Jefferson Lake (MBBF Spin-Off)

Chap. 7

I turned around to face her, cocking an eyebrow. "You're sorry?"

"Lee, I am so, so sorry."

"For what?"

"I thought I was grabbing your History notebook, I swear," she said, regret written across her face. "I didn't pay attention, I just grabbed the first notebook I saw and stuffed it into my backpack."

I had no idea where this was going.

She reached into her backpack, pulling out the notebook and handing it to me. "I swear that I only saw the first page. I closed it as soon as I realized."

I accepted the notebook from her, realizing what it was.

This was my therapy sketchbook.

"I feel awful," she continued.

I had filled this up over the summer, after my attempted suicide.

My therapist had told me that I needed to find an outlet for all the anger, hurt and pain that I was feeling, one that didn't involve sharp objects, so I took to my drawings.

Only these weren't of the sunset or a wave crashing onto the beach, the scenery I'm used to drawing.

These were full of raw emotion, all of the anguish I'd been feeling at the time I poured into this sketchbook.

And once I'd started to come around, started feeling more like myself and less like the tortured and tormented person I'd become, I'd ditched the sketchbook, never to look back on it again.

"Say something," McKenna whispered.

My eyes snapped up to her, and I realized I'd just been standing here, staring at the cover of this sketchbook.

I reached over to my desk, grabbing my History notebook and tossing it to her. "I think this is what you were looking for."

She caught the notebook, still staring at me.

"To be honest, I haven't looked inside of this in months," I said, still holding the sketchbook in my hands. "So I have no idea what you looked at."

"It was only the first page, I swear."

"You've mentioned that," I said. "I'm not upset."

"You seem scary calm right now."

I just felt numb.

I took a seat in my desk chair, staring at the cover for a few more moments before flipping the sketchbook open.

I could feel the anger and the pain pouring out of the picture in front of me, slashed in red and black.

I remembered drawing this. It was my first day of therapy after my suicide attempt.

I was mad at the world. I didn't understand why the suicide hadn't worked. I didn't understand why Parker was forcing me into a rehab program. And I didn't want any of part of anything they were trying to make me do.

I had just wanted to be dead.

I quickly shut the notebook, my heart pounding in my chest.

Those emotions were too much for me, too overwhelming.

I don't ever want to feel that way again. It was deep and it was dark and it was so, so painful.

To wish death upon yourself is never a place you want to be.

"Lee, you're scaring me," McKenna said.

I looked up at her, my heart still pounding in my chest.