--- why be afraid if i'm not alone ?

[amber]

closed.

For the past hour, the only thing that had been on Cathleen's mind was food. Her stomach had started growling in the middle of a meeting with the principal. It had started as a feeling in her stomach but turned quickly into a loud grumbling noise from inside her abdomen. She kept shifting her body in her chair until her stomach gave one final, prolonged growl and the principal dismissed her from the meeting. As she left the principal's office, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassed and an amused smile appeared on her face. She had mixed emotions about the entire situation; she wanted to laugh because it was funny, but she was embarrassed because her stomach had growled a thunderous growl while she was in a meeting with her boss. It was not her fault she was hungry. She had eaten breakfast that morning before she came to work, but that was five hours ago. She did not get a lunch break until after second lunch, which ended at 12:45. She should have been lucky she got a guaranteed lunch break at all; some guidance counselors were probably not as fortunate as she was.

Shortly after leaving her boss' office, Cathleen checked the watch on her wrist. When she realized that it was time for her to grab lunch, she felt the need to jump jubilantly, but refrained from doing so since she was standing in the main office where a teacher was making copies, the secretary was talking on the phone, and a student was waiting to see the principal after getting in trouble in class. She instead walked to her own office and unlocked the door. It did not take her long to rummage under her desk and find her lunchbox, which contained leftovers from dinner the night before. She removed the plastic container from her lunchbox and made her way to the teachers' lounge to heat her food up. She heated the leftover fried chicken and corn for two-and-a-half minutes while she opened the miniature refrigerator in search of her Diet Coke. All of the teachers kept their perishable food items and drinks in the refrigerator until it was time for them to eat lunch. Cathleen usually kept her lunchbox in her office in fear that her colleagues might steal her lunch, but she had no problem putting her Diet Coke in the refrigerator. She had noticed that most of her colleagues preferred light sodas or Pepsi. Most of them were also younger and did not drink diet drinks, which was good news for her.

Once back in her office, Cathleen plopped down in her executive-looking seat behind her desk and kicked her shoes off onto the floor. She did not like wearing heeled shoes because they squished her toes and made her back hurt, but she wore them for the sake of looking professional when she had to work. She always gave her feet a break when she ate lunch; it was not like anyone came in to talk to her anyway. Nonetheless, she left her office door open in case there were students that needed to talk to her about something or staff who needed to ask her a question about the school curriculum. The woman leaned back in her chair and began eating the chicken with the stainless steel fork she had brought from home. She soon began shoveling food into her mouth as if she had not eaten in days. She lifted a scoop of corn to her mouth, but it fell off the fork when she was startled by the sound of someone entering her office. She glanced down at her now-empty fork and then looked up at the boy who was now sitting in one of the chairs across from her.

"Hey," she said in her usual friendly tone of voice. She studied the boy's face for a moment. She slowly lowered her fork into the plastic container and put the container on the table. "Everything okay?" she asked, her voice trailing off as she reached for her twenty-ounce bottle of Diet Coke. She twisted the cap, which made a hissing noise, and brought it to her lips. She took a long drink from it before recapping it and setting the bottle on the edge of her desk. Her blue eyes studied his face further from behind her glasses as she waited for him to speak. She could tell already that they were about to have a long discussion.

[james]

SOMETIMES I FIND IT HARD
• to believe there's someone else who could be •
JUST AS MESSED UP AS ME

School days were generally very tough for James, he had a lot to go through socially. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia for about five years now and ever since then his amount of friends went from five or more to one or less. He trusted absolutely no one in his age group, he felt as though they were all out to get him. Some people came off as less threatening, yes, but he believed even the purest of the young people had some sort of evil in them and were all against him. Not her, not the other guy. Just him. A lot of the time he would be convinced that they were reading his mind and using his own thoughts against him, but never did he call them out about it in fear of being called crazy. Granted, he's already picked on for being such an outcast anyway. Every day at school someone would mess with him to get negative reactions and he hated it, mostly because they always got what they wanted. He would either freak out, start talking crazily, bite them, or sometimes even cry.

James had just barely made it through the first half of the day, he seemed to be the target in both of his classes. Generally in this school, you had a lot of the same classes with the same people depending on your grade and how well you do. He was bugged by one particular guy the entire morning, Lance. He had been targeting James since day one, the guy literally fed off of his displeasure. The worst part of it all was that he only had one block away from him, study hall. Throughout all of their science-related block he had been harassing James over very small things, things such as why he was muttering things to himself and other things. James had held his hands up to his ears to block him out, his elbows rested on his table and binder ready to go. It was the last few minutes of science, the next block was Lunch, which the lovely Lance would be in with him as well. He rested his chin on the white, clear binder in front of him and faced away from Lance, ignoring every word to come out of his arrogant mouth. The clocks ticking was all that James could hear and he liked it that way. The teacher wasn't focused on his section of the room and dismissed the class at the bell, he got up very hastily and power-walked out of the classroom.

He had managed to get away from Lance and 'doppelgangers'-- as he liked to call them -- but did not count on staying away from them for too long. He felt like the was the victim in the story and they were the villains, plotting against him, broadcasting his thoughts to each other and so on. He felt extremely weak compared to them, it was only a matter of time before he would just break down. He didn't bother to go through the line, he never did because not eating in front of people was another quirk he had. He just couldn't do it. Most of the tables were empty because everybody was getting in line, thus making it easy for him to pick out the table he'd lay his head on. The first fifteen minutes were okay, he didn't expect it to be too long of a lunch block as long as 'the villains' stayed at their popular table. Once in a blue moon some of them would come over to his table just to mess with him, and unfortunately for him, today was that blue moon. It was a poking action to his shoulder that made his head pop up, but then one of the 'doppelgangers' pushed his head back down on the table. He picked it back up really fast and just looked behind him, the 'doppelganger' wasn't behind him anymore but they were beside him and on the other side was Lance. Several minutes of harassing him went by and one of the cafeteria monitors was slightly suspicious, therefore they stayed generally near the table.

James felt very overwhelmed by the words that these boys were directing at him; by what he expected to be the end of it he even had a few tears rolling down his cheeks, that being what kept them going. Now it was less about him muttering things in class and more about how he was being such a 'sissy' or a 'baby' because he started crying. He was trying not to with all his might, but the tears swelled over his eyelids and he just couldn't do anything about it. Lance was just about to be called out by the monitor when he put his hand on James' shoulder for whatever reason. He didn't have time to pull away because James grabbed his hand and bit his wrist as hard as he could, hoping to make him stop 'trying to hurt him.' He was still crying, probably harder now. He jumped slightly out of his seat when the monitor, who was well aware of his condition, broke the situation up and got both sides of the story. Because them messing with James was such a regular occasion the monitor decided on making the other two go off and banned them from being at the same table as him, that being the least he could do, and sent James on down to the guidance office to calm down. James was given a pass before he went down the hallways as fast he could, it being the speed it would be before it was considered running. His breathing got heavier and he slid up against one of the walls when he was outside her door because he wanted to calm down a little before he went inside.

He didn't mind going to Mrs.Alexander's office, he actually preferred to be in there more than any other room in the school. He felt safe in there, like there were no villains out to get him, just his nice, elderly, and understanding counselor. The only reason he hadn't walked in yet was just the fact he didn't want to be bawling in front of her, that would just be more embarrassment to ride on his back for the rest of the day. Granted, he was probably going to slip a few tears during their talk today, but he didn't need to be sobbing uncontrollably. He gave himself about five minutes to get it all out before wiping his eyes one last time, letting himself in and taking a seat in the chair on the other side of her desk. It didn't take too long to get her attention, thankfully, but it did take him just a few moments to respond to her. "I.. um.. no."

[/color] He told her with a bit of a crack in his voice, the hurting in his throat being the cause. "I bit Lance.. and he tasted really bad... I don't think he washes his hands."[/color]



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TAGGED ! cathleen<3
WORDS ! 1182
LYRICS ! sometimes by skillet
TEMPLATE ! PANIC! ITS LAUZ @ CAUTION
NOTES ! blah blah

[amber]

All of the teachers were aware of the boy’s condition, but Cathleen was the only one who had a general understanding of its effects on the boy and the difficulties it created on a day-to-day basis. Since he started high school three years ago, he had come to see her at least once every day school was in session. Admittedly, talking to the same person about his problems every day grew tedious, but the guidance counselor never seemed fazed. She had been working as a high school counselor for years, and it was her job to listen without bias to what each student had to say. Sometimes it was hard to listen to the students speak and not to have an opinion, but Cathleen was a professional and took her job seriously, even when she felt the need to laugh hysterically at some of the things the students told her.

When the boy sat down and announced that he had bitten another student, Cathleen felt the corners of her lips curve upwards into a subtle smile. She had to remind herself that she was not paid to have an opinion and wiped the smile off her face as quickly as it had begun to appear. The situation in itself was not funny, but the fact that James had bitten the bully was. Cathleen knew that biting was technically against the school’s violence policy, but she knew that Lance had probably done something to deserve it.

Lance was a troubled boy, whether he admitted it or not. There had been times when he voluntarily came to the counselor’s office to talk about problems he was having at home. His mother worked long hours and was rarely home, and his father pushed him too hard for him to enjoy football. He had two younger sisters, and it was usually his responsibility to take care of them after he got home from football practice. Only Cathleen knew that, and she always saw it as the reason behind his aggressive behavior towards people, such as James, who could not easily stand up for themselves. Whenever Lance came to talk to her, Cathleen wanted to ask why he picked on James so much, but she was not at liberty to talk about other students. Although she was not a therapist, there was a clause about confidentiality in her contract, and she could not break that rule or else she would be at risk of losing her license. Even if she were at liberty to ask such a question, she knew that he would not have a valid reason and it would just be time wasted.

Cathleen leaned back in her seat to remove what little hostility there had been when the boy entered her office. She was not a hostile person, but people whose minds were mentally and emotionally unstable viewed things differently than a normal person might. It was important when talking to such people that things remain as neutral as possible. She could not seem hostile or overexert her usually bubbly personality in fear that it might upset the person with whom she was speaking. She had to maintain a comfortable atmosphere in the tiny shell of an office she had been provided upon employment. That was one of the reasons why her office was always messy and cluttered; she felt that it created a laidback, relaxing atmosphere. Of course, her colleagues were not impressed with her heavily disorganized and chaotic office and the students underestimated her abilities as guidance counselor, but that never seemed to faze her. Everyone had his/her quirks, and disorganization was one of hers. Actually, she did not even consider it disorganization, but homeliness. She liked feeling at home, and her four-bedroom house was cluttered with things she had collected over the years. Not only that, but she was a horrible housekeeper, too.

Cathleen gazed intently at the boy from behind her glasses as he slowly began to speak. She knew that he had trouble explaining things and expressing himself, but she was patient and understanding. She did not nod her head as he spoke, nor did she peer over her glasses in an attempt to rush him. Doing such things would only unnerve him, and that was the last thing he needed. Instead, she tilted her head gently to the side and rested her hands on her lap. Usually she would cross her arms over her chest, but that was a sign of hostility.

As the boy slowly explained that Lance had a “bad taste” and then made the assumption that he did not wash his hands, the woman lifted her brows slightly. The truth was, she did not know how to react to what the boy said. He had bitten before before—and been sent to her office for it—but not once had he mentioned a person tasting bad. She remained silent for moments following the boy’s explanation in case he felt the need to say something else. He had a habit of changing the subject and adding things on after he seemed to be done; she just wanted to make sure that he was through speaking before she spoke and interrupted him. When she was sure he was through speaking, she cleared her throat quietly, feeling the fizz from her Diet Coke rising back into her throat.

“Well,” she started. What was she supposed to say to a boy who had just bitten a fellow student and then commented on his taste? She inhaled and glanced around her cluttered office for an answer to her own question. Nothing. “Maybe he doesn’t wash his hands.” She shrugged her shoulders. That was probably not the best thing to say in a situation like this. For all she knew, the boy would have an attack of germ phobia and want to wash his mouth with antibacterial hand soap in the bathroom. She cleared her throat again, this time with the intent of saying something a little more comforting. “He must have been saying some pretty bad things to make you bite him, huh?” She knew that the response would be a simple yes, maybe just a nod, but at least she did not say something that would make her want to shove one of her size seven heels in her mouth. He probably would not want to talk about what had happened or what had been said, but she just wanted him to know that, as always, he could if he wanted to. “Did you bite him hard?” This was Cathleen’s way of giving her “approval,” for lack of a better word. She did not actually approve of the boy biting another student, but it was better than hauling off and hitting him in the face or expressing himself loudly using profanity. The corners of the woman’s lips curved gently upwards into yet another subtle smile as she waited for him to respond to her question. In all honesty, she hoped that he had bit Lance hard; maybe it would teach the star football player a thing or two about messing with students who were “weaker” than him.

[james]

SOMETIMES I FIND IT HARD
• to believe there's someone else who could be •
JUST AS MESSED UP AS ME

A lot of the time he couldn't help but wonder if the walls were closing in on him as the seconds ticked each day. James was very pessimistic, he found it hard to look on the bright side when all that was around him seemed to be the opposite of bright. Was there even such thing as this 'bright side' that people often talked so fondly of? He knew he'd never know unless he saw it, and that was just as unlikely as it sounded to him. Every day was the same and if there hadn't been a bright side in the past few years, who's to say there would be one in the coming days? James didn't count on the possibility and just went on with his days, occupying himself with school-work, video-games, and the television shows that he watched on a daily basis. It was the more simple shows that he enjoyed the most, often they were cartoons that he watched with his eight year old brother because he would rather watch them over shows with actresses and actors. His home life was pretty complicated but he tried not to make it seem like it bothered him, hell, he hardly even mentioned things about his dad to Mrs. Alexander and John was where a lot of the trouble was. James would never say it out loud or express it in anyway, but he believed that he reason his mother died was that his father wasn't around to protect her when he should have been, and therefore he seemed to repel himself away from his dad and latched onto the other family members that he had.

James always sat in a certain position when he was talking to Mrs. Alexander, whether it was a habit or not he didn't know, but he didn't exactly care either. His legs just always happened to cross over each other and bring themselves up to the seat, basically sitting like the way they told you to in kindergarten: criss-cross apple sauce. He rested his elbows on his thighs and his hands met and held each other in front of him. He tried to keep his hands together at all times to prevent them from messing with things, it also improved his focus, but just slightly. He kept his eyes on Mrs. Alexander and leaned back, awaiting her reaction. Red circles rounded his eyes from the crying that he had done just moments before entering the office and he was naturally pale, thus making his hazel (with redness around them now) eyes pop out when you looked at him. His head bent back to look at the ceiling when she began to respond to him, he didn't say anything until he was ready to, and all his hesitation gave her time to say a few things. He thought about each thing she said and took each thought into consideration one by one, from the first thing mentioned to the last. His eyes widened a little, she agreed to him not washing his hands? She had not really agreed, no, but he took it as a possible agreement and felt a lot more scared of the germs that he bit straight into. Now, James didn't really think he didn't wash his hands at first, he had just been throwing things out there that could be possible reasons of having such a bad taste. He made a face at the ceiling when she said that, having no response yet because he wasn't sure what to say. She kept talking and he let her, beginning to contemplate the next question and the one after that.

Eventually he lowered his head back to normal so he could face her, preparing his responses in his head before saying them. His lips parted just barely and he paused, begging himself in his head to answer the other two questions before grabbing what he wanted that he saw on her desk; hand sanitizer. He had a plot in mind, therefore the dangers of cleaning out the germs from his mouth with hand sanitizer didn't occur to him. He refused to use public school bathrooms and would not go into one even if he were puking his guts out. They were unsanitary and he would rather just jump off a cliff than use one. He finally spoke, "Yeah. He told me I belonged in an asylum."

[/color]He said very simply, a tone of mixed anger and sadness in his voice. He wasn't going to go any further into that and said something else, "I broke his skin."[/color] His voice was trailing off when he said skin, his attention entirely on the handsanitizer, it was almost too obvious what his goal was because he had been staring at it for so long now. James reached forward and took it from her desk, unluckily for him, it was closed and he couldn't figure it out. He tried to drop the liquid on his tongue without it actually touching his mouth, but because it was closed nothing came out and he looked at her, "I think it's broken."[/color]






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TAGGED ! cathleen<3
WORDS ! 852
LYRICS ! sometimes by skillet
TEMPLATE ! PANIC! ITS LAUZ @ CAUTION
NOTES ! blah blah

[amber]

It broke Cathleen’s heart to hear some of the things students said to each other. Lance was bitter and mean; he found comfort and solace in picking on people who did not stand up for themselves. It made him feel big, powerful. Cathleen tried to get Lance to open up on several occasions, but he was barely willing to talk to her about the problems lying just beneath the sand. She knew it would be hard to break down the barrier he had put up, but it was her job to, in a very subtle way, break it down and get him to change his ways. He was popular now, but the real world would not think he was cute. They would not like his act, and he would eventually be shunned from society because of his rude and inappropriate behavior. When James told the counselor what Lance had said, Cathleen was, sadly, unsurprised. She gently bit her lower lip, thinking about what a sad story James had, and sighed deeply through her nose. Were it not for her chest rising and falling slowly, the sigh could have gone unnoticed.

“Asylums are for people who can’t be helped, James,” she said to the student sitting across from her. In some ways, it was true. Residents of psychiatric wards were beyond repair, in some instances, and needed to have constant supervision. People in asylums were those who were either offered assistance and refused it or who were never offered assistance and never sought it. They were all sad stories, sad to say, but that was life. It broke Cathleen’s heart knowing that that was how the world turned nowadays. It was so much easier when she was younger and growing up in the fifties and sixties. “You don’t need to go to an asylum because you can be helped—and you have been. Do you remember when you used to come in here all the time, James? Do you remember when I told you things would get better? Well, they’re getting better, sweetheart. You don’t come to talk to me that much anymore, and you’re handling situations so much better than you used to. I’m proud of you. I’m really proud of you, James.”

Some counselors would have given the same speech Cathleen had just given, but most of them would have said it just to say it. Mrs. Alexander was one of the few people genuine people in the world. She did not fake her emotions unless she absolutely had to, and she did not say things that had no right being said. She stared across her desk at the student sitting there, in his usual way, in one of the uncomfortable seats she had been given for her students to sit in. She slowly leaned forward and grabbed her bottle of Diet Coke off her desk. She was about to open it when James began to speak again, this time explaining that he had broken skin. The woman nodded her head slowly, but this did not make her smile. She had not realized that James had bitten so hard that he actually made the boy bleed. Not only was that against the school’s violence policy, but it was also a health problem. James could have gotten Lance’s blood in his mouth, not to mention, James’ saliva could have gotten—and probably did get—into Lance’s bite wound. It was both disgusting and unhealthy. Nonetheless, Cathleen tried to make light of the situation.

“You’re not turning into a vampire, are you?” she said. Her eyes widened behind her glasses, and a small smile appeared on her face. She tilted her head to the side and waited for his reaction. It could be either good or bad, but Cathleen sincerely hoped that it was a good reaction. She was joking with him, of course, but he could not often detect when people were joking. That was why Cathleen made the tone in her voice a visual on her face. She did not want anything to be misunderstood for any reason.

Cathleen began to realize that the boy was staring intensely at the hand sanitizer on her desk. She had a feeling she knew what was going to happen, but she did not take any sudden action. Instead, she slowly leaned forward and placed the twenty-ounce bottle of Diet Coke back on her desk. She rested her arms near the edge of her desk. The boy reached for the bottle before Cathleen even had a chance to make a move, and the woman inhaled through her nose and bit down on her lips. She sincerely hoped, for his sake and her own, that she had failed to untwist the cap. James brought the bottle near his mouth and stuck out his tone. “James…” she said calmly, shifting in her seat. Now she really hoped that she had forgotten to open the new bottle of sanitizer. James pushed down on the pump, but nothing came out. Cathleen exhaled through her nose a sigh of relief and was able to stop having a miniature heart attack. He gave the verdict: I think it’s broken. The woman nodded her head in agreement.

“I think so, too,” she agreed. “Here, let me take the bottle so I can take it home and get my husband to fix it.” She knew that that was a lie, but she did not want James to think that she could open the bottle at school. If he knew that she could, he would want her to—and it would just be one big problem. Slowly, she reached her hand across the table and waited for him to hand her the large bottle of hand sanitizer. Hopefully, he would not refuse and be compliant.