Ten | newtmas

fifty

The school looms over me menacingly, and quite honestly, I'd rather be walking into TIMI. I despise this place, and if it wasn't my senior year, I'd probably find some way to quit. I'm jumping back in on a Friday, at least, but that's still seven hours trapped in here with a bunch of people I don't like that might know where I've been all this time.

"If you get too overwhelmed, just go to the nurse and call us, okay?" Mom says, turning to me from the driver's seat as I get out of the car.

"Yeah," I say. She probably shouldn't have said that, because that temptation will be strong the moment I walk in. But I've got something to do today.

"Love you," she says, giving me a smile.

I'm too tired to smile back, so I wave after I close the door. "Love you."

She nods before driving away, leaving me shivering in the cold. I wanted to wear Thomas' hoodie, but I didn't want to get it all dirtied up from school, because I'm never gonna wash that thing. Mom almost did yesterday, and I nearly shouted at her out of panic. Needless to say, she knows not to touch it now.

I start limping forward towards the school. My foot is healed enough to not have the cast, but apparently it's not perfect yet. Either way, it doesn't hurt much, it's just mildly uncomfortable.

The only thing bothering me is the urge to do my tens. It feels so wrong not doing it, and I still can't shake the whole universe-is-watching thing. My new therapist gave me some tips for that, and we worked on ERP a bit at our first session. I like her. Her name is Dr. Rachel, and she specializes in OCD. She's also recently to engaged to a woman, so talking to her was somewhat easy. If I could go to her every day, I would.

When I walk into the school, it actually takes me a few moments to remember where my first class even is. I'm not technically off the hook for everything I missed while I was gone, but I have until sometime in summer to finish the important stuff. They said they wanted to make this transition as easy as possible for me, which I do appreciate.

I make it to my class, and my old mindset of everyone staring at me tries to kick in, but I attempt to think about literally anything else to avoid it. I'm not doing my tens, so they have nothing to judge, right? Unless they know I went to TIMI, in which case, I know why they'd stare. I told Dr. Rachel about this when we discussed school, and she told me to actually look at others. When I do that now, I see that nobody is, in fact, staring at me. Even if it feels like that.

I sit down, putting my backpack beside me. Then, I wonder what it would be like if Thomas was in school with me. It'd be so nice to have him next to me in class. I'd probably even enjoy it here. That'd be perfect. But instead, he's still trapped in TIMI.

It's officially been a week since my hearing. Tomorrow will be a week since I left, and every day since I got home I've called Chuck. As of yesterday, Thomas still isn't back with the Normals. The only development is that Jeff saw Thomas in the hallway, and apparently he was between two nurses, just like when I saw Gally. But that's all I know.

When class starts, I look at my teacher and she gives me a small smile before proceeding. It takes a bit of the edge off of my nerves for me that she doesn't make a big production of me being back, but I'm still too distracted to listen too closely to what she says.

I'm extra anxious because I've got a plan today—one that Dr. Rachel approved of—and although it's daunting, it's something I want to do. It's something I have to do. Thomas said so too. So as I sit in class, I run through it again in my head. I just hope it works.

It's just after lunch when I get my opportunity. Right there, right in front of me. But now, I want to back out of my plan altogether. This is a bad idea. What if something even worse happens now? Now I'm just standing here in the middle of the hallway staring. This is going badly already.