Hesitating, I take a deep breath and knock on Mr. Timmons' door.
"Come in!" he says from the other side.
I walk in and sit down. He's engrossed in an email as I wait. As soon as he hits 'send', he switches his attention to me. His hands come up on automatic to straighten his polka-dotted tie.
He cracks a little smile. "Niamh! So nice to see you again!" In a flash, the smile flattens into a confused grin. "What's the reason that you're here?"
Unlike the counselor, I can't bring myself to look pleased. "I got sent out of class."
I explain what happened as he takes mental notes. "It was annoying to hear Josh argue with the teacher for every problem he couldn't get extra points on," I confess. "It's like, move on. You already lost."
"I certainly understand your frustration," Mr. Timmons tells me. He clasps his hands together. He's confused again, for a different reason. "It doesn't sound like you to 'explode', as you had put it, in class about what you described. Was there another situation you faced beforehand?"
Crossing my legs, I sigh. Here we go.
"Mom's taking out her aggression on me again. Found out I got accepted at a college without giving her the power to choose for me, so she's finding little details to --"
Mr. Timmons holds up a hand; what I said obviously catches him off guard. I fade into silence.
"You got accepted?"
Right. I haven't seen him since before that fight between me and Mom. Then again, he hasn't been sending out too many slips with my name on it.
I nod, hesitated. How will he react?
Almost like someone pushed a button, Mr. Timmons launches into an enthusiastic spiel. He's proud of what I've done and how I managed to get in. He's excited about the future possibilities I have within my reach. As I pull my hair into a ponytail and fix it up, he's saying how he hopes the best for me while I'm moving on in life. More specifically, life in England.
As I'm witnessing this wave of encouragement, sad realization creeps and sets in. My hands feel like lead, and they drop in my lap. I sink into my chair, not moving an inch. Someone can put a boulder on my chest, and it won't be as heavy compared to how I'm feeling now.
He's... telling me things a mom should say to her kid about to graduate. A school counselor, whose job is to encourage students to do their best in school. The person I've been seeing on and off for about three years, is doing what Mom should be doing right now. No judgment that I made an important decision on my own, just happy that I made it.
Is is weird for me to cry over this?
Too late. A tear escapes and makes it way down my cheek. I wipe it off as another tear from the other eye comes down. God damn it.
He stops mid-sentence. "Niamh, are you okay?" Reaching across his desk, the counselor hands me a family-sized box of tissues.
"I'm fine. I think." My voice shakes a little, to my surprise.
A voice booms in my head, Get it together. You're stronger than this.
Sorry, voice. Not this time. I'm only human.
Used tissues build up on my lap as I pull more from the box and use them up as much as I can to catch the tears. And the snot that eventually comes out of my nose.
Okay, I'm only human, but I draw the line at disgusting bodily fluids. Yuck.
Poor Mr. Timmons is fidgeting with the contents on his desk, not sure if he should say something or let me have my moment. "I'm sorry if I made you stressed out," he says at last, his voice soft.
Shaking my head, I say, "It's not you. I mean, it is, but not in the way you think."
Grabbing the tissue pile, I throw them in the trash. A couple miss and fall on the floor instead. I lean over to put them where they belong.
Mr. Timmons holds out a hand, and I give back the tissue box. The crying leaves me more exhausted than before. A mental note's made to treat myself with a coffee after this.
"Is this something you want to talk about now?" he asks. "It's what I'm here for."
I laugh weakly. "Yeah. Give me a second."
"Okay."
__________
So, after the mess of a session, I leave the counselor's office. He knows more about Mom now, and has apologized a few times about what I've been dealing with lately. While it's nice to be treated nice, I did feel a little awkward by it. If he was angry in the session, I would have had a better time handling it.
Classes have already switched, so I don't need to go back and face Shadler until tomorrow. I pass the main office, still adjusting my backpack. I make the mistake of peering into the windows.
Josh is glaring back at me in a chair next to the principal's office. His foot taps slow and hard against the carpet. Is he that butt hurt over what happened in English? Also, why is he sitting there? Shouldn't he be fucking around with his buddies in math?
It's not until I'm in the next class when I remember I accused him of cheating on the final. Well, accusing him of doing a shit job of it.
And it's not until the teacher starts her lecture when I remember the Twitter account. I went through a lot of hoops, tricking Josh to accept my follow request -- thus, giving me access to the crap he's been posting. And I forget about it in the middle of everything.
At least the hard part's over. Finding tweets that can incriminate the asshole's gonna be much easier.
Instead of participating in class, I take out a fresh page of paper. Pen at ready, I write the same sentence over and over until I'm certain I can't forget: Screenshot the tweets. If this was a movie, I'd look maniacal as I repeat the words at a feverish pace. People around me would be increasingly concerned by my appearance.
Thankfully, in the real life, no one cares what I'm doing. Also, I'm as maniacal as a court reporter taking notes at a mild-offense trial.
Time flies, and once my last class lets out I zoom to my car. Backpack's flung into the passenger seat. Door's closed, seat belt's buckled, key's in the ignition. I'm ready to leave anytime. I can go to Broken Bones and look at the gravestones. Mom and Dad knows about my early-release, so I'm free to go home and read in my room. Hell, I can go and get that coffee, get some energy for the rest of the day.
But I don't leave the student lot, not right away.
I pull out my phone, and take my sweet time analyzing every tweet Josh has ever made.