Letters From The Dead

Chapter 13

“Hey!” I ignored the call, convinced it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t like I was a hot commodity in this school—especially since I had two mental breakdowns in a single day just last week. “Hey! Halley!”

I whirled around, sure that I’d just heard my name and almost crashed into Tyler who was far closer than particularly necessary. I jumped back and crossed my arms for something to do.

“School ended two hours ago,” He told me, as if I hadn’t known. I shrugged.

“Therapy sessions three times a week,” I said flatly. “Completely useless, but the administration are convinced I attacked Hunter because of my issues—not because he made fun of my issues.”

Tyler looked taken aback. “They’re making you go to a counselor?”

“Yep,” I nodded, tightening my hold around myself. “Anyway—what did you want?” Alright, maybe I could have phrased that a little nicer, but I’m pretty sure my abruptness didn’t phase him anymore.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” He said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “It must have sucked to tell everyone about you and reiterating it just to get my ass out of trouble couldn’t have been particularly fun.”

“Yes, well, you really weren’t at fault in that situation,” I mumbled, more than a little surprised he’d even thought to thank me for something that seemed so inconsequential at the time. “And we’re getting closer to graduation—one more year—and might as well not mess up everyone’s future, yeah?”

“What are you talking about?” He asked, leaning back on his heels. “Your future isn’t messed up.”

“My grades are steady B minuses currently,” I replied easily, not really caring. “I don’t do anything extracurricular, and I failed just about all of my freshman courses.”

“You’re smarter than that though,” Tyler seemed genuinely bewildered. “I know you are. You’ve been in all of my advanced classes since we were little—and nothing ever made you blink.”

“Personal reasons,” I muttered. “I’m not really up for discussing it.”

He paused before shrugging, clearly resisting asking more about that. “Anyway, since you’re here and, well, I’m here, I was wondering if you wanted to stop and get something to eat before going home?” He looked very awkward and I probably didn’t make matters any easier with my open-mouthed gawping at him.

“What?!” I demanded, uncrossing my arms in shock. He wanted to ask out the crazy girl?

“Just—you know—as friends,” he reiterated hastily, and I relaxed, though I wasn’t entirely able to quench the bitter feeling of having been insulted that had risen up inside my throat..

“Or whatever we are,” I muttered before raising my voice. “I—sure, I guess.”

“Great.” he said, smiling brilliantly.

*

I couldn’t help the completely uncomfortable feeling that came with being here, and as soon as Tyler got up to go order our food from the front counter, I stopped pretending to be relaxed and tensed up, pressing my legs together so tight that it was almost painful, wrapping my arms around myself, my fingers digging into my back so hard that it hurt. My shoulders were brought all the way up until they were touching my earlobes and I sucked in forced-calm deep breaths before I started getting hysterical.

In efforts to distract myself, I had a glance around the reasonably crowded restaurant. It was very cutely decorated and there were quite a few familiar faces grouped together, but no one seemed to be paying me much attention—a fact for which I was grateful.

Tyler returned to his seat, safely across the table, and clasped his hands together, pretending as though I didn’t look like I thought he was going to attack me at any given second.

“So what do you plan on doing after school?” he asked politely, and I uncrossed my arms, clenching the hem of my shirt as I forced myself to relax my stance—just a little bit.

“Go away,” I said softly, “Go far, far away.”

“Colleges? Jobs?” he pressed.

“I had a desire to go to NYU,” I explained, “On an arts scholarship. But my other grades have fallen too far. Other than that, I’d never really had a job in particular that I wanted.”

“If you had the grades and the money though,” he continued and I groaned, pressing my fingertips to my temples and trying not to smile at his frustration that I wasn’t giving him decent enough answers.

“I used to entertain the notion of being a therapist.” I said finally. “But now I’m too screwed up to do that.”

I looked away before I could see any sort of unwanted pity cross his features, taking in once more the white tiled floors and the beige vinyl booth seats. The whole place had a sort of cleanliness about it and I loved it.

“Do you still want to be a therapist?” he asked quietly.

I shrugged indifferently. It hardly mattered anymore—never mind my own personal problems, no decent college would accept me with my grades.

“Because I think you’d be good at it,” he continued a moment later after he realized I wasn’t going to say anything. “Not good—brilliant. You’ll be able to look teenagers in the eye and tell them ‘You can get through this. I know because I did it’.”

I could feel the corners of my lips tugging upwards in a tiny smile even though I desperately wanted them to stop. I looked down at the floor abashedly, more than a little pleased with what he’d just said. He couldn’t know how much it meant to me to hear those words.