THE THIRD P3RSON

•Chapter 15•

Grey, knowing Amy didn't care about me at all, said it'd be best if we all went to his house. We'd have dinner and it would give me a chance to calm down. Stacy offered to take me in her car. Grey politely asked Ryan if he could drive mine. With a weary look at me, Ryan nodded.

He looked like he was the one who was trying to recover from an attack.

When I was closing the passenger side door of Stacy's car, I saw Ryan get in my car with such care I almost smiled.

"Honey?" Stacy gripped my hand. "I'm here if you need any help. When I lost my husband, I turned to my sister for comfort. It was hard but little by little, she helped me feel as close as I could to my old self. I'm going to be that person for you."

I took a shuddering, deep breath. "T-Thank you, Stacy."

I looked at my hands. They were shaking but I twisted my phone between my fingers to calm down.

"When I was in Freshman year, a bunch of things happened. It was raining. You could smell it in the air. The night was cold. The wind made you think you had asthma. Everything was out of place." I spent the entire car ride staring at her clock.

"I understand, Sweetheart."

---

The summer of ninth grade was the summer my mother died. I cried myself to sleep every night. My father was a ghost. He came home and handed me money without looking me in the eye. He said one or two words like "Chinese" or "Pizza" and I would have to order it myself.

That was my dinner. Either some soup from the Chinese place or a Hawaiian Pizza. Mostly it was Ramen noodles from the corner store.

It took me some time to buy the stuff I needed for school without snapping my father out of it. He lost his high school sweetheart and I lost my mother so I understood his grief. I had my nights to deal with mine while he went to work with his mask on.

The first day of school was horrible. I felt empty. My mother would usually be the one to make me breakfast and joke about how I would be going to college soon. I was silent in all of my classes and didn't make friends. I didn't want to.

A YEAR passed and my father came home smiling.

"I have a date" he had told me.

I have never felt so conflicted before. My father was talking to me! This was awesome! Then I heard it: A date?

Turns out the woman was someone with connections to a job my father had wanted at a University. It was his dream job. He's wanted it since he graduated college.

"Let me tell you something, Julianna. In this world, if you don't have connections, you can't get anywhere."

Those were the first things my father told me a year after my mother passed.

Little by little things were changing around the house. Everything that belonged to my mother was disappearing. Her mask which she made with golden paint and blue sequins with a single silver feather hanging off the side. Gone. The vase with the cherry blossoms which were also silver and blue- gone.

Her paintings, her dresses, her sunglasses, her makeup. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Just like her.

I dialled my dad while panicking. I was yelling at him. I demanded to know why our walls filled with fancy sunflowers in huge frames covering the walls. Suddenly, we had brown rugs in the kitchen and in the living room. My mother hated rugs. She said her clumsy feet couldn't handle another obstacle other than the air she always stumbled on.

"What's going on?" I had screamed.

"Hun, don't yell. You're mother doesn't like yelling." He replied.

Mother? Amy Smith. The woman with the connection.

Judging by the wedding band on her finger when they got home was enough to tell me the University wasn't the only "connection" she had.

---

I was mute for three months into the school year.

My dad said I was being moody because he had just gotten remarried. The teachers had a conference with him. I wasn't present (this still makes me mad) but they thought I should talk to the school counsellor every day after school.

Then, a brilliant idea, I should join school clubs.

The guidance counsellor was horrible at her job. She acted like she hated students and I always avoided her for that reason. The first time I went to her office, she tapped on her phone, said I needed to join clubs and go to at least one of them regularly. I didn't move. She rolled her eyes, snatched a piece of paper from the corner of her desk, circled something on it, and demanded I went to see the club director.

I never liked him either and I knew that if it ever got to the extreme that I would have to walk into the room- I wasn't going to utter a word. Still, I walked to the quiet hallway where the club director had his office.

Not even two hours past when the school was gossiping. It was a random April day in everyone else's lives.

The police cars that were outside the school resulted in an emergency lockdown. Teachers were murderous. The lockdown had interfered with their lesson plans. They just didn't know that one of their own staff members forced themselves on a student.

I zombie walked to the principal's office with eyes as dead as I felt. I strode past the old secretary and told the principle everything that happened in the last couple of hours. I filed a police report.

They didn't know that the student was me.

My principal had asked me a lot of questions, and so did the police. When the cop cars left, I sat there, staring into nothing. My principal asked me where my mother was and I responded with an "in the grave." After a lot of silence, he asked me who Amy Smith-Jones was. I said she was my stepmother. He saw me shaking and gave me eyes of pity. I never told anyone, not even Grey Miles himself, but the fact that he cared about me was scaring me. My own dad didn't even care.

Throughout everything, my principal was smart. He kept his distance and never made a move to get closer than what I was comfortable with. He asked Mrs Rolando to come in that day and she smiled before I let her hug me. She was nice to me the entire time. I was very emotional that day. I cried for everything.

You know how they say there's a first for everything? Well, that day?

I had my first panic attack.