Part 2

Seven

Monday morning. Jesus, I wasn't looking forward to this.

My parents had really rallied. They'd been amazingly great all weekend. Wonders never cease. And Craig did call Sunday night, and had me in stitches with his pep talk. He also, seriously, reminded me that he was in my first class Monday morning. That would be a help.

What wasn't going to help was that it was history, with that asshole. His name was Mr. Ellis. Hopefully, since I'd been out two weeks, he'd give me a fucking break.

So, I got up, dread in my heart, and got dressed. Yeah, I decided to hide them. I wore a long-sleeved shirt. Hey, it was mid-October, in Rochester, Michigan. It wasn't exactly balmy outside. I could definitely get away with long sleeves.

The school had been informed that I was 'injured'--that was all, at my request. I knew Craig had told people I'd been in an accident. I knew the truth would come out sooner or later--but I was going to control when, where, and how.

It turned out that I didn't take very long at all.

I walked into history. Craig, who sat a couple rows over from me, passed me entering the room and gave me a little pat on the shoulder. That was all, but it meant a lot.

Then the class started. And, dammit, that asshole Ellis wasn't going to cut me a bit of slack.

"Well, Miss Klusse! So glad to see you back all recovered," he started. I just gave him the fakest grin I could muster. He went on. "Since I know you've read the assignments while you recuperated from your accident, I'm sure you know we're studying the Constitutional Convention. I haven't had anyone to lead the discussions as well as you do, so would you start for us by summarizing the reading?"

"Sorry, didn't read it," I said.

"Excuse me?"

"I haven't picked up a schoolbook in two weeks. I've had other things on my mind," I said, picking up steam. And then I did it. "I wasn't recuperating from any damn accident." I roughly pulled up my sleeves, and then held my hands up for all to see. "I slashed my wrists." The gasps were audible.

I went on. "So, you can see I've been preoccupied. And you can also see I'm not exactly the most mentally stable person in the world right now. And one of the reasons I'm not is that I'm sick of being a circus freak."

I had the rapt attention of everyone in the room, including Ellis. "So, I've made a decision. I'm going to sit in this class, and take your tests, and ace them as always. But the days of me being the one to always speak up in class are over. If you call on me again, I'm going to sit here like a mute. I'm tired of always being picked on because I'm smart, especially by teachers. You get no more freebies from me. You're the damn teacher, you teach this class."

Ellis looked at me like I had four heads. He wasn't the only one--pretty much the whole class did. Well, except for Craig--who shot me a grin and a thumbs-up.

Finally, Ellis cleared his throat and said, "OK, the Constitutional Convention." And he didn't call on me again.

I considered it a victory. Yeah, everybody knew, now--everyone in that class, and it would surely spread--but it was a victory.

It happened twice more--and that was before lunch! In pre-calc, and in physics. I gave similar speeches in both. The pre-calc teacher reacted the way Ellis had, but the physics teacher got pissed and sent me to the office.

To see the principal, good ol' Mr. Egermont.

Eggy--as we all called him behind his back--was a fraud. Kept up this big hi-how-ya-doin' facade, while, deep down, he was a prick. The man had the phoniest smile in the greater Detroit area. I'd never had a run-in with him before--I was the class brain, after all--but I hated his guts anyway.

He called me into the Inner Sanctum, and bade me sit down. "Virginia," he said with that simpering fake smile, "I hear you've been a disruption in some of your classes this morning."

"Yup," I said agreeably.

"But why?" he said, fake smile still in place. "You've always been our best student. And your teachers always tell me how helpful you are in class."

"Because I'm forced to be. Not because I want to."

"But, Virginia, class participation is part of your grade. Your grades are stellar, I'd hate to see them drop."

"That's bull," I said. "Angela Cressey's grades are almost as good as mine are, and she doesn't say a bloody word in class, because she's shy."

"But you're not shy."

"No, I'm suicidal." He looked at me and snorted in disbelief. So, I showed him my wrists.

Which finally wiped the fucking smile off his face.

"I wasn't in an accident two weeks ago. I slashed my wrists. It's a fluke I was found in time. And, I'll be honest with you, I'm still not quite sure that it was a good thing that I was found.

"One of the reasons I am suicidal is that the teachers in this school, and every school I've attended, have helped paint a big huge sign on my forehead that says 'Class Brain'. I am tired of it. I won't put up with it anymore. If I keep getting singled out in class--which makes my classmates hate me, by the way--you will be attending a funeral. Got me?"

He was as pale as a sheet. Finally, he managed to say something. "Are you in counseling? We have some good ones here."

"Yes, I'm in counseling, of course. And not with one here. Are you kidding? I wouldn't trust a counselor affiliated with the school. They'd probably make the ol' Class Brain regurgitate the collected works of Freud, or something."

"Virginia, has it really been that bad?" he asked.

Since he seemed almost sincere, I answered the same way. "Yes. It's really been that bad."

"Then I'll put a stop to it."

"Thank you."

"Virginia, brains are nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'd trade 'em for looks," I grinned.

He grinned back. It wasn't as fake as his usual. "You say that now, but in ten years, you'll be a Harvard MBA and be able to buy and sell half the kids in this school."

"Harvard MBA? No thanks," I snorted. "Not my career goal at all."

"What is your career goal?"

I leaned on his desk and grinned at him. "Well, Eggy, I figured I'd be a high school principal. Or a Vegas showgirl, one or the other."

To my surprise, he absolutely roared with laughter. "Please, Virginia. Don't be a high school principal. You think you've got problems now?" He shook his head. "Don't be a high school principal. And if you think I didn't know about that nickname, you're sadly mistaken."

"I figured," I said, still grinning. "So, you don't think Vegas showgirl's a bad idea, then?"

He was still chuckling. "Get out of here. And, Virginia? That was a good line. I didn't know you could be funny. And I'm betting your classmates don't, either."

"Can't be Class Brain and Class Clown. I'd be hogging all the good spots in the yearbook," I smirked.

"Go on," he said, still laughing, "get out of here. It's your lunch time."

So I did. Well, I have to admit--that went a whole lot better than I expected. Eggy can be a prick, but he dealt with that well. At least I got a rise out of him!

I felt a lot better walking into the cafeteria. Of course, once I got there--I didn't feel great at all.

I don't care how low you think you're whispering--when I'm standing three feet in front of you in the lunch line, I can fucking hear you, OK? And I can hear you from three feet in back of you in the lunch line, too. And when I walk by your table.

The upshot? Oh, now I wasn't just the freak, I was the crazy freak. Well, I guess I expected that.

I got to my usual out-of-the-way sit-all-alone table. And I was surprised, ten seconds after I sat down, to not be alone.

It was the aforementioned Angela Cressey. "Can I talk to you?" she said quietly--she said everything quietly.

"Sure," I shrugged. Talk to me? Angela Cressey could talk? News to me.

If I had valedictorian all sewn up--which I pretty much did, if I lived that long--then Angela was in the clear lead for salutatorian. I figured she'd throw the game sooner or later, just so she wouldn't have to get up at graduation and make a speech. Angela Cressey making a speech was almost as ludicrous as me being a Vegas showgirl.

Anyhow, if she wanted to talk, that was fine by me.

She settled into her seat, and rummaged around her food. Then she blinked seven times. Took a deep breath. Rummaged around her food again. See what I mean? This is what Angela does when she's working up to say hello.

But she wasn't working up to say hello. She pointed at my wrist, and said, "What did it feel like?"

I was surprised, but I answered her. "Hurt like hell," I said with a wry grin.

"How long before you passed out?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm guessing a half hour or so. I know I felt, I don't know how to describe it. I guess floaty. I felt floaty for a while, then, the next thing I know, I'm waking up in the hospital. The worst pain was right when I did it. I went numb fairly quickly."

"Who found you?"

"My mother. My parents were going to the theatre and forgot the tickets. They got out of the restaurant, then came home to get the tickets."

"So, it was a fluke you got found."

"Yeah."

She blinked a few more times, and sighed. "How close was it?"

"Oh, they figured if the ambulance was maybe a half hour later, there would've been no saving me."

"So, you planned for it to work."

"Yes."

"Where did you do it?"

"In the bathtub. Didn't want to get blood all over my bed, as silly as that sounds."

"Oh."

Did you ever get a creeping chill running right up your spine? I was getting one, believe me. Full blast chill. Because I had a very very bad feeling about why she was asking all this.

Just then, in a bit of stupendously bad timing, Craig came over to the table. I would've been glad to see him, but not now. "Hi," he said to me, grinning. "Hi, Angela," he said with a bit of surprise. Angela looked horrified he was there.

I got up off my seat, made a 'wait a minute' motion to Angela, and led Craig away from the table before he could sit down. "Listen, can I talk to you later?"

"OK," he said, a bit confused.

"I am not blowing you off. You know Angela never talks. Well, she's talking to me, and I think it might be important. Very important. If you come over, I'm afraid she's going to clam up, and I think that would be bad."

"OK," he said.

"I'll tell you later. Call me after school, OK?"

"Will do," he said, grinning. Then he was off. I went back and sat across from Angela again.

"Did you have any more questions?" I asked.

"Are you going to do it again?" she said softly.

"I'm working very hard on not wanting to," I told her.

"Hm," was all she said.

I looked at her for a minute. Angela was a porcelain doll. Long blond hair, big wide blue eyes, button nose, very pale skin, the whole bit. She even wore dresses all the time, most of which would be more appropriate for a ten-year-old. She was like a little doll. Including being silent and trying to hide in the corner. But she was smart--as I said, close to me smart. She was as much of an outcast as I was--maybe more, at least I wasn't shy. I dreaded what was coming.

Then I took a deep breath, and just said it. "Angela. You've thought about it, haven't you?"

That porcelain doll face just crumpled. I could see the tears in her eyes already. And she confirmed it. "Just about every day," she got out in a near-whisper.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. What do I say? WHAT DO I SAY? Shit. What am I going to tell her, don't do it? How can I say that?

I'll admit it--it's been in the back of my mind. I was trying to not want to, but I still knew that I could always take another whack at it if things didn't get any better. No, I wasn't 'cured'. I was still shaky as all hell. I damn well knew it.

So, what the hell do I say? Dammit, I wish Shannon were here.

That's when I got one of my patented brilliant ideas. Well, in hindsight it was obvious.

I rummaged through my pocketbook and found Shannon's business card. I needed that--I had only one--so I grabbed a piece of notepaper and wrote her name and number down on it. I slid it towards her. She looked at it, the tears still running down her face.

"Angela? That's my shrink. She's been a big help to me. She's really cool. I think you should call her."

She looked up at me in horror. "Oh, I could never do that!"

"I think you need to."

"I can't. You don't understand." She took a deep breath and tried to control herself. "My parents are older. They tried for years to have a baby before they finally had me. They absolutely dote on me. I'm their perfect angel daughter." She sniffled. "They have no idea how I feel. They have no idea how unhappy I am. I could never tell them why I think I need a psychiatrist."

I took a deep breath. "My parents don't dote on me--in fact, that was part of my problem. They love me, but didn't know how to show me. That's getting better. Anyhow, they had no idea what was going on, either. If I'd told my parents I needed a psychiatrist, they might have freaked, too." I looked her right in the eye. "But I know for damn sure that my mother would've preferred that over finding me in the bathtub unconscious and covered with blood. Wouldn't yours?"

I pushed the paper towards her again, but she shook her head. "I can't. I just can't!" she croaked--and then got up out of the chair so fast it made my head spin. Before I could say, "Hey, Angela!" she was gone.

Shit shit shit. Now what do I do?

I had a few minutes left in lunch, so I whipped out my cell phone and tried to call Shannon. No luck--it was her day off. They offered to let me talk to one of the other shrinks, but I didn't want that. If it had been for me, I would have--but for this, I wanted to talk to Shannon. This was for advice, not therapy, and I trusted Shannon.

But that left me again wondering what to do.

Then I got another brilliant idea.

It was devious. It was underhanded. Angela would probably hate me for a very, very long time. But if I saved her damn life, it'd be worth it.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. Eggy must've gotten the word out to the teachers. After my last class, I flew out of there in record time, and waited. I wanted to see Angela.

I did. She took a bus, poor kid. I followed it. I waited until she got off, then followed her to her house. Keeping from being seen in the car while trying to follow her at walking pace wasn't easy, but I did it.

I waited until she went in the house, waited 10 more minutes, and then knocked. An older woman answered. "Can I help you?" she said.

"Are you Mrs. Cressey?" She nodded. "Hello, I'm Ginny Klusse--I go to school with Angela."

"Yes, you do," she smiled. "Everyone around knows who Ginny Klusse is." I managed to stifle my grimace. "Were you looking for her?"

"No, ma'am, I wanted to talk to you. Preferably without Angela around."

"OK," she said, with a quizzical expression, and led me over to a seat on the porch.

"Angela came up to me at lunch today. She had some questions to ask me. You see, Mrs. Cressey, I attempted suicide a couple of weeks ago." I showed my wrists again. I was getting used to the gasps by now. "This was my first day back at school.

"She was asking me all kinds of questions about how I did it and what it was like. This worried me, so I asked her if she'd ever thought about it. Mrs. Cressey, she said that she thinks about it almost every day."

Oh, God. The expression on that poor woman's face will be etched on my brain until the day I die. But I knew that I had to do this.

"Angela... wants to kill herself? But why? What did I do?" she whimpered.

"From talking to her, I don't think it's you," I said. "She said you dote on her and she loves you and her father. It's a lot of the same reasons that I did, actually. The problem is her brains. The only person in the junior class smarter than your daughter is me," I said with a little grin. "It's very isolating, believe me, I know. Kids treat you like some kind of freak. And in Angela's case it's compounded by how shy she is."

"She's very shy, we've worried about that. But being smart? That's a bad thing?"

"Oh, you have no idea."

"Ginny, what do I do?"

I got that piece of paper out again. "I tried to give this to Angela but she wouldn't take it. Said she couldn't tell you about all this--which is why I'm here. Anyhow, this is the name and number of the psychiatrist I've been seeing. She's very good. I know she's not in the office today but she will be tomorrow. I think Angela needs to see her."

"I'll make sure of it. I'm going to have to talk to my husband about this, and that's not going to be easy. And it'll be even harder talking to Angela. But I'll make sure of it." She gave me a watery smile. "Thank you for doing this," she said, and then reached over to give me a hug.

Two hugs in a week. Unbelievable.

"You're welcome. And I'm glad you're grateful because I think Angela is going to hate my guts."

"No, she won't. She might at first, but I'll make sure she knows it was better to get it all in the open."

I drove home, worried, but feeling good about what I'd done.

I got home and Mom was holding the telephone. "You're a bit late," she said--a bit worriedly, which was understandable, considering.

"I know. Don't worry, there's a reason. I'll explain."

"OK, but first you have a phone call." She got a little conspiratory smile on her face and stage-whispered, "It's Craig."

I gave her the same smile back and said, "Good, I'll take it upstairs."

It was a nice conversation. Craig told me he thought I'd done the right thing. Then we kind of chatted about school. He loved what I had done in History. He also loved, after I told him about it, how I had handled Eggy.

After we got off the phone, I went down and talked to Mom. We were sitting on the couch together. I told her everything--about the thing in History class, about Eggy, and then about Angela.

She actually told me she was proud of how I'd handled myself in the classes. She laughed with what I told her about Eggy.

"You actually called him Eggy to his face?"

"Yeah, and he just laughed," I said.

When I told her about Angela, she just listened, a concerned look on her face, until I was done.

The next thing I knew, she was hugging me! I'll admit it, I almost broke down with that. I managed to stop it. "I'm so proud of you," she said in the middle of the hug. Then she broke the hug and leaned back. "I'm a little surprised, though." I just looked at her. She went on. "I'm a little surprised you were so adamant about helping Angela, because you obviously consider suicide a viable option." She took a breath. "Look, I know well enough. I know that if I asked you to tell me that you were absolutely certain that you'd never try it again, you wouldn't be able to do it."

"No, I wouldn't," I agreed. "But, think of it this way. I'm also not planning on doing it again. I'm here, I'm OK, and I'm not trying to figure out where you hid all the sharp objects. And that is a big huge step from where I was two weeks ago. When I woke up in that hospital, all I could think about was doing it again and getting it right the second time. So, it's progress. I'm not OK, but I'm better.

"And there are reasons for that, and yes, you and Dad have helped," I said. "But one of the biggest reasons is Shannon. She really has helped, a lot. I didn't tell Angela not to kill herself. I didn't go into the whole trying to talk her out of it. All I did was tell her she should talk to Shannon. Because that did help me."

"You wish you had talked to her before you tried it."

"Oh, hell yes."

"Well, that's progress, too," she smiled. "You did the right thing, Ginny."

"Yeah. Angela will probably hate me for a while, though."

"She won't eventually."

"That's what I'm hoping."

"So," she said with a grin, "you were talking about people that helped you out. So, tell me, where does Craig fit in to all of this?"

I smiled back. "That's a good question." I told her about what he'd confessed about wanting to ask me out last year.

"Well? Has he asked you out now yet?" she said.

"I told him to hold off after I got through the first couple of days at school, to see how I reacted. I did tell him that if he decided after all that he still wanted to, I wouldn't say no."

"Good. Ginny's going to have a date."

"Now, Mom, let's not count our chickens before they cross the road, hm?" I pointed down to my wrists. "This is enough to scare anyone off. This, plus the reaction in school."

"I don't think it will scare him off. I mean, he called today, right?"

"Ah, he only called to find out why I blew him off at lunch to talk to Angela."

Mom was still smiling. "He would have called you anyway, I'm betting. And he went to eat lunch with you, right?"

"True. We'll see, I guess."

"Do you like him?" she asked me.

"Yeah. He's very sweet, an excellent listener, easy to talk to. He's also cute."

"Good," she laughed.

"So, where's Dad anyway?"

"I sent him out," she told me. "We had some errands that needed to get done, and I told him to get dinner. Chinese."

"Oh, goody!"

"I knew you'd agree with that. Anyhow, I sent him out. I wanted this afternoon to be just us, is that OK?"

"Sure," I said.

Her face got all serious just then, and she looked down at her hands. "I wanted to help you by myself today," she said quietly. "I figured maybe that'd help the guilt. Because it's bad."

"Oh, Mom," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"It's OK, Ginny," she said, visibly composing herself. "Do you have homework?"

"A little."

"Why don't you do it before your Dad comes home with the supper?"

"OK," I said, and went upstairs. Good thing my homework was pretty mindless, because I wasn't thinking all that great at the moment.

Eight

Tuesday at school was better. The teachers pretty much ignored me, which is what I wanted. I passed Eggy in the hall and he asked how things were going to day. "A lot better, Eggy, thanks," I told him. There were a bunch of kids around, so they were all tittering that I had actually called him Eggy. He just laughed.

OK, so maybe that happy-go-lucky act wasn't completely an act.

Anyhow, it was OK. There was still a lot of pointing and whispering, and I saw a couple people staring at the scars. One guy that sat next to me in English actually stared at the scars, then moved his desk over six inches, like it was contagious or something. Ah, well. None of that really surprised me.

And I wasn't surprised to see Angela completely shun me. In fact, when ever she saw me, she looked daggers at me. Ah, well. I could only hope she'd understand one day.

After school, I had my first session with Shannon. This was the one-on-one; the group was on Thursdays. I walked in and waved to her. She had a big smile on her face.

"I got an interesting phone call this morning."

"Oh, yeah?" I said, guessing what it might be.

I guessed right. "The call was from a woman named Ellen Cressey. She was calling on behalf of her daughter Angela. Your name came up in the conversation."

"I'll bet it did," I grinned.

"I'm seeing Angela tomorrow."

"I'm very glad, but let me warn you. It might be a frustrating hour. Angela might not talk. That girl takes shy to a whole new level. I was amazed that she talked to me."

"What exactly happened?" Shannon asked. So I told her. She knew some of it, but not all.

When I got done, Shannon was beaming. "You know, Ginny,. what you did was very healthy. All of it. It was a healthy reaction."

"If you say so."

"I say so. because you acted as if Angela's life was worth saving."

"Well, yeah," I agreed.

"And if hers is, isn't yours?"

"C'mon, Shannon--you know that shit's always easier to see from the outside."

"Yes and no. I think you see more than you realize."

"You're the Doc," I grinned.

Two days later, I was back in her office, for my first group session. I still wasn't quite sure about this, but I'd promised Shannon I'd give it a shot.

They'd only started meeting a few weeks ago. Since it had just started, Shannon had no porblems with me joining in instead of waiting for the next one.

I was the fifth. Two boys and two other girls. Shannon said, "This is Ginny. She'll be joining us starting today." Then she asked the rest of them to go around and tell me about themselves.

Zoe went first. She was a sophomore from the next town over. She was dressed like a Goth chick--all in black, dyed black hair, black fingernail polish, mulitple piercings, the whole bit. She was the one that had the hardest time articulating what she was going through. I guess she was very clinically depressed, and there'd been some trial and error with the medication. (Shannon had put me on a mild antidepressant. Don't know how much it hepled, but it couldn't hurt!)

Anyhow, with Zoe, a lot of it was brain chemistry gone haywire. And she couldn't easily explain it. She talked about feeling like she'd been buried alive--she couldn't breathe, her mouth filled up with dirt, the weight was crushing her--but it was all in her head. The funny thing was, she said she liked group so far, because nobody laughed at her while this outlandish-sounding stuff came out of her mouth, but saying it out loud in a setting like this made it sound ridiculous to her. She said that helped, especially now that they seem to have gotten her medication figured out better.

Seth was next. He was a junior from a town about ten miles away. Seth's story was easy to grasp--he was gay. And was severely harrassed about it, both verbally and physically. He tried to deal with it--he described himself as mostly mellow--but one day he just snapped. So he was trying to deal with a suicide attempt, but also trying to deal with a suicide attempt that was very impulsive.

Next was Karen. she was the same age and from the same town as Seth. I guess they didn't know one another well in school, but had kind of been leaning on one another since they met in group. Karen was shy. Not Angela shy, but she had trouble getting her story out. Of course, that was partially due to the story itself.

Because Karen's story was the most horrifying. She had a brother 4 years older. When she was 12--the brother 16--he started raping her. This went on for 4 years. He was in college now, and would come home on weekends that he knew their mother wouldn't be home at night, just to rape Karen. What was worse was that Karen had told her mother--who hadn't believed her.

A month ago, after another rape trip home by the brother, she'd had enough. She swallowed pills. The only thing that saved her was that her father came looking for her--her parents are divorced--and found her unconscious, with an empty pill bottle besdie her. Also naked, with spunk dripping from her pussy. And he found the note she'd left, clearly blaming all of it on her brother.

DNA testing at the hospital had proven it was her brother's semen. They arrested him--and the upshot of that is her mother won't speak to her. Unbelievable as that sounds, the bitch chose her rapist son over her violated daughter. Jesus. She's living with her Dad. Everyone in school knows her brother was raping her, which is bad enough--damn media--but plenty of people question how it could've been real rape if it happened for four years and she never reported it. Idiots.

It was like horror piled upon horror. She was even having problems with her boyfriend. He'd not judged her at all, unlike some other people, but was hurt she'd never confided in him in the six months they'd been going out. "He says he would've helped me, and I know now he would've, but I was so scared," Karen said. "It's a miracle I trust him at all, and it took a while for him to understand that." And she'd also never had sex with him, for obvious reasons. He was patient, but part of her was afraid she'd never be able to. And another part of her wanted to--because, even though her brother was raping her and her mind was horrified, her body sometimes responded, especially as she got older.

Karen got all this out in a voice that swung between almost-in-tears, and completely numb. That poor, poor girl. And I thought I had it bad.

I didn't know what to say. Luckily, Shannon, before I even had a chance to say something, moved on to the last person in the room--Sam. Sam Raleigh. He was the only one that went to my school, though he was a sophomore, a year behind me.