Count On Me(64)

*****



So here I am, on the city bus after texting Kayden and telling him I was safe. I’m about to make my way on my own to the doctor. It might not be the school bus the way he thinks, but since he isn’t supposed to see me until later anyway, it’s not like I have to worry about it.

The last time I was here, the doctor called my issues social anxiety, something that if my mother was willing, could be treated with medication or even different forms of therapy. I don’t doubt that it had something to do with anxiety or in my case, absolute fear, but now that I’m surrounded by people that I no longer have to fear, I’m ready to find out what the new explanation will be.

I only hope that it’s something that can be fixed. If it’s related to the autism, I’ll learn to be okay with it, but something tells me that it’s not that kind of problem. This is something more and with the way I can write to Kayden when doing it usually overwhelms me with most people, I need to get answers once and for all. I’m not going to run from it anymore the way I did before.

I owe it myself to figure it out.



Kayden



She’s hiding something.

I’ve had my head in the game so much the last couple of days that even when I’m with her, I know I’m not entirely with her, at least not the way I wanna be. Maybe the only thing that’s off is, she’s sensing my disconnection, so she’s pulling away. I can’t shake the feeling though, that there’s something she’s hiding from me.

Asking her about it, there’s just never a good time. If we aren’t being shadowed by my annoying best friend, we’re in and out of classes or she’s off with her mother in an attempt to find the world’s most beautiful dress. We’re spending less and less time with each other and when we are together, we’re so lost in our own thoughts and shit that we don’t actually do much talking.

She’s been helping me with math lately and I do need the help, but truthfully, it’s an excuse I came up with so I didn’t have to go home. Dean’s been getting worse by the minute and anytime I am back there, all we do is argue, call each other names, fight or threaten to end each other. It’s toxic and it’s because of all the time I’m spending at her house, seeing the way a normal family can be that I see it clearly. Something has got to give between my brother and me and it has to soon, because if it doesn’t, I’m almost afraid one of us is gonna end up dead.

Aside from the math help, we haven’t talked much at all. There’s been stuff about the dance and she asks me what she can expect at the game, but it falls apart after that. I just wish she trusted me enough to tell me what’s actually going on in her mind. I can tell there’s something there, but I can’t help her fight until I know what I’m helping her fight against.

Part of me thinks that Amy’s up to no good again, but the one time I bring it up to Dillon all he does is shake his head at me. Nothing happens in the school without me or Dillon knowing about it, so if he’s saying no then it’s gotta be true. If it’s not trouble with Amy, or even Charlotte or Eve, then just what the hell is it?

I wonder sometimes if being with me is more than she signed up for. Like, maybe it’s too much and she just doesn’t know how to end it. I want to believe she isn’t like that, but the only real thing I’ve got to base it on is the way my mom up and left. If she could do it so easily and I’m her son, it’s gotta be simple for a girl, even if she’s more than just a girl to me.

I don’t want to fail her, let her down or be who I was before, but all this stressing out and worrying that I’m doing is really starting to drive me insane. It’s making me wish for the times when everything was easier. Walking the halls without a girl on my arm and creating havoc every chance I got is preferable to the unease I feel at not knowing just what the hell is going on.

She wasn’t all that different with me earlier, but then again, she never is. She smiled at me like always, held my hand, kissed me back at all the right times. Everything is as amazing as it always is, but no matter how perfect it all looks on the surface, shaking the feeling that something is waiting to boil over is hard.

It’s all I can think about as Coach has us running drills. I can hear him yelling at me and I’m doing what he says, my body being worn down in the process, but it’s robotic because I’m flooded with thoughts of her.

Where she is right now, what she’s doing, if she’s thinking of me like I am with her. It’s all repeating in a constant loop and no matter how much I try to drown the questions out, focusing on the action on the field, I can’t do it.