Secret || Abby Littman

Chapter 4

I sit in my therapist's office as he stares at me. "So do you have anything you want to tell me?" I shake my head. "No."  "Joe told me a teacher told you that you're the reason your father killed himself."  I curse under my breath. Fucking Joe. Can't keep a thing to himself. "So how did it make you feel?" I shrug. "I don't know." He nods. "Do you think you can try to explain?" I look at him. "I still don't know." This is how basically every therapy session of ours goes.

He tries at to get me to label my emotions and I close up even more. Our therapy sessions are always the best. Finally, after what seems like forever, the therapy session ends. I stand up and give him a nod. "Always a pleasure Dr. Stan." He nods back.

I leave his office and am greeted by the sight of someone I never expected to see her. She looks at me coming out of the office and her eyes widen significantly in panic. She's sitting in between her parents who I met last year. They see me and give me smiles and I smile back before Dr. Stan beckons Abby in and I hear him say "Abby I'm so excited for you to have your first session."

I leave and go back to the Blue Farm Cafe. "How was it?" I look at Joe. "Per usual, I hated it." He sighs. "Maybe you should start telling Stan how you feel." I put my head in my hands. "I'd love to but I'm not the best at communicating my feelings."

Joe ruffles my hair and hands me a muffin. I smile and mumble a "thanks." I go over to Marcus' house and he sees my face and hands me the bucket of ice cream he was eating. "How was Stan?" I sigh as I lean on him. "A pleasure as always." "Anything new?" My mind flashes back to seeing Abby there but that's not for me to tell. "Um not at all."

Marcus goes to get me some soda cause I so sweetly asked him and I'm the only person who he ever does anything relatively nice for. He comes back and he looks sad. "They're watching porn in there." I glance at him questioningly. "Who's they?" "Max, Norah, Ginny, and the love of your life."

I whack him before opening the soda. After I finish my soda I go to the bathroom and I bump into Abby. I chuckle. "At least this time neither of us had anything spillable in our hands." She chuckles. I'm about to walk in when she grabs my hand. "Hey, can you not say anything about what you saw? I know you tell Marcus everything but could you refrain from giving him this information."

I smile at her. "Hey, it's none of my business. I wasn't gonna tell in the first place. Only two people know I go there. Well, technically three now cause you know too. It's not my place to go around telling people about that. Your secret's safe with me." She smiles thankfully and I nod at her and go into the bathroom.

The next morning I sit listening to Ginny give her project but I'm barely even listening cause I didn't sleep well. I woke up at 1 am in the morning due to a nightmare and just couldn't get myself back to sleep. I'm running on caffeine here. I'm barely awake to hear Ginny yelling at someone.

The next thing I hear is her being called to the office. The next person goes up and I really do fall asleep I think. The next thing I know I'm being tapped by Max and class is over. I pack up my bags and go out.

After school, I'm at work and I'm still really tired. I can barely stay awake. Joe takes one look at me and goes and makes me a mug of coffee. I smile at him. "What time did you go to sleep?" I shrug. "I slept for like two hours." He looks at me concerned. "Kid, you shouldn't be here." I shrug as I put on my apron. "I like working here."

Ginny and Max walk around together and Max keeps on going behind the counter while Joe tells her she can't be there. I don't really pay attention to them cause frankly, I don't even care. I just do my job.

Later that afternoon I sleep until Marcus comes to get me for Battle of the Bands. Joe comes to wake me up but he's wearing a suit. I chuckle. "What's the occasion, Jojo?" He glares at me. "Casino Night." I go into my bathroom and change before leaving with Marcus.

We get there just in time for the first song. I stand and listen to a guy named Scott singing. He's fucking amazing. Abby is especially fawning over him. She does a swooning action and I roll my eyes. He's not that great. Marcus leaves in the middle of Scott's performance cause he needs to go to the bathroom and he leaves me alone. What an asshole.

He comes back and stands next to me. "Did I miss anything cool?" I shrug. "Not really. Next up is Padma's band." He nods. Hunter comes up and turns out he's singing not Padma. This is gonna be a disaster. He goes on a whole rant about how he met someone and now I've realized that this is him serenading probably Ginny.

He looks at Ginny. "Ginny Miller, this is for you." Marcus fake gags and I whack him. Hunter starts singing and I scrunch up my nose. Eww, what is he doing? I don't appreciate the energy that we've created in the studio today. I look at Marcus and he's equally disgusted which is why we're best friends.

I turn and look at Ginny and her friends and they're jumping around squealing. Honestly, if someone did this to me and they had a bad voice like Hunter does, I would personally murder them. I think he should stick to instrument playing cause he's actually good at it.

Marcus looks jealous as he stares at Ginny. I squeeze his arm comfortingly. Finally, the torture on my ears stops. I clap politely. Thank god that's over. In the end, Hunter wins which I think is unfair cause Scott was a god but I guess the judges are suckers for romance. I go home and immediately collapse on the couch cause I can barely make it upstairs to my room.