Stay With Me

Chapter Nineteen: Staying or Leaving

"You know when you're drowning, you don't actually inhale until right before you black out?" Stiles told the guidance counselor, Miss Morell, as he laced up his lacrosse stick. "It's called voluntary apnea. It's like no matter how much you're freaking out, the instinct to not let any water in is so strong that you won't open your mouth until your head's exploding. Then when you finally do it, that's when your head stops hurting. It's not scary anymore, it's - it's actually kind of peaceful."

"Are you saying you hope Matt felt some peace, in his last moments?" asked Miss Morell, looking at Stiles.

Stiles looked up at her and flat-out said, "I don't feel sorry for him."

"Can you feel sorry for the nine-year-old boy who drowned?" Miss Morell tried again.

"Just because a bunch of dumbasses dragged him into a pool and he couldn't swim, doesn't really give him the right to go off killing them all, one by one," Stiles told her. "And by the way, my dad told me that they found a bunch of pictures of Allison on Matt's computer. Not just of her - he Photoshopped himself into these pictures, stuff like them holding hands, kissing...the kid built this whole fake relationship." Stiles exhaled. "So yeah, maybe drowning at nine years old was what set him off the rails, but the dude was definitely riding the crazy train."

"But something positive came out of all this, right?" Miss Morell referred to the fact that they had reinstated Stiles' father as sheriff.

"Yeah," Stiles said, "yeah, but it still feels like there's something wrong between us. I don't know, there's just, like...tension, when we talk. Same thing with Scott."

"Have you talked to him since that night?" Miss Morell asked him.

"No, not really," Stiles tugged on his lacrosse stick lacing, making sure it was tight enough. "I mean, he's got his own problems to deal with, though." Stiles remembered how Scott had mentioned his mother wouldn't even talk to him, since she'd found out he was a werewolf. "I don't think he's talked to Allison, either," Stiles continued. "But I think that's more her choice. Her mom dying hit her pretty hard. But I guess it brought her and her dad closer. Jackson? Jackson hasn't really been himself, lately. Actually, the funny thing is, out of all of us, right now Lydia is the one who seems the most normal."

"And what about you, Stiles?" asked Miss Morell. "Feeling some anxiety about that championship game tomorrow night?"

Stiles looked up from where he was literally chewing on his lacrosse stick. "Why would you ask me that?" He glanced down, stopped chewing on his lacrosse stick, and said, "Uh, no, I never actually play. But hey, since one of my teammates is dead and another one's missing, who knows, right?"

"You mean Isaac," nodded Miss Morell. "One of the three runaways."

"Scott's worried about him," sighed Stiles. "How he could just disappear like that..."

"It sounds like you're worried about someone, too, Stiles," Miss Morell pointed out, and Stiles exhaled again, thinking about Derek, who had also disappeared; people just weren't as concerned, because he wasn't a minor. "You haven't...heard from any of them, have you?"

Stiles decided to change the subject. "How come you're not taking any notes, on any of this?"

"I do my notes after the session," said Miss Morell. 

"Your memory's that good?" Stiles asked skeptically.

"How about we get back to you?" she looked at Stiles, who looked back down at his lacrosse stick. "Stiles."

"I'm fine," insisted Stiles. "Yeah, aside from the not sleeping, the jumpiness, the constant, crushing, overwhelming fear that something terrible's about to happen..."