba's jurisdiction. I felt bad taking up her time with my considerably less urgent problems with Reece and procrastination. I was talking to her about a guy not liking me back – talk about the first world – and she was acting as if it was a high priority. She probably thought I was completely pathetic. I would have thought I was pathetic.
"What's on your mind, Miles?" Alba gave a little shove, and everything came tumbling out.
"I think I had a panic attack yesterday. After I fought with Reece," I confessed. "About my mum."
Alba nodded slowly. "Yesterday marked two years, correct?"
I straightened in surprise, and she enlightened me. "I was advised of the date by several of your teachers. I wanted to give you space to tell me on your own terms."
"My teachers?" I frowned. "How do they know?"
"They remember," she told me, and frowned. "Do you think teachers are on autopilot 'recite information, hand out detention' all the time? These people care about you. You can talk to them about the stuff we discuss, you know. It might make them go easier on you."
"I don't think sharing my damage for sympathy points is my style," I flicked the Newton's cradle again, sending it spinning out of control. "You don't tell them anything?"
"No," she assured me. "Even when I wish I could. Tell me about yesterday."
My chest seized up a little, but I gave her a run day of the afternoon's highlights, minus Caleb. Tutoring, my argument with Reece, my commandeering of my mother's urn, and finally, the agonising sensation of being unable to breathe. Feeling like I was going to die.
By the end of it, Alba had gathered up her clipboard and was making sporadic notes. I trailed off towards the peak of my panic attack, realising I was getting close to revealing Caleb's involvement. "So, that sucked."
Alba nodded empathetically. "Panic attacks generally aren't pleasant. Have you had one before?"
"No. Well..." I thought about Caleb, asking the same question the night before. I'd been vague, not entirely on purpose. "I've felt like I couldn't breathe before. Before the funeral, I sat in the kitchen breathing into a paper bag and all. I thought a lot of people did that, though."
"They do," Alba capped her pen. "It doesn't mean that it's normal to feel that way,"
"Am I going to have to start taking crazy pills?" I joked.
"Medication is an important tool to manage serious conditions. You wouldn't feel weird about taking painkillers for a broken leg," she said firmly. I sensed she'd done that spiel many times. "But let's not jump the gun. Panic attacks are a symptom of anxiety, but they can also be situational."
My thumb was back in my mouth, and I chewed on it thoughtfully. I really didn't have time for a mental illness on top of everything else, so her words swept waves of comfort through me. "Good."
"However, it shouldn't be taken lightly," she seemed to read my mind and flicked it back to high alert. She pulled a sheet of paper from the inside of her clipboard, and handed it to me. "I'd like you to fill this out, before our next session if that's alright."
I read the title. K10 Test for Anxiety and Depression.
"Oh, no, I don't think..."
"Humour me," Alba pushed it into my hands. "We'll add up your score next Wednesday and go from there. Sound alright?"
I hesitated but obliged in unzipping my backpack and shoving the papers inside. As I went to stand, Alba placed a delicate hand on my wrist. Her skin was warm and well-moisturised, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the tattooed engagement band. "Miles, when you're filling it out, I'd like you to be honest. If not for me, for yourself. Please."
I shrugged my backpack higher on my shoulder. "I will be. By the way, what highlighter do you use?"
Alba remained composed as always, not hinting that my question surprised her. "Fenty. Diamond Bomb."
"Thought so," I hitched my backpack up. "It looked a little darker, so I thought I'd ask."
"I blend it over my contour."
"Skinstick," I guessed. "Champagne?"
"Sinamon," she corrected. I hissed in an irate breath before I turned my back to the door.
"Miles," she called after me. I turned back to meet her steady gaze. "If I didn't have to spend twenty minutes every session getting you to drop that mask you've fixed to you face, we'd get a lot further in a lot less time. Mind leaving it at the door next time?"
I considered this, and shrugged. "I'll see how the week plays out."
She nodded slowly, waving me out in an easy dismissal. I pulled her door shut behind me and strutted out to administration. I got my hallway pass from the front desk, pausing at the door to re-attach the veil of apathy Alba had called my mask back to my face.
Stepping back into the school corridor, empty as it was, felt like stepping off a cloud into wet cement. I trudged back to class with my head stooped characteristically low, despise the hallways being empty. Before I ducked back into biology, I pulled out my phone and found a recent text from Caleb.
Performing where this Friday?
My response was swift.
aren't you in class?
As was his.
Aren't you?
I leaned against the biology door, out of sightline, and smiled at the screen as I typed.
i'm on @ crescendo 9 - 10.
I watched the ellipses bouncing for what felt like an age as he composed his relatively short response.
Was planning on heading there ~11.
i can have an early night.
The door to the biology room opened, and I fumbled to hide my phone as Ms. Trudeau poked her head out, gesturing me inside with a frown.
"You're quite late, Miles."
I handed her my hallway pass and navigated the tables to slide into a seat by Aaron. He mouthed a quick 'you okay?' and I nodded before Ms. Trudeau beckoned our attention back to the front of the room.
I concealed my phone in my lap to check Caleb's response.
I don't mind. Maybe see you there?
It set off dormant butterflies in my chest and sent a spike of adrenaline from the crown of my head to my core. Which was pretty ridiculous, considering the flippant, completely uninspired tone of the message. From the way my body was reacting, you'd have thought I'd received something far more stimulating. From Caleb, that message was as good as any lewd message I'd received. It felt like a date.
maybe. I had to compose myself for my message to come across as equally as bland because inside I was all but screaming;
Definitely, definitely, no question about it.