Cry Until You Bleed

12- Reality Shock

“Why did you suspect that he was a dragon, Ana?” My brother asks me as I glance to the side and I see somebody standing near the edge of the phone bank watching me as if she’s waiting for her turn on the phone but that doesn’t really make any sense because there are plenty of open phones. I turn so that my back is facing her and I ignore the creepy girl.

“Because he was wearing a leather jacket and, I don’t know, I just feel like if a dragon turned into a human then it would probably wear a leather jacket,” I explain although I’m sure that it doesn’t make any sense to him. Or to anybody else, really, but it makes sense to me. “But Dr. Lombardi told me that while I should be comfortably cautious about new relationships, I should also not push them away or be too judgmental from the get-go.”

“Okay, well if that’s what your doctor said then you should listen to her and not to me. But if he gives you any problems just let me know. You know that I’ll fly out there in the blink of an eye and kill the guy- dragon or not.”

“I know you would,” I chuckle. “But don’t worry about it. I don’t think that he’s going to be trouble. I guess we’ll see though.”

“Just be careful,” He warns me as if he really has to.

“I’m always careful,” I assure him. “Anyway, I have to go. I have this thing. Are you still coming up next weekend?”

“Yeah, you have visitation now, right? It’d suck if we fly all the way out there and they don’t let us in,” He says.

“Yeah, they’ll let you in. I got the go ahead yesterday so you’re fine. I’m really excited to see you guys,” I say, a smile curving my lips just at the thought of seeing my family in just one week. Hopefully, it won’t be like the week that I just had though, because I don’t think I can take another week like the last. Then again, I don’t see how it could happen again- I don’t have any more friends to lose.

“We’re all excited to see you too, Ana,” He assures me. “But yeah, you go do whatever it is that you have to do.”

We say our quick goodbyes and then I hang up the phone. When I turn around, that girl isn’t there anymore, which is relieving, so I just walk away from the phone bank towards the room where honesty circle is held. The circle is rapidly filling up when I get there so I just quickly sit in one of the plastic red seats that has an empty seat on both sides of it. I know that there are an exact number of chairs to fit everyone who needs to be here so it’s not like I’ll be able to sit by myself but I don’t want to awkwardly sit beside somebody I don’t know.

Honesty circle is when I feel like I miss Johnny the most because it’s one of the only things that we did just me and him without Renée and Mia. I mean, they’re both awesome people too but Johnny made honesty circle almost sufferable because if there was something that I disagreed with or thought was ridiculous during the conversation, I’d turn to him and roll my eyes and he’d just laugh and then roll his eyes back at me and then we’d go on, pretending like nothing had happened.

This is the first circle without him though, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through it without somebody to roll my eyes at.

“Happy Friday, everyone,” Jake chirps once it’s time to start our circle of honesty and crap. “Before we start, does anybody have anything that they’d like to talk about or share about their week?”

Shayla raises her hand while simultaneously turning her nose up at everybody.

“Shayla, go ahead,” Jake motions toward her.

“I think that we should talk about what happened on Wednesday to that girl who tried to kill herself,” She pipes. I really don’t like this girl. Maybe she doesn’t mean it to be offensive, but it offends me the way that she just says it like that, as if she even cares about Renée when she doesn’t even know her name.