Mystique || Sweet Pea [3]

12

12 || The Burble Sessions

Another round of tapes made their way around town. This time, the tapes showed the monitored houses much closer than before. The tapes had put me on edge, the good feeling I had during Thanksgiving break was long gone. As soon as the tape was reviewed in our living room, I felt the crushing weight of anxiety wrap around me like a blanket.

It seemed as though I wasn't the only one, and Mr. Honey recognized this. He had noticed the skittishness of the students, and decided to call in a guidance counselor, available as a resource for all students. Throughout the week, students were in and out of Mrs. Burble's office, myself and Sweet Pea included.

Reluctantly, I left Sweet Pea's comforting embrace and stepped into Mrs. Burble's office.

"I'll be in the library studying, okay?" Sweet Pea smiled softly, kissing my temple. "I'll see you in a bit. I love you."

"I love you too." I whispered, closing the door to the office as he stalked down the hallway.

"Your boyfriend?" Mrs. Burble asked, a ghost of a smile on her face.

"Yes." I nodded, smiling fondly. "He's the best."

"Miss Jones, I'm Mrs. Burble." The counselor introduced, gesturing to a bowl of candy on a small coffee table. I sat across from her on the couch, but shook my head at her offer.

"No, thank you." I smiled politely. "And you can call me Kitty."

"Kitty." Burble tested. "How are you feeling today?"

"I'm not going to lie, I'm a little on edge." I shrugged. "These tapes... they're not the worst thing to happen to me, but they're the most recent thing to freak me out."

"That's understandable." Burble nodded. "I hope you don't mind, but I pulled your file. The things that you've been through... at such a young age. A lifetime of trauma endured in the past three years."

"A lifetime of trauma was experienced for longer than that." I scoffed. "My mother was insufferable for many years before she finally left and the trauma 'started' in my file."

"Okay, so should we start with that?" Burble asked, crossing her legs. "Seems you hold a lot of animosity for your mother."

"I do." I confirmed. "But she held a lot of animosity for me first."

"Why is that?" Burble questioned, clicking a pen and opening up a brand new notebook.

"Ever since I could remember, I wanted to be just like my dad." I started. "I wanted nothing more than to have the same leather jacket he did and to finally be able to ride a motorcycle on my own. My mother, she wanted more for me, I guess. She wanted me to go to school on the Northside; get good grades, meet a nice guy on the Northside, and be prom queen. In theory, it's not a bad dream to have for your kid. But she obsessed over it."

"Obsessed over it how?" Burble wondered.

"I wanted to have my hair short when I was younger, keep it out of my face when I played with Toni, Fangs, and Sweet Pea. But she threw a fit and argued with my dad for days, telling him that I should have my hair long like Alice Cooper's daughter." I shook my head. "My dad, always on my side, told her that I could have my hair however I wanted. He took me to cut my hair. But it didn't stop there. Whenever I wanted to dress in pants instead of a skirt or a dress, she argued with me and my dad. Or when I told her that I'd rather have a motorcycle instead of a pink Cadillac, and she almost kicked me out of the house."

"So you and your mother were at odds often, then?" Burble asked, scribbling in her notebook.

"Yes, always." I nodded. "When I was old enough to start standing up to her, my dad usually had to get her to leave me alone. Looking back at it, I think she acted the way she did because I was more like her than she wanted me to be. But, I tried everything I could to get her to treat me like she treated JB."