Begin Again

A Chapter by Silas Ilyse

I don’t entirely know how my life came to be this way.

There, I lay in an ever-growing pool of various liquids, beside the other girl who tried to stab me, ultimately inciting me to quite literally beat her a*s. Her knife was in my hand, covered her blood, as I’d wrestled it out of her grip when she decided it would be fun to stab the Loner Kid who barely ever spoke. The cement was colder than the corpse of King Henry VIII, and yet at the same time, my face felt hot, like I’d ran a 10K marathon like those fake-a*s soccer moms who think they’re milfs when they’re twenty with a six-year-old kid. But that’s not my point.

She held her stab wound, crying out in pain from my own attack as though she hadn’t just bashed in my face, given me a broken nose, tried to stab me, choked me. In honesty, I should’ve gone for the eyes. Disability gives pretty good money.

Her jet black hair was sprawled all around. I might have pulled her hair extensions out during the fight. But she’s staring at the sky as though her own skinny body will sustain itself in the chill of the autumn air freezing her little body. I stood, slowly, pushing myself off the cold ground to look at her as she cradled her bleeding leg. The crowd around me was closing in, chanting both obscenities and cheers, hooting and hollering, as though expecting me to go in for the kill. But, I didn’t move, merely watching the poor girl, her eyes filled with fat tears, watching me as though saying, ‘You did this to me. You’ve killed me.’

Did she already forget that she was the one who tried to stab me first for “flirting with her man?”

What a b***h.

Well, it doesn't matter. She didn’t die or anything. The paramedics confirmed that the stab wasn’t going to kill her, even though it’d caused all that bleeding. I felt no regret. She was back quite quickly, albeit with stitches, and she left me alone. I never talked to her or her boyfriend after that, who I was sure was probably cheating on her with her meatier older sister.

I still got expelled, though, and lost that scholarship. She didn't get in any trouble, as far as I know. How hilarious is that?

So! Here I am, in some bullshit family meeting with my aunt and uncle, waiting on my parents, but certainly, I knew they would cancel because my darling younger sister had a choir concert or some s**t. Did I care? Hell nah. She can suck my dick for all I care.

But the doctor in charge - or rather, he calls himself a doctor, really the way I look at it, he’s more of a cheap counselor than a doctor - sat in front of us, a somber look on his bearded face, as though analyzing my very existence, already coming to some conclusion that I was a mistake. Surely someone with so much “potential” couldn’t have done all these things!

...Nope. Still did ‘em.

“How are you folks, today?” Doc asked - and I call him that because he insists, and because I didn’t catch his last name. His smooth, deep voice filled the room, shattering the silence like a window, even if his tone was awkward, searching for somewhere to start. “Got any weekend plans?”

I shifted in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest, sinking down as though certain it would show my almost immediate frustration with this meeting. I’m not sure why he thought he should ask a question like that, especially now. What did it matter? Auntie and Todd never go out. Date nights just aren’t a thing for them. It took one - just one! - boneheaded move to scar both of them for life, and cause them to make serious revisions in their relationship. Not that it quite matters at the moment what exactly happened - just that it happened, and that’s why they can never, ever be trusted to go on any date nights. Perhaps I ruined that. I wouldn’t know, since I’m pretty sure it happened long before I’d be able to remember.

“Oh, uh-”

“Well, no, but-”

I didn’t pay attention to whatever Auntie and Todd answered with. There wasn’t much of a point to. Not at all. Chances were, they were just going to sit down and watch a ton of s****y romance movies where the storyline is essentially the same; A man falls for a woman, she falls for him, they end up dating and maybe even having sex, then a silly misunderstanding, then a rain scene, or an airport scene, and they live happily ever after.

“I’m a little unclear on this...Are the two of you Aveline’s parents?” Doc asked at some point; I’m not sure when or why. I had been absentmindedly picking my already-too-short nails, trying to get rid of my hangnails, maybe file down the uneven surface somehow. Before they could answer, I spoke up:

“No. They’re my guardians, not my parents.”

Auntie slapped my arm lightly, as though warning me that if I don’t keep my mouth shut, I’ll be cruisin’ for a bruisin’ in no time. Todd just looked at me with those shiny hazel eyes of his, watching as though he was about to close our distance, leaping over the burlap chairs in the shrink’s office, uprooting me like he was an experienced gardener and I was the dandelion, throw me to the bonfire that which will rid his world of me.

I stared at Doc, my gaze unwavering, shunning every desire to bombard him with pejorative-riddled questions about what he was writing on his clipboard, his left hand making the pretty loops in the cursive he’d been trained to use. I crossed a leg over the other as he looked up, mocking, wondering, somehow insulting green eyes, greener than the vomit that spewed from that b***h’s mouth in The Exorcist. But my eyes seemed to challenge him in some way, like my presence challenged his dominance, because he looked away soon, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

“...I take it Aveline isn’t attending-” He paused to glance at my file, at the name of my now former high school, and I don’t blame him since it had an oddly sophisticated-sounding name, “-White Mountain Academy…?”

“It’s a school for the scientifically gifted,” Auntie piped up, “She got in on a scholarship after, uh…”

The doctor paused just as Auntie's voice died away, looking up at us, his amber skin shining some under the halogen lights. I was sure he was sweating since the heat was turned up high.

“After what?” he asked, but Auntie was silent. Todd was silent, too, watching him with an unwavering gaze. Why they thought this was such a good idea, I don’t think I’ll ever know.

I was silent, as well, until I uncrossed my legs and stood, ready to leave, but Auntie grabbed my arm as though to calm me down, or otherwise keep me in place, her grip barely iron hard.

Doc glanced rapidly between the three of us like a cat chasing a mouse, or a curious boy seeking a bandy-legged truth that never slowed their jog.

“Am...I missing something here?”

“Oh, no, Sir, it’s just-”

“Can I talk to Aveline alone, Mrs. Czechinov?” Doc asked, causing my heart to leap into my throat. Auntie’s hand left my arm, and she pulled Todd out of the room, leaving me to speak with Doc.

“...Have a seat, Aveline,” he ordered, and I obeyed, only because the quicker we finish, the quicker I can return home and hide under the blankets again, instead of sitting there and taking it while my Auntie has to explain things she can’t even begin to understand because she doesn’t live the way I do, with the same kinds of trauma, with the same aches in her heart, with the same pain that comes with living in a world where you’re unclean, unworthy of the love you desire more than anything in the world.

“What happened when you got the scholarship?”

“...I finished middle school on a bad note, and would’ve been expelled if it weren’t the last day of school. I’d gotten a scholarship into the high school because I guess my entry into some contest secured it. The high schools around my house are s**t, anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

“Have you seen some of those w****s that prance around the street wearing skimpy clothes? Showing off their asses and tits in hopes they’ll get a nice, hot-?”

“Okay, I get the point, Aveline.” He grumbled, writing something else down on the paper attached to the clipboard. “And...What caused you to be expelled from this school?”

“Some girl thought I was messing around with her boyfriend and she tried to stab me.”

“But you got expelled because…?”

“She was the one who ended up with a knife in her leg. She tried to kill me, and we can’t have that, now, can we?”

He wrote more down on his clipboard. It continued on like that, like a test or quiz or something, as though everything I’ve been experiencing in my life was one big lesson, in one big classroom, and this was a major test to see if I retained anything I’d been learning. But I couldn’t care enough; I couldn’t bring myself to answer easily, thoughtlessly, as though just relaying gossip.

“So...What are you going to do about school, then? Aren’t you a senior?”

“I honestly don’t have an answer for you, Doc-”

“Doctor Vega,” he corrected me sharply, “And you have to find one soon. It’s not gonna be good for you if you just don’t come back to school.”

I knew he was right. Deep down, I knew. But I didn’t recognize it, falling silent in response. It was like my brain suddenly switched 'off' upon being prodded for questions regarding the topic of school, and the impending future. I shifted in my seat, biting my nails again, averting my gaze from his face.

But he just kept writing.