Water - Complete

Keelan

"Keelan! I've been hearing some not so nice things about your behavior lately, what's going on?" That was the first thing that greeted me as I walked through the door, it seemed like mom had been waiting all day to launch the surprise attack on me and I really wasn't in the mood for it.

"Mom, it's no big deal really." I don't think that was the answer mom was looking for, her eyes narrowed a fraction and I knew I was in trouble when she crossed her arms over her chest. Why did all adults do that when they were about to dish out punishment? It was so predictable.

"Keelan Poller, you were not raised to be so condescending and mean spirited. What had gotten into you lately?" Mom was hitting at something that I didn't really want to talk about so shrugged and carried on up the stairs.

Her questions followed me right until I slammed my bedroom door closed, why was everyone suddenly so heavy on the questions and why wouldn't they leave me alone? I needed my quiet space to think things over and to calm down before I could face my mom and the world again. The only problem was, I didn't have a quiet space and cringed when my bedroom door swung open to reveal a very pissed off mom.

"Keelan, don't walk away while I'm talking to you." God, sometimes mom's could be so annoying.

"Mom! Seriously, can you just leave me alone?" I turned to her so suddenly that she stopped dead in her tracks and retracted a little. Why did she look so scared of me suddenly? I was standing a few feet away from her and would never raise a hand towards my own mother..that'd be crazy.

But whatever she saw in my expression and posture made her leave so suddenly that I wondered what I had done.

Confused and suddenly unsure of myself I went and closed my bedroom door, I stayed in my room for the remainder of the night. I wish I could say that I slept, but this inner turmoil kept me well and truly awake. When morning rolled around I felt like I had a head full of cotton and eyes full of sand, my head was pounding and I felt like I was walking through thick syrup.

The next morning mom and Nat sort of walked around like I would be spooked easily or something, when they spoke to me it was like they were trying to keep me from getting stressed or angry. Which made absolutely no sense and left me feeling a lot more hurt than I probably should have felt.

Class was a blur, I answered everything that was asked of me but not all my answers were right.

When I arrived to the mentoring program I half expected Ilyse to be on my case about yesterday and the night at the fair. But surprisingly she wasn't, she sat there and stared at me...waiting for god knew what. But the longer she stared the more uncomfortable I became and began squirming in my seat.

"Okay fine. What do you want? An apology? I'm sorry for being such a douche the other day but sh*t just isn't going my way lately and I dunno." I sat there, half expecting Ilyse to lash out at me but she didn't she just carried on looking at me with that neutral expression of hers.

"No shit Ilyse, if you don't stop looking at me or don't say something soon I'm..." she cut me off as she leaned forward suddenly.

"You'll what? Walk off again? If you hadn't noticed Keelan I'm not the one that needs to be here and after yesterday I'm surprised Mrs. Gasfell hasn't just suspended you for the rest of the summer. Mind you, I guess sitting in class with the towns biggest charity case is punishment enough. Right?" I winced at that, hadn't Brock been calling me those exact words a few days ago and now here I was, more or less thinking the same thing about Ilyse.

"What is your problem? You sound like my mom and Mrs. Gasfell and every other woman over the age of thirty five, just shut up with the nitpicking shit already. I don't need it." I felt the anger starting to build again, if I thought that Ilyse zip her lips like my mom and Nat had over the past few days I was dead wrong.

"You're my problem, you living in this stupid little bubble of pity. No one else feels any pity for you because no one else knows what to pity you for. Other than being a gigantic moron you don't exactly put yourself out there for anything else. All the mentors here...all they know you for is being a douche and all I know you for is being a judgmental douche that doesn't mind calling out peoples short-failing's at the drop of a hat." My first thoughts were to deny everything that Ilyse had said, I didn't live in a bubble of pity...people liked me, surely?

"Better a moron than a judgmental b*tch." By the way Ilyse gasped I knew I'd gone too far. But that was exactly what she had been doing, wasn't it?

"That's it, I'm going to go and tell Mrs. Gasfell that you and I will never ever get along and she might as well drop you from this program and from the school roster. Happy?" The bottom of my stomach dropped out at hearing that, it was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over me and I was now sitting back in the dreaded reality that was my current situation.

"Wait! Wait, please don't tel Mrs. Gasfell, I'll do anything." I was literally on my knees with my clasped hands out in front of me begging Ilyse not to turn me over to the principal. I'd never hear the end of it from either parents and I wondered if me being kicked out of school was enough for them to kick me out for good.

"Seriously Ilyse, I'm begging here. I can't get kicked out of this stupid program or out of this stupid high school. I'll do whatever I need to do just to get through this mentoring program, please?" Ilyse looked wary, like I'd bite her in the a$$ the first chance I got. Truth was, she had every right to be wary of me I couldn't promise I'd be the best guy there ever was. I couldn't even promise that I would be sane and normal tomorrow but I could at least try.

After what felt like ages, Ilyse finally nodded and I got up off the floor. Thankfully most of the other mentors had taken their mentoree's somewhere else but those that were still in the room made a point of ignoring Ilyse and I.

"I have a few conditions though, we're going to move our sessions outside of school and the classroom.If you ever insult me that much again I'm going to knee you in the balls repeatedly and lastly, you need to get out of that pity bubble you're in." What? Repeated knee to the balls? That was enough to make me cringe, I'd been hit there twice before and just the memory alone made my eyes water.

"Sure. Whatever. Where are we going anyway?" I was curious and still a little ticked off at everything, but at least I had convinced Ilyse not to turn me in. I was sorta grateful for that at least.

"I don't know, we make it up as we go along. That's what makes it so fun." What? I wasn't much of a 'go with the flow' kind of person, I didn't like to make things up as we went. That was usually how people ended up in trouble or worse.

"Hold on, you don't actually have a plan? How do you know where we'll end up?" Ilyse didn't say anything, she shrugged her shoulders and gathered her things before motioning me forward.

"Let's go." With a loud, annoyed sigh I followed Ilyse out of the classroom and likely to my doom.