Troubled

SEVENTEEN

CORA PHILIPS

I felt so embarrassed that I prayed the ground would open up and swallow me whole. The natural disasters didn't tell me before they came, they didn't give me fore warning. Worse? They didn't respect the fact that I was in no position to accept their arrival sometimes. Like when I suddenly suffered a storm while that Kyle guy was behind me.

I wanted him to leave but I couldn't tell him to leave, because deep down I did not want to be alone. I was terrified of being alone.

He felt so confused and I could see why. It's not something you see every day. In fact, I was the only one that had it in the world, as far as I know.

But he didn't run away, he stayed with me, he whispered to me that it was okay. He tried to call for help, and yes it was embarrassing. The most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to me.

So I tried to run away from him, but God he was persistent. Unnecessarily persistent. He continued to follow me, asking different questions that I wished I could answer, but I couldn't.

"You should have f****d off when I told you too." I told him, because he didn't owe me anything, so he didn't need to be there with me at all.

"I should have, but I didn't, and that cost me a phone." He agreed and waved his phone in my face.

I remember flinging the phone away so he didn't call for help. That usually never worked, plus I didn't want the attention that came with it, so I acted in the only way I could at that time, and I ended up destroying his phone.

"How much is it? I'll replace it." Even as the words left my lips I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it. I didn't care much about brands of phones, but this one looked very expensive. I don't know where I was hoping to get the money to buy one for him.

"One grand. It's the latest iphone you see."

I nearly stopped walking at the mention of the price. My eyes must have been as wide as saucers. My brain scrambled for an idea.

"I'll fix it then." Was the best my brain came up with.

He stretches his hand to give me the phone, and I stop walking to take it, but he puts his hand back in almost immediately.

"What if I told you there was another way in which you could pay me?"

I thought a bit about what that meant, but he was a teenager and a male. That could only mean one thing. Even if I was a teenager and I didn't speak teenager, I knew what that could mean, and if he was thinking what I thought he was thinking, he had a lot coming for him.

I drew my hand back and whacked him straight on the face. I hoped I had put some sense into that jock brain of his.

Before he could say anything else, I ran away. Yes I did. That is just how much I detested him after he said that. How dare he? Just because he helped me out in my time of need did not mean I was going to make out or whatever with an absolute stranger. What a jerk.

By the time I got a cab and got back home, Cory was napping. Mom was out and dad was sitting on the island. I had somehow forgotten what happened between us after thinking about how much of a jerk Kyle was.

"Hey Cora!" Dad greeted her.

His voice wasn't as cheery as it used to be, but he wasn't completely avoiding me either. But I stay in my place at the foot of the stairs and greet him back.

"Hey Dad.. how are you?" I was referring to the wound. My heart was bleeding from guilt.

He gave me half a smile.

"Alive. Well. Healthy. How are you? Your skin looks too pale." He tilted his head and he analysed me.

"Maybe it's because of school stress."

He nodded.

"I made a tuna sandwich in case you're hungry."

I nodded back at him.

"Thanks."

Soon, the two of us stood there staring at each other awkwardly.

"Your mom told me about Miss Suzie."

I swallow, but I nod.

"Is she any good?"

I wanted to scream no at the top of my lungs, but I couldn't risk not seeing Cory anymore, so I tell him yes.

"Okay then, go wash up and come down for the sandwich."

And I ran up to my room. I wished I could cry as I slid down the wall. My relationship with my dad was officially ruined, even if he thought I was still his little girl, there would be this voice in his head constantly reminding him of the dangers of being around me.

Yet again, I find myself praying that Miss Suzie turns out to be the best, so I can get rid of the disasters once a d for all. Only then would I be able to live my life to the fullest. But for now, I will have to continue living in the shadows and struggling to get rid of the disasters permanently.

I couldn't stand to see myself in the bathroom mirror so I just changed out of my clothes into new ones. By the time I went downstairs, mom was already back.

"How was today's session?"

I swallowed, there it was again, no preamble, just straight to the point like two people who had just met for business purposes, not like mother and child.

"It was okay. But do I need to have it with someone else" I asked, as I fetched the tuna sandwich.

Mom frowns a bit. I guess she didn't know about Kyle either.

"Someone else?"

"Yeah, she is also helping someone else. But she joined our sessions together. Isn't the client information supposed to be like a secret?"

Mom thought this over.

"Maybe it is her method? Whatever works." She dismissed it.

For a second there, she was almost a real mother. The key word being, almost.

That night when I slept, I dreamt that I put a pencil from Miss Suzie's desk through Kyle's eye. His eyes were a bloody mess, his mouth hung open in shock. I stood there apologizing over and over again. Slowly his bloody face morphed to Cory's.