Page 2 of Caged in Flames

Chapter One

Red. I still see it, but it's different now. It's not tainting clear water but painted on the walls of this room. Still, I can’t help but compare the shades.

There’s this stigma surrounding depression and other mental health matters. People can’t understand how it feels by looking on from the outside. It isn’t just crying for no reason. Some nights I don’t sleep at all. Sometimes I sleep all day. A soft voice pulls me from tangent of thoughts.

"If you're up for it, I'd like to talk about your former school today."

I'm sitting across from my therapist in her office. I've been through so many white coat wearing robots who spout bullshit instead of treatment.

After months of sitting in silence during the required sessions, I wasn't expecting Dr. Grace to walk into the room at Green Woods and throw her feet up onto the table. She glided into that treatment facility dressed like a complete fucking hippie, and for a moment I considered walking out of the mandatory meeting, convinced they were pushing me to another mental breakdown.

There was something about her though. Something that told me this was the person to talk to. That she would understand on more than just a clinical level. As if my soul could sense something kindred.

Even now, sitting across from the woman, I feel drawn in by her presence. Her brown hair is styled in a pixie cut, looking as if she couldn’t bother with a hairbrush. Her blazer is hot pink and covers a shirt highlighting a band whose height of popularity hit before I was born.

It works for her.

"What about it?" There's no snark in my tone. Not with Dr. Grace.

Grace is her first name, because of course the hip therapist is too cool to go by the standard last name. It’s too impersonal for her style.

I’ve laid out my entire life to this magnetic woman. She knows about my pathetic dad walking away from my mom and I when I was barely old enough to understand. I’ve told her all about being raised in the same town as the family he left us for.

I confided in her about the void. The way that all the darkness can creep in and cloud up my mind. All the anger, the disappointment, the sadness takes over. And I lose control. There’s no cleaning my room or working on homework. No evening walks with my mom. Usually, it’s just lying in bed and reading the same books over and over. Only getting up to shower when the oil in my hair could be bottled.

There was nothing but recognition in her eyes. No pity or even sympathy. Like the storm brewing was tangible enough for her to grasp and together we could work to settle it. She knew, and we’ve been a match made in mindfuckville ever since.

"Maybe just your overall opinion on the subject?" She asks with a gentle tone.

Instead of pulling my attention to her, I study the walls a little more. The color is eerily familiar. Not quite the same though. There’s a darker hue to it, like the merlot my mom favors on her bad days.

"I don't know that I have much to say on it. It's not your typical high school." It isn't. A diploma from Blisshaven Academy means open doors. It means choices. But that isn't what I mean when I say it's not like what you see on TV.

"The power is with the students. Sure, there's a fancy Headmaster and the teachers are great at their jobs. They dish out assignments until your drowning and give you the grades, but that is where their power stops. They don't make the real decisions."

No, Charlie did. My stepbrother and his friends had ruled the school. I hate using the term stepbrother. It’s not like we were raised together. Maybe calling him devil child is more realistic.

Dr. Grace is the only person who knows every minute of my life at Blisshaven Academy, including what they put me through.

"But if you can survive, you're rewarded." A small shiver works through me with this statement. Because I couldn't survive it. I lost and the cost was steep.

Dragging my eyes away from the wall, I start to focus on the odd plant on her desk. Is it some sort of metaphor for new life? Or growth?

I snort to myself internally. I’m sitting here trying to analyze how a plant in a shrink’s office would symbolize life when an attempt at death led me here. Ridiculous.

"Alright. Let's change course." I'm thankful for this. She seems to know when I've hit a limit with certain subjects and navigates the conversation to something lighter. It’s a trend she’s followed through many of our appointments.

I guess she has other plans today, though. “Have you spoken with your father at all?”

“No.” My hands tighten around the arms of the chair. I don't like thinking about him, let alone talking about him. Selfish man. I can’t imagine we’ll ever mend our relationship. Not that he’d try. I care less about what this means for me and more about what it does for my mom. I’m a burden she’s doomed to carry alone.

My mom says that she accepts his choices because she couldn’t control them. Plus, she pretends she’s moved on because it was too much fun loving me to stew over it.

Her words. Not mine.

Doesn’t erase the sounds of her sobs through the walls. The memory of the way she meticulously boxed up his clothes for the courier service he sent. The coward couldn't face us then. He still can't.

Still, he’s not the only one who has hurt her. I’m just as guilty.

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