Page 6 of Sparks of Insanity
He cleared his throat, staring at the lock, his frown deepening.
“I don’t think having the door closed is appropriate, let alone locked.”
“Please. I don’t want… they’ll be listening, and I don’t want… oh god. Why did I call you? I wanted Blaze.”
Mr E sighed. “It was weird that I rushed over here, wasn’t it? What the hell was I thinking?”
Then he shoved his hands in his pockets, another pair of dark jeans that looked good on him. His brown hair was a little shaggy, like it was just a little too long, and it made him look boyish even though he was older than me. Old enough that he probably shouldn’t be in my room, just like he’d tried to say.
“I guess what I was thinking was that my favourite student was struggling, and I wanted to help. Do you want me to leave?”
“NO. I mean… maybe it’s easier to talk to you because you’re none of them, you know?”
Ethan
WHAT WAS I THINKING, rushing over here to my student’s house? I guess it’s one of those things, right? A person is in so much pain that they reach out for help, to avoid doing something drastic, something I was aware she’d tried four times before, and the instinct is to stop them, to help, to do something.
I shouldn’t be in her damn room though, and while her dad let me come upstairs, her parents never actually approved that, but here we are, locked in her bedroom alone.
“I can listen,” I said slowly, looking around for somewhere to sit, but of course there was only the bed. I couldn’t sit on herdamn bed with her, I mean, she wasn’t a kid anymore of course, but she was still my student, and she wasn’t even eighteen. It was just plain wrong. As an almost thirty year old, hell fucking yeah it’s wrong.
“I don’t know where to start,” Em said, her breath hitching in her throat again. She’d been crying, a lot, a fact made so much more obvious by the streaked makeup on her face. It was reminiscent of Alice Cooper, and yeah, keep thoughts like that in your head, so you remember your age, asshole.
“Why don’t you sit uh… sit down, and I’ll lean against the uh-”
“You could sit too.” She dropped heavily onto her bed, waving at me to do the same, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t sit on a teenager’s fucking bed with her. There was nothing appropriate about this situation, but… her mental health was the priority right now. I had to keep reminding myself of that, and putting propriety aside for now. I perched on the edge of the bed, as far away as I could, but I hopped up again almost instantly.
I walked over to the door, and turned the lock again, so we were no longer locked in together.
“What are you doing?” Em sat up, looking worried, even as I returned to her and sat precariously at the end of the bed again.
“Just trying to protect both of us, Em. Forget that for now. What happened today to hurt you so much? You can tell me anything, I promise. I won’t breathe a word to your parents.” That was a dumb fuck promise. What if she admitted to doing drugs? What if she told me she’d been fucking every… Jesus… don’t go there. What if she was doing harm to herself, and I’d just promised to hide it?
“I… I murdered someone,” she whispered, throwing my mind into horror and turmoil, as I shot up from the bed again.
“What?!” Fuck! I promised I wouldn’t talk, and that made me an accomplice. I… wait…
“Why, Em? Did they hurt you? Are you hurt?” I dropped back on the bed, reaching towards her before I remembered all the reasons why I couldn’t touch her.
“I… I was just testing your promise.”
“What?!”
“I didn’t really kill anyone. I wanted to see what you’d do. If you’d yelled for my parents or something, I’d have known I can’t trust you after all. Mr E, I really want to trust you.”
Jesus Christ. She was more dangerous than I’d realised. I swallowed hard, forcing my breathing to calm back down.
“Okay, you just aged me by a decade, but fine. I get your point. Something happened today, right? Oh… it’s family therapy day, isn’t it? That’s why we had no tutoring today.”
She nodded, sniffling a little as her posture sank back in on itself. She looked smaller and more fragile than she had even a minute ago.
“Talk, Em. I’m here to listen.” What the fuck did I know though? This was the job of a therapist, not a fucking teacher. Although, she’d just come from therapy and it clearly hadn’t helped.
“I… my god, I was such a bitch, I mean, I totally screamed at them, at my parents. I told them they were terrible parents, that they were to blame for everything wrong with me, and my brothers. I told them they’d had too many kids, and they were failing all of us.” She dissolved into sobs at this point, her hands covering her face.
I’d often wondered about the family dynamic here, but everyone seemed mostly happy and well cared for, so who was I to judge? Did I think five kids was a lot? Of course, but there was an extra parent, right?
“Em, I can’t understand you,” I said, because she was mumbling into her hands. Before I could stop myself, I reached out and caught her lightly by the wrist, pulling one hand awayfrom her face. She lowered the other at the same time, and her eyes were wide and panicked.
