Memories

XXVIII

EVERYTHING'S OKAY

'Keep giving me hope for a better day
Keep giving me love to find a way
Through this heaviness I feel
I just need someone to say, everything's okay'

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Halloween was hectic, and Thalia didn't know how to feel around so many people. She'd gone as a dead person, with fake blood and one of Andrew's knives for added effect. It was a surprise he'd let her borrow one, considering the comment she'd made while they were out shopping, but he'd obviously been too occupied by Higgins to think much of it. So was Thalia.

She knew that Andrew had lived with the Spears at some point, likely his last home, but didn't know how many kids there'd been between the two of them. Every time she thought about it, Thalia wanted to throw up, so instead she threw herself into school and exy.

Her artworks became darker than ever, and her teachers made her go to a therapy session. It was the first time she'd met Betsy Dobson, and Thalia decided she hated the woman. Neil had told her he did too, and she could see why.

"Thalia, how are you feeling today?" Betsy asked with a sweet smile on her face as soon as she sat down on the woman's couch. It was comfortable, but Thalia was sitting straight with her legs together and hands clasped tightly on top. "Would you like some hot cocoa?" she asked.

"I don't like sweets," Thalia said with a shake of her head. She looked to a shelf behind Doctor Dobson and saw a lot of glass figurines. She nodded towards them. "Where'd you get those?" she asked, deflecting the conversation away from herself. Betsy noticed. Of course she did.

"Andrew got a lot of them for me," Betsy said, her smile growing. "Do you like them?"

"No."

"Well I hear that you're an art student," Betsy said, moving on slightly but not completely. Thalia didn't want to talk about Andrew, because it would lead her to think of the Spears and cause her to go into a spiral of hatred and bad thoughts. "What mediums do you like best?"

"Acrylic." Thalia said, looking anywhere and everywhere except for Betsy's face. She was searching for escape routes apart from the door, which was the obvious one, but other people would see her out in the hallways, and that wasn't ideal. There were only two windows, and they were far too high for Thalia to reach.

"That's interesting," Betsy said. "Your teachers told me you like painting people, is that right?" Thalia nodded. "Why?" that got her attention. Betsy's smiled didn't waver. Thalia shrugged.

"Because people are easily manipulated." Thalia wondered how much Doctor Dobson knew about Andrew's past, and how much he'd told her about Thalia, if anything at all. She wondered if the doctor knew they'd lived in the same home at different times, and if the owners of that home are being investigated for terrible things.

"And why do you think that?" Thalia thought this shrink was on thin fucking ice, and soon enough she would break the sheet and slip. Or Thalia would hit her over the head with one of her stupid glass figures. Whichever one came first.

"Because it's the fucking truth." Thalia said heatedly. Dobson nodded. When the session was over, Thalia was out of her seat and out of the door before Betsy could say anything more. She headed straight to her studio.

The night of the party came, and the whole team headed to Columbia in two cars. Neil had been relegated to Allison's car because there weren't enough seats in Andrew's car, and Kevin had decided that they weren't going to break any road rules that night.

They'd stopped off at Sweetie's first, and had a whole meal instead of just ice cream, since none of them had eaten since before the game. They were all crammed into a booth, with Thalia in the corner - which she wasn't happy about - Neil next to her, and Kevin and Andrew on the other side of Neil, while Nicky, Matt, Dan, Allison and Renee were spread around the rest of the booth.

Nicky mostly kept up conversation, and Thalia had to praise him for it, considering neither Andrew or Aaron were joining in with any conversation. Kevin joined in occasionally, and Neil, obviously remembering it was his idea that they all came out together, helped Nicky in occupying the other Foxes.

"Why do you have his medicine?" Neil asked Kevin in French. Thalia had noticed that too, and leaned on the table to listen to his answer. Kevin turned as much as he could in his seat and looked between the two.

"It's temptation, right?" Thalia answered for him. Kevin nodded. 

"He'll take them if he has them. Temptation, yes, but also because when he's adjusting like this, the temptation will be stronger than normal." Kevin answered and Thalia nodded, sitting back in her seat. She understood temptation. Understood how harmful it could be.

"Temptation's a bitch," Thalia said. She didn't realise she'd said it in English until the rest of the team was looking at her. Matt, especially, looked startled. "For, you know," she stuttered, trying to figure out how to come back from that.

"Shit," Allison said. Thalia snapped her head to her. Allison had her eyes wide. "You're an addict, aren't you?" Thalia narrowed her eyes at her, silently telling her to shut up, but Allison didn't. Of course she didn't.

"What?" Matt asked. He looked slightly scared, like Thalia would pull out something like speedballs and force feed it to him. "You never...you never told us."

"Why would I," Thalia said, gaining her bored face. "It doesn't matter. I've been clean for months."

"Yeah well I was clean for years before this lot took me out here and gave me a relapse," Matt said, looking between Andrew and Thalia. Nicky shied away, clearly uncomfortable. "Just be careful." Thalia scoffed.

"Yeah, whatever." she said and slumped into her chair. It took a few minutes for the others to fall back into conversation, and even then, it was strained with the new information they'd learned about their youngest recruit.

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When Kevin was drunk enough to not care, Thalia nodded to Andrew - who was also not in the best state of mind - and dragged him out onto the dancefloor. There was some sort of electro-pop song playing, and Thalia jumped up and down, Kevin eventually following her movements.

"I thought you said you couldn't dance," Thalia yelled over the music. They were both drunk, and had been for a while, but she could tell Kevin was more intoxicated than she was. It was clear in the way he hadn't even bothered to be brought down the stairs to the floor. He was holding her waist, and despite everything in Thalia telling her this was wrong and was too much like what she'd been forced to do only a couple of months ago, she knew it was okay. Kevin was her friend. She trusted him. She knew he wouldn't hurt her.

"I can't," he yelled back, a lazy smile on his face. Thalia laughed, and the song switched, though it was still upbeat. There were many different types of costumes, and some made the wearer bigger, so it was annoying when the two were pushed into or away from each other. But they made do, and mostly focused on having fun.

"But you're having fun?" Thalia asked, just to be sure. "You're enjoying doing something other than exy?" Kevin seemed to think about it for a few moments before smiling and nodding. "That's good, Kevin. That shows you're not as stuck up as everyone thinks." He laughed, and Thalia smiled.

"Who thinks that? Who dares to think that about the great Kevin Day?" he said, making Thalia laugh loudly, though she could only just hear it over the thumping of the beat. Or maybe that was her heartbeat at being so close to someone. She looked up at Kevin and knew it wasn't the former.