When It Hurts

Part Eleven

Miss Taylor glares at me as she grades our papers while we read - or pretend to. I half smirk at her. I want her to know I don't care. But at the same time ...

Why would I put that down on a piece of paper? It's so fucking close to the truth for once. Usually it's just something like fuck you/and when i see you/fuck off and die/i hope you do/someday i'll piss on your grave.

But that line about being in his bed ...

I put my arms on my desk, burying my face in them. I feel something gently running down my back. I turn around. Mike's pen. He gives me a sad sort of smile that I can't return before I turn back around.

Miss Taylor makes me stay after class.

She crosses her arms and glares at me. "If you don't quit cursing on your assignments, not only am I going to flunk you but I'm going to report you."

"If you flunk me you'll just be stuck with me for another year." I say.

She hesitates for a minute. "Get out of my room, Billie."

Mike's waiting for me. "Taylor's a bitch, Billie Joe. Just fucking ignore her."

"I'm trying." I mutter as we walk to our lockers. I really don't want to flunk her class. It'll just be another thing that's going to make Mom worry about me. And I don't want her to worry. For one thing the shrink's more than enough. For another ... Mom shouldn't have to worry. Especially about me.

It's not like I could ever tell her. But I kind of wish I could. My mom can make anything better.

I'm not paying attention to where I'm going which is how I end up walking into the wall. Mike snickers and grabs my arm, laughing as I rub at my red face. "Smooth, Billie. Real smooth."

I don't flinch away from his touch, which surprises me. My arm tingles a little bit, but I don't feel as dirty as I usually do.

"You gonna come over after school?" he asks.

I shake my head. "I've got to see the fucking shrink today. I'm leaving during last period."

"Lucky bastard."

"Yeah, right." I scoff. "Going to see a shrink, remember?"

There's a silence, between us at least. The hallway is filled with noise pollution.

"Billie . . . I hope it helps."

"I know."



Part Twelve

It's going to be an hour long car ride. It took awhile to find a doctor who accepts our insurance. My mother looks at me and sighs and I'm half convinced that I should tell her.

I don't know why. I wish that I could go back to when my mom used to kiss the scratches on my knee or just hold me for no real reason at all.

She keeps glancing at me when she thinks I'm not looking. "I'll love you no matter what, Bilie Joe. You know that right?"

"Sure, Mom." I half believe her. Because I know that sometimes you only love people because you have to. I don't want my mom to have to love me.

"Billie, if you won't tell me what's wrong, at least tell the doctor. He won't tell anyone else."

"I can't believe you're making me go see a shrink." I mutter, kicking at the door.

"What else am I supposed to do?" she asks, almost desperately. "With you it's Mike, guitar, Mike, guitar. Nothing else."

"So?"

"It's not healthy. Something's wrong."

I hate Mom-ESP.

"It's nothing." I mutter. "It doesn't matter."

Mom reaches over for a second and strokes my hair. "It always matters, Billie Joe."

I feel tears prick my eyes and I turn to stare out the window. Mom sighs and puts on her turn signal.

I'm sorry. I bring my palm up discreetly to wipe at my eye. I'm so sorry.

Mom pulls into a parking light and we get out without a word. Once we get inside I sit on the most uncomfortable fucking seat everywhere while she tells the receptionist everything and gives her our insurance information.

Five minutes later the seat's more comfortable but just as uncomfortable because of the five foot two bitch across from me.



Part Thirteen

"Hi, Billie Joe." she says, big grin on her face. "I'm Dr. Cox, but you can call me Marlene."

Dr. Cox. I hate her already.

"Would you like to tell me why you're here?" she says it like she's expecting me to say no.

"Mom made me." I mumble, feet scraping on the ground. "She's overprotective's all."

She nods. "All right. Why don't we start with some questions then? Would that be all right with you?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Marlene looks at me over her wire-rimmed glasses. She has brown hair and freckles on her nose. Her ears aren't even pierced. She looks like she's too young to be a shrink. "Billie, we don't have to do anything. We can just sit here and stare at each other or play tic-tac-toe. But the sooner we start working, the soon things will start to get better, and the less time you'll have to spend with me."

"I told Mike." I snapped. "I'm fine. I don't need to talk to you or any other bullshit shrink."

"Who's Mike?" she asks.

I answer the question before I can think naughty to. Sneaky bitch. "He's my best friend."

"Cool. So what kind of things do you guys do together?"

My shrink used the word 'cool'. Fuck, she's desperate. But she's got me talking about music and I'm a sucker for that. "We're in a band. Called Sweet Children. He plays bass. He's fucking awesome."

She doesn't even flinch when I curse. "That's sounds awesome." Awesome. I fight a laugh. "What do you do?"

"Guitar, vocals, write lyrics."

"So you write?"

I know exactly where this is going. "Look, lady. You ain't going to get me write out my feelings for you or some bullshit thing like that. I already don't like you so don't fucking push it."

"What do you write about? Do you ever write about being depressed? Or why you're here?" I think she knows what she's doing, but I don't.

My mind flashes back on the paper I turned in earlier in English class.

And fuck what you said / When I lay there in your bed

"Even if I did, what the fuck good would that do?"

"It means you're facing it, beginning to accept it."

"Look, I know I fucked up. But scribbling a bunch of fucking words on a piece of God damn paper doesn't mean shit. It still happened and I can still feel it. It's not going to disappear with a pencil and a guitar solo. It's not going to disappear by talking. It's not going to disappear by not talking either. It. Is. Not. Going. Away." I take a deep breath. "If I can accept that, why can't your fucking medical doctorate see that?"

"Talking won't make what happened go away, but it can help you move past it. Can you at least tell me how old you were when it happened, Billie? Can you tell me that much?"

A sob tears from my throat. "I was thirteen."

I run out of the room in tears.

Thank God my mom didn't see me run into the bathroom and lock the door.

I fall against the wall, sinking to the floor. I hate crying, but at least there's no one here. There's a knock on the door, then a pause, then footsteps walking away.

I shouldn't feel like this after two years. I know I'm a freak and what I did was wrong, but I should have forgotten a little. It shouldn't feel like just yesterday I had his cock down my throat, felt his hand on the back of my head, gagged on him, got called a slut.

I still wish I were dead.



Part Fourteen

I woke up the next morning, after hitting the snooze button five times and being threatened by my mother twice, feeling fine. Which is the most abnormally normal thing I ever feel. I feel fine, like nothing can bother me. And inside I'm just waiting to see if it lasts. I want it to, so fucking bad. But I don't know if it will.

I meet Mike down the block and he smiles at me. Mike knows. He always does. He hands me a cigarette and lights it, then lights his own. "Fucking Chem test." he says. I know he's stoked about the fact that he can have a normal conversation with me for once.

"General Science test." I tease. Mike's an over-achiever. He takes the harder classes. I'm a slacker, so I don't care if this means I'll never get into college. What do I need fucking college for anyway?

He pushes me and laughs. I don't flinch and I don't feel dirty. I laugh back, softly punching him in the arm. "Fucker."

"Oh, you know you love me." he says, batting his eyelashes and putting his cigarette out. We're just down the street from the school. Sighing, I put mine out, wasting the last three drags.

* * *

"So," Miss Taylor asked, crossing the room in her clearanced Payless heels, "what was the hidden message in this scene?" She glares at Mike and I, who are whispering back and forth and laughing under our breath. "Billie Joe?"

I looked at her and shrugged. "I don't know."

"Then pay attention."

"I really don't care either." I said back. Half the class snickers, the other half glares at me. I'm a social outcast, but I've never really cared.

"Principal's office, Billie Joe." she says, pointing.

I roll my eyes and shrug, walking out the door. I hear her ask Mike the same question she asked me and he, of course, gets it right. He's half a fucking teacher's pet, which never fails to make me laugh.

* * *

I can feel it in the back of my throat, in the tension of my shoulders as I sit in another uncomfortable chair--this time outside the principal's office. I know it's going to end soon, being happy. It never lasts. I want it to. I try to grab onto it with fingers that won't move and plead with it in a voice of silence.

The receptionist answers her phone. "He'll see you now." she says.

Oh the joy.



Part Fifteen

Mike doesn’t understand why I walk home without him sometimes, why I never bother to let him know when, just leave.

I walk along the sidewalk, head down, toes of my shoes scuffing the ground. I kick at pebbles, run my fingers across the metal of chain link fences. Then I come to a chain link fence that I climb, pushing through the heavy branches of trees until I’m finally standing in front of an old forgotten children’s playground. The paint is peeling, the slide is rusted, three of the four swings are hanging by only one chain. The fourth looks like it will join them at anytime.

That’s the one I sit in. The swing barely moves as I close my eyes, silent tears falling down my cheeks. This is what I was once. This is what I lost.

A big stupid kid with a stupid smile who didn’t know shit.

I wish I were still that stupid kid.

Now I know too much. I sit here on this swing set, which is as broken as my heart and just as close to breaking for the last time. I close my eyes, trying to pretend that if I can’t see the world I’m stuck in that it won’t exist. That the last few years of my life will just disappear.

That a day that started out fine, without me flinching or pretending to smile . . . that a day like that could fucking last, without me hiding from the world and crying again.

If I could stay here forever, hide from the rest of the world and pretend not to know anything I would.

I close my eyes, letting the tears wash my face and trying to think of nothing at all.

When I open them again it’s dark and I’m lying on the dirt.