Page 25 of Unfix Me

“Fine,” I said before I hung up.

I ignored it when he tried to call me back. I had another class in an hour, but I needed to go back to my room. Maybe I could squeeze in a nap. If I missed it today, I couldn’t even bring myself to care that much.

When I collapsed onto my bed, I pulled the covers up over my head. Nothing existed outside of my cocoon, which meant it was safe in here. As safe as it could get, at least. I was still alone with my thoughts, which were the entire problem if my parents and the Dumont counselors were to be believed.

I was the problem.

In the darkness of my cocoon, I swore I could hear the creak of a rope. It wasn’t a direct memory; just something I’d conjured up after they found Travis in the bathroom, hanging from one of the wooden beams. Fifteen years old and these urges had driven him past the point of desperation.

That’ll be you, they told us. That sort of life doesn’t result in happiness. It can’t.

But… Kai looked happy. The people I saw online looked happy. Was it all a lie?

It didn’t matter. I was fixed. There was nothing to freak out about. After I saw Mr. Hamilton, he would confirm that everything was fine. I was doing well.

My parents would be happy to hear that.

Chapter 9

Sen

Friday was here and I felt sick. It seemed like that was becoming my new normal. Dad would hate to hear how much anxiety I’d been experiencing. He’d probably tell me to suck it up. Well, I was trying.

It wasn’t too cold, but it had started to drizzle and the water falling from the sky felt ten degrees cooler than the air. I should’ve checked the weather before I left. My t-shirt did nothing to keep the rain from chilling me by the time I’d walked a few blocks. Welcome to Seattle, I guess.

This was the first time it had rained since I got here almost two weeks ago. Maybe that meant something. It could be a portent of doom, for all I knew.

I glanced at the map on my phone, then looked at the building in front of me. It wasn’t very nice. The picture on his website must’ve been old or maybe he’d doctored it. I thought back to what my dad said about first impressions. It seemed worse to make a good impression only for it to end up being fabricated. Authenticity might’ve been more important.

After I swiped away the text from my mom, I entered the building. I took the stairs to the second floor, then scanned the numbers on the doors. His looked like it had seen better days.

This was a bad idea.

Regardless, I pushed through into a tiny waiting room. There was a window directly across from me, which looked down on a sketchy alley. Two chairs were stationed sadly on either side of it. There was a button on the wall beside another door and a sign that said, ‘Push for Service.’ Did he get that at the Dollar Tree? Yikes.

It only took a few seconds for him to open the door. Derek Hamilton was what I would call average in every sense of the word. He was shorter than me, but not exponentially so. His face was round and his suit clearly hadn’t been tailored to fit him unless he’d recently lost weight. The hair on his head was a dull brown that matched his eyes in both color and spirit. He looked like a man who wasn’t thrilled about his life but was satisfied enough to keep living it.

“Come in,” he said exuberantly. “You must be Seneca.”

“Just Sen.”

He settled behind a small white desk and I took the seat across from it. It squeaked every time I moved and the arm rests felt like they boxed me in tightly, even though I wasn’t abnormally broad. The chair seemed a better choice than the dingy yellow sofa smooshed against the wall.

“Sen,” he mused. “Interesting choice. Did your parents shorten it or did you?”

“Me.”

He stared at me for a moment, then grabbed a folder with my name on it. There were quite a few papers already in it. I wondered how much my dad had told him. Probably everything from my birth. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent over all of my medical records and printed out my Facebook posts to show a pattern of behavior.

Look, Mr. counselor man, he said the word flowers in this one. That means something, right?

My own internal criticism surprised me. I tried to push back those kinds of thoughts while I waited for him to say something else.

“Your father told me all about you.”

One point for me.

“I heard that you went to Camp Dumont in 2017. I went through the program in 2012. How did you like it?”

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