Hurricane - {~k.v.}

5

•the calm•

5

Kendall Vertes

My nails made the same repetitive sound as they beat against the arm rest of the chair over and over again. I wasn't supposed to be here, but there was no way I was going to be able to go to school today, and this was my dad's compromise.

I had only been waiting for a little over ten minutes, after Chase dropped me off on his way to school this morning. But after last nights events, every minute felt like an hour, and I couldn't get the pictures out of my mind. The empty window. The letters. The look of shock on everybody's face when they realized she had disappeared.

"Kendall?"

The tapping stopped.

"I didn't expect to see you until next week, did something happen?" Willow's voice flooded my thoughts as I looked up in her direction. I nodded in response, and followed her inside her office.

Willow's office was one of my favorite places in the whole entire world. The walls were a navy blue with PhD's lining her shelves reading: Dr. Willow Harding, on every single one. She had a white papasan chair sitting beside a tan couch. Across from those sat her desk and in front of that, her own tan chair.

I took a seat in the white papasan chair and pulled a grey blanket off the floor and onto my lap. Dr. Harding had continuously asked me to call her by her first name, so while it took a while to get used to, I adjusted my preferences to do just that.

Willow was possibly the best therapist there was. When everything first happened, I was sent to some guy who worked closer to our town. However after the meltdown that had occurred a few weeks after Ryliegh's disappearance, they switched me to see somebody into the city.

"Did you finally visit your guest house?" She asked, assuming this would be the thing that would shake me up.

What did I tell you? She's a mind-reader I swear.

I nodded in response again, pushing last night's events into the back of my mind. My fingers naturally started playing with the blank I had just thrown across my lap. I wanted a pillow. Something I could hold. I spoke up, "Can I have a pillow?"

"Make yourself comfortable, Kendall." She replied, handing me a pillow from the couch beside me and stepping back into her tan chair.

"Why don't you tell me what happened,"

My head nods as I hold the pillow in my arms, bringing my mind back to last night.

"My neighbor was....over at my house, while Chase was um, he was pick-picking up some Chinese food for the two of us." I began shakily. I did not want to have dive back into the awful feeling that came over me last night.

Willow interrupted me, pulling her big, curly hair back into a ponytail. Her dark skin stood out against the white top and jeans she had worn. "This is the new boy who's moved in next door, correct?"

"Yeah," I answered before adding, "His name is Noah."

One of the things that made me feel most comfortable with Willow was that she never pressed too hard for information. She told me she believed that my mind will allow things to come back to me the more relaxed and comfortable I felt. She said that if she asked too many questions that demanded information I was not ready to confront, I could begin to put up walls and tuck things away.

Therefore, if I wasn't ready to tell her certain details or confront the fact that certain annoying people had snuck into my life against my will, she never made me.