Cathy felt the sadness start to bring moisture to her eyes, then she wiped it away stubbornly.
Sara would never have chocolate, or kiss a guy, or fall in love, or watch Power Puff Girls re-runs, or sit there in Math class and yap about how the men in this school were adolescent perverts except for the one that she was gunning for this week, and -
“Miss Kennessy?” Mrs. Green said for the third time, her voice taking a much more annoyed tone.
Cathy jumped in her seat, dazed and confused that the teacher had not been where she thought she’d be. She scanned the room quickly and located her at the door, talking to a balding man with large, round glasses and a cheap blue suit. “I’m sorry, Miss,” Cathy apologized earnestly. “It won’t happen again, I swear.”
Mrs. Green smiled, shaking her head kindly and speaking as one spoke to a kitten. “No, no, Catherine,” she chided warmly, motioning to the man behind the door again. “It’s not that. Mr. Phillips would like to see you now.”
“Who?” Cathy asked as she got her things together, shoving textbooks unceremoniously into her book bag. “Who is that?”
Green smiled again, as did many of the students around the room. “The Guidance Counsellor, Miss. Kennessy.”
Cathy huffed, throwing the heavy bag over her back and starting towards the door.
The office was stuffy and stupid, reminding her of the inside of a shoebox. It was so humid that she could practically see all the air in the room creating wavy lines in her field of vision. It made her feel like the room was closing in on her, her breath becoming short from the moment she walked in.
The only thing in the room that did not make her feel uncomfortable was the man sitting behind the desk in front of her, his hands laced together and his thumbs twiddling each other. He was waiting for her to say something first, a typical tactic of his it seemed.
Her eyes darted around the room, everything in there seemingly out of place with the rest of the school for some reason. For instance, the rugged old cross on the wall to her right that her pupils kept itching for in her peripheral vision. It was just a standard brown wooden cross with Jesus slung upon it, but something about it was different. Something about the tilt of it, as if Christ were trying to turn the entire rig so that he could stare her right in the face and tell her that she was doing wrong just by being here.
The colours in the room did not match, and in fact clashed drastically, leaving her disoriented as her pupils made their way from one side of the room to the other. She wanted to get those guys from that decorating show on TV in here right now and remodel the whole place. Maybe a fireplace and something else rustic...
“The colours were like this when I started, I’ve been lobbying for paint for a year and a half,” he informed her with a smirk, as if reading her mind.
She shifted in her chair, moving her purse so that it covered her crotch and making sure that her jacket was zipped all the way up for the fifth time that minute. “Uh,” she started finally, and his eyebrows rose to hear what she had to say. “Why am I here again?”
He chuckled softly at her unease, doing his best to assure her that it was unwarranted. “You’re here for the same reason that everyone else in the school has been here over and over again for the past week. I want to make sure that you’re all okay. That everything’s fine.”
She shrugged, then slapped her hands down onto her knees and smirked her best fake-smirk. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m fine. So... I don’t have to be here, right?”
He spread a hand toward the door in casual defeat, glancing down at her file as he did so. “What about Sara and Julian?” he asked, not even bothering to look at her as her entire body ceased into a complete halt. His voice was even-toned and icy cold. “Are they alright?”
She stopped, the only movement her pupils as they slowly turned away from the door to finally meet his gaze. He wasn’t looking at her blouse as it hung out of her jean jacket, and he wasn’t trying to catch a glimpse of her pants as she moved her purse to her side. He was meeting her gaze with his own, waiting for a response like a stone statue. “Excuse me?” she demanded, her voice slicing through the air like a knife.
“I asked you how your friends Sara and Julian were... although I believe the latter went by the name Grendel, is that correct?” he asked, but his voice wasn’t cold anymore. He sounded like a computer talking... like an android on that damn Star Trek show that Xander loved so much. She wondered how anyone could say
