I headed up to my appointment but I couldn't shake off the worry about Ollie seeing me with Tommo. I stopped into the bathroom to calm down a bit. I splashed my face with cold water, careful not to smudge my mascara. Leaning on the sink, I looked in the gum-stuck mirror and said, "Stop stressing, you've done nothing wrong."
And I hadn't. It wasn't like I'd flirted back.
I sent Ollie a text, Meet me lunchtime? xxx
A bit of me was slightly disgusted that I was so clingy, but I just needed to know everything was okay between us.
It's hard to explain why I needed him so much; it was more than love. He was like one of those sandbags they hang around the side of a hot air balloon. Maddy was too. They kept me weighted, steady. Without them, I felt like I'd float off. And not in a good way. In a disappearing way. They grounded me—made my life feel real and not like something fleeting. I needed them. It was funny really. I never doubted Maddy, but I worried so much that Ollie might see through me somehow. I knew it had a lot to do with Fifteen—it was kind of okay to share a best friend but it was definitely weird to share a boyfriend. Not that Fifteen got to share him. He was mine, and I was keeping it that way. I didn't ever want to do anything that might threaten things with him. Things that might make him realize I wasn't who he thought I was. Blood pulsed in my ears, my heart was in overdrive. I'd be fine if he'd just text me back. And when we were fine everything else was fine. Sort of. As close to fine as it got for me.
I went upstairs, fiddling with the cover on my phone. The door to room seven was half open.
Elliepants was writing notes, her long, stringy hair tucked behind her enormous ears. Obviously, I didn't have special ed. I had a therapy session with Ms. Ellie Fenton. She looked up at me with her wrinkly, blinky eyes and smiled, her mouth all pouty like an elephant's.
"Hi, Teva, come in, shut the door, that's it."
I sat in the armchair opposite her, tucking my schoolbag into my stomach like a flak jacket.
"Is there anything special you want to talk about this week?"
I shook my head. We had these sessions because Fifteen had shoved Kristal Mitchell down C-block staircase after she called Maddy a stuck-up Arab. Kristal got away with it, Fifteen got Elliepants. I don't know why I still had to see her. I didn't have anger issues. I wondered sometimes if Elliepants knew something wasn't right with me, not that I gave anything away. Mom had to let us go to the sessions but she'd laid down the law about what we could and couldn't say.
They'll come poking around our house if you say anything odd. Imagine what it'll be like. Everyone will think you're a freak—or crazy.
Elliepants said, "How've you been this week?"
I shrugged. "All right."
"Did you try writing things down, like we talked about?" Like Elliepants had talked about.
"Yeah," I lied.
"And how was that?"
I shrugged again.
I flipped the cover off my phone, hotly aware that Ollie hadn't texted me back.
"You seem a bit tense, Teva. Is everything okay?"
My teeth ground together. Sometimes the urge to throw at her what my life was really like was overwhelming. I clamped it down. Mom was probably right. She'd think I was crazy and then I'd never get away from her—Elliepants would love a real-life genuine nut job to work on.
Silence stretched between us.
A patch of skin behind my knee began to itch. I'd barely got a fingernail to it before it flared into a bonfire of irritation. I dug in my bag for my cream. At least that saved me from having to talk. Well, it would have, if Elliepants ever gave up.
"Did you keep a journal, then?" she said.
I looked at the floor.
"Teva?"
She waited. Eventually I said, "I did a video blog thing."
Her eyes opened like saucers. "On the Internet? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
No. I wasn't sure of anything. There were no self-help books on how to deal with a life like mine. No advice columnists to e-mail. The one person I could talk to was Mom and she never listened. How was I supposed to know what was a good idea and what wasn't?
Elliepants said, "The Internet's very public, Teva."
Did she think I didn't know that?
"Maybe," she said, "if you feel you want to share with more people, group therapy would be good?"
I bolted upright. "God no!"
She raised her eyebrows.
I shook my head. "I didn't post the video. I'm not an idiot." I was seriously thinking about it, though. So what did that make me?
Elliepants stuck on her calm-down-dear smile, but I boiled inside. She had no idea. Every day was a struggle just to stay calm. Every minute. The only way I stayed sane was by keeping my anchors in place, and one of them was feeling too wobbly for my liking. My silent phone burned a hole in my hand. Ollie still hadn't texted me back. It was too much. I stood up, holding my bag close.
Elliepants tried to coax me into staying. "Well, I'm not very good with computers. Tell me about the blog, is it like a diary?"
I nodded, but I needed to go, to make sure Ollie hadn't seen Tommo and me. Other people might not realize how sensitive he was, but I had a head full of memories of his tenderness. The way he stroked the skin on the inside of my wrist with his thumb, or wrapped his own coat around me at the sign of a shiver, the way he nuzzled into my neck and sighed like he was home. True, I'd inherited a lot of the memories from Fifteen, but I'd replayed them so often it was easy to believe they were mine. I remember our first kiss like it had been mine.
Ollie had held me in his gaze and I didn't feel like a pale, scabby-skinned shadow, barely holding on to her place in the world. When he looked at me, I saw myself the way he did. He thought my tufty hair was cute, so it was. He wasn't bothered by my horrible skin so, when I was with him, I wasn't. When I was with him, I mattered. I couldn't lose him. I wouldn't.
"Teva?"
"I've got to go, Miss Fenton, I don't want to miss too much of my lesson ..."
"These sessions are for your benefit, Teva."
"I know. Sorry. I've got to go."
I left Elliepants—frowning—behind me and headed straight for the common room. I felt so stupid after talking to her, like I really was an unstable idiot. I charged along the corridor, nearly colliding with Mrs. Churchill, who barked, "Teva Webb, walk don't run!"
I slowed to a walking run until I was out of her sight, then I flew up the common-room stairs and banged open the door.
Kristal Mitchell was bent over the pool table, her skirt so short her butt was practically on display. And there, helping her line up her cue, nearly on top of her, was Ollie. My Ollie. Kristal's diamanté-tipped nails glittered in the sun like claws. My heart nearly exploded out of my chest.
