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Hence the head doctor.
Kicking my legs over the side of the bed, I pick up my headphones and connect them to the phone. I move around my room and grab what I need to survive the next couple hours. Backpack, phone, kindle and I reach up and make sure that my locket is still hanging around my neck. It’s the one thing that still connects me to her.
I shut my eyes and try to hold back the tears. I can’t cry. I need to be strong. Just like I was at the funeral. The lonely and quiet funeral. There was no one there. My aunt, hersister, didn’t even attend. So, it was just me and the guy reading off some crap that didn’t even know her. Oh, and a couple coworkers from her diner came, but they only stayed for a few minutes.
Like everything else in life, I was left to bury my mother, alone.
But at least she wasn’t alone; her grave sits next to my father’s. So at least they have each other, while I battle life out here by myself.
Heading out into the hallway, which is also covered in some atrocious palm tree wallpaper, I shut my door and make my way downstairs. Don’t want to keep Lucifer waiting.
“Do you even understand what this is doing to my schedule? You’re messing up my day!” my aunt yells at me as I reach for the front door. Her face is all red, her lips turned down in a frown and her eyebrows pulled together.“This is taking up my precious time!”
Yeah, precious time. She sits at home doing nothing but living off the money of her dead husband. Apparently, he died of a heart attack or something. He never had any heath problems, but he also never went to a doctor. So, who knows? She doesn’t talk to me much and again, I don’t ask. I just know she lives the highlife and bitches that I’m taking up her precious time.
My uncle was some tech geek. Created software for companies. He was loaded and now she lives off his hard work.
Oh, and therapy was her idea because she didn’t want “some depressed teen living in her house that could be trouble.” I’m being forced to talk about my feelings because of her. She’s fucking lovely, isn’t she?
But then again, I do want to crash a car into her fountain, so maybe she’s right for thinking that. Whatever.
Throwing myself in the backseat of the car, because I can’t stand being close to her, I put my headphones in and blast the music for the short trip. Closing my eyes, I think of nothing. I envision blackness, a hole. Because that’s what this life is.
Nothing.
* * *
“Phoenix, how have you been this last week?” Dr. Justin Parker sits across from me, his leg crossed over his knee and his hands in his lap. He’s clean cut, young, probably in his late twenties. His brown hair is slicked back, his face is clean shaven, and his thick black eyeglass frames do nothing for him. He’s a good-looking man, but very annoying with all his questions.
And yes, I know that’s his job.
I give him a sarcastic smile. “You know, funny thing, Doc. I’m the same as I have been every single week I’m brought here to this fucking appointment.” I sit with my legs tucked under me, my body turned away from him. “It’s always the same.”
“Hm. Well, here’s the thing, this is part of my job as your therapist to see how you are doing. Each and every week.” Dr. Parker’s lips turn up, and he tilts his head.
“Oh! I didn’t know!” I slap my thigh and roll my eyes. “Are you even old enough to do this? You look a little too young to be giving me advice.”
He coughs through laughter. “I assure you, I’m old enough. Not to mention that I have the credentials and degrees needed.”
“Yay me. So, I get you right out of junior college.” I sigh. He ignores my attempt at insulting him and sits there staring at me. “I don’t really care how many degrees you actually have. Are you really qualified to understand pain?”
Dr. Parker sighs, pushing up his glasses on his nose. “Phoenix, you experienced something very tragic. Not once but twice. Losing your dad to suicide—”
“He didn’t kill himself!” My head snaps towards him.
The doctor is quiet for a moment. “Then what happened to him? What do you think happened?”
I let out a long sigh, “I don’t know, Doc. But I know he would’ve never left us. He loved us.” I shake my head, trying to keep the ball of emotions that’s forming in my throat from coming up.Don’t cry, Phoenix. Don’t cry.
“Okay, let’s talk about something different.” He nods while shifting to placing his foot on the floor and leaning forward. “So, you start Darkwood Academy next week. A new school, your senior year. How do you feel about that?”
“So cliche there, Doc. ‘How does that make you feel?’” I snort. “It’s a new fucking school. It sucks ass. But on the bright side, I won’t be living with my wonderful she-devil of an aunt. So, you know, totes excited.” My last words are loaded with sarcasm as I look down and play with the hem of my tank top.
Dr. Parker shrugs. “Well, that’s a good thing. You get to stay on campus, get out of the toxic environment you’re in now. I heard it’s run like a college campus, so you get to experience what it will be like when you go to college. Plus, you can make some new friends.”
I huff, “Yeah, just what I need. Some preppy assholes who have more money than they know what to do with as friends. Wow, I can’t wait. And there is no guarantee I can even go to college, so this may be the only ‘college experience’ in my book. Because let’s face it, I don’t have the money.”
“Your aunt got you in, right?”