Gray Days

Chapter 3: An Inborn Prophecy

3

Zoey.

These past days, my parents are starting to worry about me. When I get home from school, Dr. Kelly is sitting in our living room, sipping a cup of tea. Seeing me, she greets me with the same smile I see her every time she visits. Mom calls me from the kitchen and I go and kiss her cheek, asking what the doctor is doing here.

"You know what day is Friday," she tells me carefully. "We just want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm okay, Mom," I say, but we both know the closer that day comes, I won't be. And I know no matter how hard I tell her I'm fine, she won't believe me, at least not until Friday is over.

Dr. Kelly smiles at me as I sit across her. Often when she checks up on me, I wonder if all psychotherapists look like her. Smiling at their patients as if they can understand them with just a glance. And often with that thought, I think about how those patients would react if they don't.

When she starts asking me how I am, I tell her the same thing I told Mom. Like Mom, she doesn't believe me but she nods.

"How is your sleep?" she asks.

Mostly, I'm just sleeping fine until the day before. So I say, "It's fine."

"What are you feeling lately?"

I think about Rut getting me in detention, breaking out, and then finding out about my wrist. I'm upset that he got me in detention, shocked because it was the first time I broke out of detention, then, "Worried," because he's the first one to find out about it when I don't want anyone to know.

"Why is that?"

I shrug.

"Why are you holding your wrist?"

I didn't notice it until she told me. Quickly, I take both of my hand off my lap and let them rest on the couch. Subtly, I shrug.

If she's going to tell Mom and Dad there's something strange about my wrist which I'm sure she will, I know my parents won't forcefully tear my sleeve like what Rut did. And if I'm careful and cheerful enough, they'll think it's nothing.

As I walk inside my room, I head to the window, and seeing Rut looking at me, I pull the curtains down and sit blankly on the bed. My phone rings and I almost jump, surprised by the sudden noise. Taking the phone out, Rut's name welcomes me on the screen. Letting the call go to voicemail, I hold the phone on my hand and wait for the ringing to end.

When a new voicemail comes through, I suspect it's from Rut, and I'm right.

First off, he starts, I'm sorry I got you detention. Second, your welcome I broke you out. Third, accident or not, I don't care. I don't want to sound too concerned, but we've almost known each other our whole lives basically since we're neighbors and it's just—remember what I told you last time? About my real dad? Yeah. I don't want you to end up like him. He chuckles awkwardly. He goes silent for seconds but the message is still running. Then, he sighs like he's hesitating to say something and before he can say it, he ends the voicemail.

Getting up to my feet, I peek through the curtains and see Rut by his window, looking down at his phone. Looking up, he tosses his phone somewhere, probably his bed, and walks away.

It would somehow be unreasonable to some, foolish to others, to say that the thoughts I am having now rooted back eight years ago, when I was only nine, because of the death of a dog. When we found Corby in the pound, he was badly beaten up. I took care of him, fed him, bathed him. Only two years later, Corby started failing. Dad immediately sent him to the vet, and when they both came back later that afternoon, I used to sit near the fireplace, by Corby's  bed, smoothing his hair, whispering he'll be okay. That night, Dad told me it won't be long until Corby dies.

I remember asking him, "Why does he have to die?"

Dad replied, "He has to rest now."  But when I asked him the same question when Grandma died four years ago, he answered, "One day, you'll be born into the world; the next day, you'll be taken away from it. It's the price of living."

I always think adults console you best when you're only a child and doesn't know any better. Or was it the grief that made Dad say those words? Either way, it stuck.

Death is the price of living. It's an inborn prophecy. It's like the universe is saying, "You live and you'll die," from the very first moment you stick your head out of your mother's womb and the doctor pulls you out. It's inevitable as well as unavoidable. It lingers in the corner of your eyes, floating over the excitement of life.

To Rut's concern, I'm not as disturbed as he thinks I am. And as much I want to die, I have no intention of killing myself. I wait for it, like a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled.