Say You Won't Let Go

05

Alexa

I enter my therapists' office after school despite my insistence to my mother that there was no reason for me to go anymore and that sending me to these sessions were pointless and a waste of money.

But if there was one thing you needed to know about my mother, it's that she's stubborn and it was that stubbornness that got her anything she wanted. Thus me attending this session.

"Katherine." I acknowledge the middle-aged woman as I plop down onto the love seat in the middle of the room.

"Alexa, welcome back." Katherine's voice is sickly sweet as she smiles before pulling out her clipboard.

"So, how are you?" She asks me. It's always the first thing she asks during our sessions and it's the same answer she always receives.

"I'm fine." I try to make myself as guarded as possible. I hate coming to these sessions much less like the idea of someone trying to pick away at my emotions and determining how I feel when I don't even know how I feel myself.

We sit in silence for a few seconds and I look around the room trying to focus on anything but her.

"Alexa, sometimes you can hurt yourself more than anyone else can just by keeping everything bottled up. So tell me, how are you really?" She speaks to me in the way a mother would speak to a toddler while trying not to upset them.

"As I said before, I'm fine." I rest my head on my hand and watch her scribble something down on her clipboard.

"Can you tell me about your best friend?" My body goes rigid at the question. She notices and I make an effort to regain my composure.

"What do you want to know?" I say coldly.

"Tell me what she was like, your relationship with her."

"She was my best friend. There's no amount of words I could use to make you understand." I look down at my hands as I clasp them together.

I didn't want to tell Katherine anything. I didn't trust myself to talk about her without crying and that was something I wasn't willing to do. At least not in front of some woman who thinks she can get me to open up to her when I can't even open up to my own parents.

After what felt like an eternity of endless questions I didn't want to answer, the session was finally over. Upon arriving home I greet my parents and go straight up to my room deciding to skip dinner.

Today's session stressed me out and I felt like screaming and crying or throwing something. Instead, I finish my homework and go straight to bed.

I put my keys down on the table as I entered the kitchen, phone in hand and my brows furrowed in confusion. She wasn't at school today and hasn't been answering the thousands of text messages I've been sending her all day making sure she was okay. Sighing, I make my way upstairs and into my bedroom.

"Alexa, play my Spotify playlist," I say to the device sitting on my nightstand. Alexa was a gift from my parents and it was pretty ironic how we both shared the name Alexa.

I decide to call her one more time but she doesn't pick up to my chagrin.

What is going on? I think to myself as millions of horrible thoughts enter my mind. She has been acting weird lately and when I asked her about it she said it was just the stress of some English report we had to do. A horrible feeling settles in the pit of my stomach and I hurry downstairs and into the kitchen grabbing my keys.

"Alexa?" My mom enters from the family room as I'm about to head out the door, a weird look on her face.

"Hey mom, I was just heading out."

"Alexa, I need to tell you something." She had this sad look in her eyes and I knew this was serious. Last time I've seen my mom like this was when she found out that her grandmother had died.

"Mom, what's wrong?" I urged.

"Alexa, I don't how to say this to you but Cameron, s-she passed away today." At that moment it felt like the world stopped. My keys dropped out of my hand and onto the floor as I sank to my knees.

"No," I said. "No, no, no!" I could feel the tears pouring down my cheeks. I knew something was wrong.

I knew I should have gone to check on her as soon as she didn't show up to school because she never misses a day of school. I knew something was wrong the moment she started acting weird and I didn't do anything about it.

Sobs rack through my body as my mother pulls me into a hug.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "So, so sorry."  I could feel my mother's body shaking as she too shed her own tears. She loved Cameron as if she were her own.

"I should've done something, it's all my fault!" I scream over and over and over until finally, it all stops.

I bolt awake panting heavily, my hair plastered onto my forehead with what I knew was sweat.

My heart is pounding in my chest and a feeling of dread settles over me. It was just a nightmare. I try to reassure myself. Two quick knocks resound through the room and I jump, still startled from the dream.

"Alexa, I'm off to work honey. Make sure you eat something and get to school on time." The sound of my mothers' voice calms me down a little and I nod my head even though she can't see it. But it doesn't matter because I can already hear her making her way downstairs, not waiting for my reply.

I arrive at school rubbing my sleepless eyes as I make my way to my locker and gather my books for my first-hour class. Slamming my locker shut, I turn around and spot a smirking Blake leaning against a row of lockers and talking to his group of friends.

His eyes meet mine for a second before his friend says something to him and they all nod before heading towards the Chem Lab, which is weird because the Chem Lab hasn't been used ever since our school sponsor donated the state of the art observatory and lab.

All my sleepiness forgotten, curiosity gets the better of me and I follow behind them, brows furrowed in confusion. They all enter the room and the last guy shuts the door behind them.

I peek into the room as discreetly as I can, seeing the guys sitting on stools as one of them opens his backpack and retrieves lighters along with a box of cigarettes. They all take a cigarette, except Blake whose eyes just wander around the room. The bell rings and I shake my head before starting off to class.

It was typical for a select group of kids to sneak off for a smoke on school grounds, the possibility of them getting caught and the adrenaline from it enough to give them some sort of high. But I didn't peg Blake to be apart of that group. Especially considering his nice gesture of checking out the book for me when he really didn't have to.

What puzzled me, even more, was why I had never seen him around before yesterday. Blake and his secrets were none of my concern and they should remain that way, even if I was curious as hell. But I had other things to worry about. 

Enough worries to last me a lifetime.