Chapter Nine: In Which I Sit Still and Say Nothing, or, The Open Window
If there was one thing that I truly detested about Norlocke, it was Saturdays. At almost any other sort of boarding school, the students would be allowed a break from their week of arduous studying. Unfortunately, whoever founded Norlocke had decided that children with issues didn’t need breaks. Instead, they needed a consultation with a psychologist.
Dr. Livesely, Norlocke’s current psychologist, had a PhD in psychology, and one in psychiatry as well. Every Friday night, without fail, he would post a schedule near the entrance of the dining hall, listing the name of each student and the time their appointment was to be held. Then, every Saturday, he would spend ten minutes with each and every student – only ten because he not only had to go through so many children, but he also had to deal with people who weren’t likely to cooperate. Like myself.
Which is why I found myself sitting in a small line of chairs in the hall just outside Dr. Livesely’s office, pulling nervously at a lock of hair hanging over my right eye, and feeling very smothered between the three other people in the hallway, who happened to be sitting nowhere close to me.
If it hadn’t been my turn next, I might’ve left.
Although the sessions themselves were awful, I hated waiting for them. If you happened to be within the top several students on the list, you’d be able to get the ordeal over and done with quickly, and you’d have a fairly unencumbered Saturday ahead of yourself. If you were somewhere in the middle, which I usually was, you’d feel as if you couldn’t really do anything until the session was over; but once it was, you’d only have half a day or less. And, if you were one of the last, it didn’t matter if you had a pleasurable day. A small part of you would always be worrying about the time or dreading the moment you’d have to enter Dr. Livesely’s office. Your day would be tainted. And when it was finally all over and done with, your day would be over as well.
Walken solved his problem by sleeping until thirty minutes before his session started, no matter what time his appointment was at.
Lawrence Teagarden, who had no initiative whatsoever in this instance, solved his problem by going to the gym and punching things until one of the teachers came and double-marched him to Dr. Livesely’s office. The faculty had only recently figured out that if they wanted Mr. Teagarden to arrive in time for his session, they had to go get him before he was already late.
I didn’t solve my problem. Unfortunately, the only coping mechanism that had been working for me consisted of waiting in the hallway with a book. Whether I read the book or pretended to read it, but actually snooped on the people coming and going, depended on the situation. Usually, I did a bit of both. Usually, it didn’t help very much.
Dr. Livesely’s door creaked open, and a skinny, red-haired girl with spectacles – Nora Beauford – slipped out. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were blurry with tears. This wasn’t exactly news, since practically everything frightened poor Nora, but her tearful appearance did not encourage me in the least as I stood up and walked into the office. The door clicked shut behind me.
“Sit down, please, Ms. Wintersmith,” Dr. Livesely said, glancing over his spectacles at me as I stood rather awkwardly by the door. He sat behind his meticulously clean and organized desk, a direct contrast to the Headmaster’s, thumbing through an open file that could only be my own. Most of it would be filled with his notes, jotted down with his favorite pearl-handled pen, but at least one of the pages would have been similar to the one I’d found in Glass Farthingdale’s file, and had only begun to read.
I sat down in the designated chair, positioned a few feet from Dr. Livesely’s desk. It was still too far away for my legs to be comfortable with, and yet it was also too close for the rest of me to be comfortable with.
Dr. Livesely barely let me get settled before jumping right in. His first question was always, “And how are you doing lately, Ms. Wintersmith?”
“Fine,” I said. That was always my response. It didn’t matter if it were true or not.
He nodded and mopped his receding brow with a handkerchief. This wasn’t because he was nervous, or at least, most likely it wasn’t. Thursday afternoon, after only half-a-day of normal Norlocke weather, the temperature had suddenly skyrocketed. It was now a blistering 65 degrees Fahrenheit outside, without a breath of wind, and inside the school was much hotter. We were all melting. No amount of open windows seemed to help in the slightest.
“How is your relationship with Mr. Toomes?” he then asked. It was always his second question, and he’d fold his hands and look at me with something meant to be genuine interest.
Sometimes, I’d respond with, “That’s none of your business,” or something snarkier. This time, I clammed up. My irritability with Saturdays and Dr. Livesely in general had skyrocketed with the temperature.
Dr. Livesely waited for half a minute, then glanced back down at his papers with a sigh.
Silence reigned in the room. Heat buzzed around me, and a drop of sweat trickled down my neck. The warmth crushed me. Why was it so dreadfully hot? It was only late June, and Norlocke didn’t have summers.
The wispy curtains directly behind Dr. Livesely, covering the one window in the room, fluttered just slightly.
A jolt of energy shot through me. The window was open! Dr. Livesely never opened his window during sessions, trying to keep things as confidential as possible. But it was too dreadfully hot, and so he had opened it.
My mind immediately started scheming.
Dr. Livesely spoke again, and, plan formulated, I returned my attention, but not my interest, to the psychologist.
“Ms. Wintersmith, you’ve been attending my sessions for over a year,” he said, “and I have been unable to make any progress with you during that time. I have tried all the conventional methods, and I have tried to earn your trust, but nothing seems to be working.” He gave me a very serious look, then asked one of the last things I would’ve expected. “Do you know why your parents sent you to this school?”
I thought I’d known, but his question caused a whisper of doubt to echo in the back of my mind. Nevertheless, I didn’t answer him.
“I’m sure that you thought it had something to do with your fighting.”
My jaw ticked.
“I’m sorry for putting it so bluntly,” Dr. Livesely said, smiling in a way that was not at all apologetic, “but that is what you believed, isn’t it?”
No answer from my side.
He continued as if I had responded. “In a way, you would be right. Your fighting directly related to why your parents sent you here. But it’s the reason behind your fighting that is the true culprit.” His moist grey eyes pierced me with a look. “Ms. Wintersmith, do you know why you were fighting?”
I stopped breathing. Emptiness swelled inside me.
“You were fighting because you are alone, and you trust no one.” Dr. Livesely’s spectacles glinted. “And you were sent here not because of any violent tendencies, but because you have closed yourself off.”
I hadn’t realized that having someone peek into my heart and interpret it could hurt so much. Or that having your emotions that you had never quite understood explained to you could be so terrifying. My violent tendencies, which Dr. Livesely apparently wasn’t worried about, reacted to the turmoil roiling within me and woke. Gripping the chair’s cushion was the only thing keeping me in my seat.
“This is why,” Dr. Livesely continued, calm as ever, “I rarely ask you about any anger you have been experiencing, and I always ask about Mr. Toomes.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry that you have not been able to move forward with that relationship. Now, unfortunately, your time is up. Next time, though, I hope that you’ll have made more progress. And I hope that you can trust me.”
I stood up stiffly. Just leave, I thought, strangling the handful of skirt that I held.
I opened the door in a haze of conflicting emotions, the predominant one anger. Anger always rose to the top, consuming everything else in what would soon be an epic conflagration. Fire burned in the pit of my stomach. I was terrified of what might happen. If there were people in the hallway, I might hit one of them. And I didn’t want to do that.
A sea of eyes swung towards me as I slammed the office door behind me. The sea of eyes stared, only eyes, no faces, and I fumed. The fire licked between my fingers. I took a step further into the hallway, but I couldn’t tell if I was leaving or if I was headed towards the chairs, ready to punch somebody.
Blue. Brown. Green. Eyes everywhere. I wanted to hit them all.
And then a pair of icy black eyes caught my attention. Glass Farthingdale.
Her ice stabbed me through, and I felt the chill in my soul. It froze my fire in an instant.
The other eyes grew faces. Lawrence Teagarden. Emilia Newton. Ivy Lancaster.
I turned and left, never so grateful to meet that cold, withering gaze. Glass Farthingdale had unknowingly just saved me.
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