The Insanity of a Wallflower

Forgotten- XXX

Silently I leaned into the window. My forehead pressed firmly into the cold pane and it seemed to take away the feverish heat that inflamed my skin. I tightened my eyes and fought the constricting wave of emotions the washed over me; Augustine's words seeming to weigh my last grain of sanity down.

"A lie?" I had croaked earlier, still standing beneath the mural with her. I was losing all control of emotions again. Each break collapsed too close to the next, and it was getting harder and harder to recover from one and resist the following.

"Yes." she said simply. Doctor Augustine approached the bottom of the stone wall. "A pointless, wasteful lie." She turned her head slightly, allowing the brown tresses atop her head to reflect some of the light from the glass ceilings above. That same white gleam seemed to graze her iris, lightening them even more. For a horrific moment, her eyes looked like that of a wolf's.

My hands tightened and my jaw clamored down a small internal tremor. No... something inside of me whispered. You are not a child; a helpless patient. I glanced for a brief moment to the ladder against the mural. Everything Hayden did, he did so with confidence. Where I had clammed up when Augustine showed her face, he used my error instantly to our advantage. I had no idea if his words were the truth or not though.

I believed them in the frenzy of the moment and shouted my own founded fears back at him. But if what he had said was really how he felt; than he had used his own weakness to his advantage. He had done it with such ease... I wondered if that was a defense mechanism he'd lived with his whole life; if this wasn't the first time he used his own pain at the sake of his own humility.

I tightened my fist, strangling the tremor into nothing. I would not break. I would recover from this. I met her eyes dead on.

"I don't see how using the theme I'm going with is a lie? Yes, the school is hardly a philosophical establishment, but I refuse to make a childish collage. I want elegance. I want breathtaking. I want to turn everyone's head."

"And so you will." She said. After a moment of watching me, like she was waiting for something more, she finally sighed and said, "But it's still a lie you've been asked to paint."

I watched her form with uncertainty; she had been fishing to see if I had hidden intentions. I studied those eyes across from me. She had purposely been vague in hopes I might say something out of guilt or pressure. And if I didn't, it would still work with her real meaning and intentions.

So apparently, I hadn't been caught painting two murals. Wonderful.

I began to walk quietly behind her as she headed for the doors, fingers tight in my grasp. So if now that I confirmed I had nothing to hide, what other lie had Augustine realized? But I should have known. They were everywhere after all. If even people like Hayden and Randal could smell something on Mrs. Campbell's collar- why wouldn't a Clinical Psychiatrist?

While Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Douglas had reasons for viewing the mural because of School and State affairs, Doctor Augustine was here separately to view me. But she took that time to listen to other others, and it seemed she clearly didn't care for what she saw.

"You don't agree with their mural." I said those thoughts aloud. "I guess I'm not surprised."

She turned and gazed at me humorlessly, "What gave me away?"

"Besides your words?" I laughed dryly back, "I just forgot that you have no care for schemes and lies. Anyone's. I should have known you'd hate the mural no matter what."

I shut my mouth instantly, realizing I was admitting I was aware my school was an illusion of false funds, false high grade-point averages, and falsified people. And if I knew those things, why would I want to paint the mural? A question I didn't want her to dwell on...