Indifferent Confusion

SHANE

Why the hell did she have to say that? Why the hell was I thinking about her like that? It was wrong on so many levels, but she wasn’t materialistic, she wasn’t a cheater, and she said what she felt. Her sarcasm was a welcomed change and her intimidating personality was one that seemed too good to be true. She was so small, but I wouldn’t try taking her on because I knew that looks could be deceiving.

She had a fucking boyfriend though and from the sounds of it, they were pretty intense. And I had just obviously offended her with my comment about girls, thinking the joke was innocent enough. Why did she have such a hold on me when all she seemed to do was push everyone away? She was the apathetic bitch and that is exactly what she wanted to be known as by everyone. Why though?

“You still haven’t told me what’s up with you,” I reminded as I stood behind the bench to spot her. I must admit that it was a nice view, but it still amazed me how much she could lift.

For a while, she didn’t say anything, just concentrated on her lifting. But I could see the thoughtful expression on her face so I knew that she was trying to figure out what she wanted say. She confused me because most of the time she said whatever the hell she wanted, but sometimes she was so careful, so aware that words are powerful.

“I feel lonely,” she stated so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her. “My life has been such a joke and I felt like that was good enough. And Holden was good at filling that void, making me forget about that loneliness. But here…there are people who want to know me, people who know I can be better and the feeling’s really strong all of a sudden.”

So there was much more to her than anyone thought, I suspected that would be the case. But that was some pretty deep shit and I was really surprised she told me everything. When all I did was stare at her, she looked away, clearly uncomfortable with telling me. I wanted her to be able to trust me though, so I swallowed my amazement and went into sensitive-counselor mode.

“Could your feeling have anything to do with becoming a different person here?” I asked. I saw hope flash through her eyes, but dejection quickly replaced it. “Maybe you do know that you can be better so being like you’ve always been is no longer good enough. The other guys are going through the same thing so it’s not like you’re alone in it.”

“But Holden seems to think that I’m changing in a bad way.” She looked so pained; I had to hide the fact that I was very happy to see trouble in paradise. I don’t think that would have helped anything at the moment. “He doesn’t like that I’m questioning what we did and think that I’m questioning him.”

“Well maybe he just refuses to learn from being here. If that’s the case then he’ll end up in jail just as soon as he gets out of here and there’s nothing else to it. You’re here because you need to grow up and he’s not.”

“Would you stop with the Dr. Phil shit?” she seethed vehemently. There was so much anger in her eyes all of a sudden that I was taken aback. No longer was she lifting, but just laying there looking up at me with hatred burning in her eyes.

“What gives you the right to stand there and criticize me and completely disrespect my boyfriend like that? You can go ahead and judge me all you want because I don’t give a shit what you or anyone else thinks of me, but if you think for a minute that you can diss my boyfriend and get away with it, you are seriously mental. You don’t know him at all so you have no room at all to talk.”

For some sick reason, I enjoyed having her yell at me like that, as if it didn’t matter that I was her counselor. But I couldn’t let her know what she was doing to me, not only because she had a boyfriend, but because that was so incredibly against the rules. I was trying to instill the rules in her, not break them with her. Not that she was following the rules anyway, but I did not want to lose my job over that one.

“You should not be talking to me like that,” I barked. “You are to respect me and listen to me. I have your life in my hands.”

“Why should I respect you when you have no respect for me?” she wondered, pointedly ignoring my last comment.

“Respect you?” I laughed humorlessly. “What makes you think you have that luxury here? You’re in fucking juvie Thunder, you get no respect.”

Her eyes flashed with vehemence, but she quickly looked down as the bitterness gave way to some form of sadness. I felt badly for what I had said, but I couldn’t afford to make her think she had special privileges. She was just another delinquent and I couldn’t treat her any differently.

“Don’t you have other delinquents to wake up?” she asked softly, trying hard to mask her pain.

So we left the gym to get the other guys so we could go for our daily run, all the while Rain refused to look at me. She had many more conflicting emotions than I thought and I didn’t know what to do. She seemed like such a cold hearted bitch and I knew that’s the way she wanted it, but all of her emotions were getting the best of her.

I loved waking the guys up with a bull horn; it never ceased to amuse me. it was horrible and mean spirited of me to do it when I was waking them up an hour and a half early, but I just could not help it. Rain was standing in the doorway of the house with a spaced out look on her face. I wanted to figure out what was wrong with her, but I knew that she would never tell me anymore than she already did.

“Take your inhaler, Rain,” I reminded, handing it to her. She took it from me without another word.

As we ran, Rain and Ashleigh were in the back of the pack in deep conversation. It looked like he was trying to comfort her, but I could not tell if it was making a difference to her. Rain’s face was too hard to read. I took the group around our normal route, but I was just on autopilot. ‘I guess I can’t figure out why you would miss out on finding a great girl,’ she had said. I was missing out on nothing and I knew that. I’d dated so many girls and none of them meant anything to me. They were all stupid bitches more than willing to break your heart if given the chance.

Because I was always the ‘bad boy’ type, I always had some girl hanging on me, wanting to change me or get with me or whatever the hell they wanted. Even though I was that bad boy, I had reasons for it and I just wanted one of those girls to understand where I was coming from. None of them were concerned about that though; they were too concerned with getting an easy fuck. Every time, I was hoping for someone different, hoping the next girl would just understand. No one ever did.

I guess that’s why I wanted to become a counselor. Rain had asked me why I would waste my time on kids like her, but I knew they had the potential to change. They needed someone to tell them that they could get a fresh start after being a fuck up. They needed to know that being a badass was not the only way to gain attention.

It seemed that I was good at making my kids see that. I knew that there were a whole bunch of others that would never see it, but a lot of the kids that I counseled went on to do good thing.

“Shane, it’s time for breakfast,” Jeremy informed, breaking me from my thoughts.

“Alright guys, go change and get food,” I ordered. Normally, I would have given Jeremy hell for telling me when it was time to do anything, but I would not have realized and they would have missed lunch. Not that they couldn’t afford to skip one meal.

I was surprised that Rainelle had not asked me about her story yet. Obviously I was not done with it, but I figured she would have asked about it. There was no doubt about it, she was a seriously skilled writer, but she had absolutely no confidence in her ability. I knew I was going to let her write after lights out, but I didn’t see how it would matter since she was still doing it regardless of whether I let her or not. And I liked working out with her in the morning.