Getting Out While You Can

It's Not Like I Haven't Seen It Before

Holly fidgeted in her seat. "He's your friend?"

"Yeah. He's a really good friend."

"And we have things in common?"

I nodded. Holly looked tentatively from me to him and nodded her head. "Can we talk now?"

I schooled my features and looked at Dimitri. "You want to talk now?"

Holly shook her head. I got up and lead her towards one of the common rooms we used for counselling. It had bean bag chairs and couches with a lot of plants. There were absolutely no electronics in the room for the purpose of keeping distractions to a minimum.

"Do you want me to stay?"

Holly looked at Dimitri with an unsure expression.

"Rose and I have been transparent with each other. Nothing I say will be new information to her. If you'd prefer for her to stay, that is perfectly acceptable. Your comfort is what is important," Dimitri said reassuringly.

Holly looked between the two of us before shaking. "It's okay, you can go Rose. I think it may be best that the two of us chat."

"Okay," I said softly, squeezing her shoulder gently before heading towards the door.

"If she gets too worked up, or you feel like the situation is escalating, le me know. I will be just outside," I whispered to Dimitri as I passed. I closed the glass door and headed towards the couch in the living room. It was far enough that it gave them space, but close enough that I could intervene if needed.

I watched their body language as they spoke and I was happy to see that Holly became more relaxed as they talked. I could see that she was getting emotional, but not to the point where I would get concerned. At one point when she started to cry Dimitri moved closer to her, resting his hand on her shoulder.

"Who's that? I've never seen him before."

I looked away from the two and found my worker Emily leaning over the couch. She could be a bit of a bitch when the kids weren't around, and constantly complained about them.

"A friend of mine that thought he might be able to help Holly," I said plainly, looking back at the two.

"You know you can't just bring people in off the street? That's completely unethical."

"I already cleared with Deanne. Besides Dimitri have personal and professional experience. He worked at my high school during my last year, and he was trained to help kids with trauma," I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest.

I could tell that Emily was going to open her mouth again when Deanne appeared out of thin air.

"How's it going in there? They've been in there for almost an hour," she said in awe, "the longest she's talked to someone was thirty minutes, and that was with you."

"It seems to be going really well," I said with a smile.

"Does he even have qualifications to speak to Hailey?"

Deanne raised a brow at her. "Holly. And yes, Rose provided me with certification of training from when he was her mentor in high school. He helped you through some issues too, right? The death of your friend?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Mason."

Deanne and I had had conversations in the past when she was curious about how I bonded with the kids so quickly. She was stunned when she learned of the things I had gone through as a teenager; surviving a car crash that killed my former best friend's family, being bullied in my final year, being part of a hostage situation, losing Mason, coming to terms with meeting my absent father.