Wylan's Laws of Emotion

Introduction

"So Wylan, are you happy right now?" the woman asked me as she sat across from me. I sniffled hard, trying to stifle tears. I wasn't sure how to answer the question, wasn't I supposed to be happy when I came here?

The white walls seemed to cave in at the realization of the time. It was as if the place didn't want to let me go. I was never comfortable when I was there, and she was silently studying me to figure out ways to make me change. I had a growing disdain for her profession quickly.

I questioned what I had done so wrong that my mother brought me there for an hour every Thursday. Maybe I needed to stop drawing love notes on the wall for her. Maybe it was something I said to Blake at school. I couldn't quite figure it out, so I just stopped thinking about it over time.

I looked up at the woman and her hideous floral shirt under her heavy suit jacket. Her hair sat neatly behind her head in a chignon bun, and she had pushed her aviator glasses up on her forehead as she stared at me with a pained expression.

Counselor Phoebe Williams, I smiled with a deep sense of self-loathing.

This one in particular acted as if my despondent, broken emotions were a choice. She acted as if I had gone shopping for them and just wanted to try them on, but now it was time to return them all at once. The test drive wasn't cute anymore.

The only problem was that it had never been a show to begin with.

"No, I'm not. I don't want to be here," I sighed, rubbing a hand over my eyes.

"Well, you're still smiling."

She scribbled something on a notepad. I looked around trying to see where my mother had gone. I wasn't elated to be in that chair, seated in front of that woman again. I never was, even on the first day, I had learned to hate it and her.

"Do you want water or anything sweetie? You look...parched," I shook my head rapidly, frustration building. I had declined her offer five times in the same hour, but she ignored me, pouring another tall glass. She shoved it in my face, as I stared it down awkwardly.

I definitely wasn't happy to be there.

"Are you sure you aren't happy Wylan? You were giggling a moment before..."

That was before she started shouting at me. This was usual though. She'd get annoyed after trying to see if her "conditioning" was working. It wasn't and hadn't been since the first day. Then she'd shout at me, at the top of her lungs, and she'd go outside to have a smoke, then come back and try again.

She offered me a cookie, which I quickly refused. It was either store bought, or it hard and littered with some type of drug. Nonetheless, it was an endearing action.

I still didn't want either. My apprehension was justified too. It only took one bad day with a drugged up cookie to learn your lesson, and the internal pain that came with her homemade weapons of mass destruction was not worth the taste.

I shook my head, speaking reluctantly, "I can't explain it. I know, you said that kids cry when sad, but I smiled. I think you're just mean, honestly." She knew that name-calling was my soft spot. I had made the mistake of telling her that on the first day.

"I'm not mean; you were giggling which shows encouragement."

I was pained at her words. I couldn't help it. I was crying on the inside as I giggled in her face. She knew what I felt, but she continued, and that was monstrous enough for me.

"Why is there something wrong with me?"

She cocked her head to the side, as if giving her answer some deep thought. Thinking back on it now, she didn't have to think that hard on any of her answers. I was smart for an eight year old, but still I was eight not eighteen.

"There's nothing wrong with you Wylan. You're just different..." I tried to process her words, but I was almost convinced that there was something wrong with me. If there weren't, I wouldn't come there every Thursday.

"Am I a good different or bad different?" I asked her.

She sighed heavily, and she looked away. That was my sign, not the biting of her lip, the closing of her eyelids, or the drumming of her fingers. It was the fact that she had to take her eyes off me, and then she breathed heavily. She was taking a chance that she'd catch fire for in the end, but then she did the worst thing.

She said nothing. She just stared at me, and shook her head. Then the shame set in.

"I'm going to go call your mother so she can pick you up."

That was the last time I ever saw Dr. Williams. It was the last time I stepped foot in that God-awful office of hers as well, but the memory always stuck with me.

I sat up as the dream ended. Everything around the room was black, and I shook my head. It happened every time. I hated that dream because it never ended completely.

It never ended with goodbye, and every time I had that dream, I had to remind myself of what she'd told me when she had said her goodbyes. I always forced her words back to mind, and they always sang the chorus of my own personal anthem.

"Wylan, you're a different girl, a phenomenal girl, in a very backwards world." I remembered that. That was my goodbye to Dr. Williams, and that was something I'd always live by.

Was there something so wrong with my own little truth? In my estimation, there wasn't.

I grabbed my computer and logged onto Tumblr before scrolling through my old archives.

I had absolutely nothing to say and no reason to be on the Internet. I was just angry with myself, and I wanted to say something about it to anyone who would listen. It wasn't Internet appropriate at all. I just resolved to do something semi-productive since I wasn't sleepy and it was too late to take sleeping tablets. The only bad thing about my nighttime Internet romps was that I had to be extra cautious because I wasn't supposed to be up.

I thought I had no reason to worry. I had done it enough times to learn the art of being discreet,or so I though. My dad was a deep sleeper, so the only person I worried about was my mother, who was a public prosecutor. Every noise she heard solicited a routine check of the household. She was nothing to worry about that night. I was sure of it.