One Small Thing(35)

I skip lunch and head for the library, where I plan to hide until classes resume again.

“Are you not having lunch today?” Ms. Tannenhauf, our school guidance counselor and librarian, asks.

“I’m trying to get a head start on a research project,” I lie, and hope she doesn’t ask me what project because it doesn’t exist.

She looks around and then gestures for me to come close. Reluctantly, I drag myself over to the circulation desk.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Why don’t you step inside my office for a minute?” She points to the closed door behind her.

“I don’t know. I’ve got all this stuff to do.” I jerk my thumb vaguely in the direction of the library stacks.

“You don’t even have a pencil, Beth,” she chides gently. “Come inside.”

It’s an order, not a request.

I trudge unhappily toward Ms. Tannenhauf’s office. Behind me, she places a sign on her desk saying that she’ll be back in fifteen minutes. At least this lecture is only for a finite period.

I drop into the chair in front of the desk and heave a huge put-upon sigh. Ms. Tannenhauf appears at the tail end of it, and the idea of repeating the childish action seems too stupid. I settle for folding my arms and glaring stonily at the guidance counselor.

Instead of taking a seat behind the desk, she drags it next to mine and sits down. Her Converse sneakers are inches away from mine. I tuck my feet under my chair. What is it with people invading my space today?

“You look unhappy, Beth,” she says. “Is there something you want to get off your chest?”

“No.” It’s the truth. The last thing I want to do is talk about my feelings. Especially not with Ms. Tannenhauf.

“I’m worried about you.”

I have nothing to say so I keep quiet.

Ms. Tannenhauf does as well, probably hoping her silence will be so uncomfortable that I’ll start babbling—about how my parents suck, how I lost my virginity to the guy who killed my sister, how I drank so much last night I woke up in bed with a complete stranger, how my sister’s ex-boyfriend is freaking me out and how I have weird, strange, wrong feelings for Chase.

Okay. I have a lot of things I want to get off my chest, but I don’t have anyone to talk to. The last meaningful conversation I had with anyone was with Chase and look what that led to.

Ms. Tannenhauf sighs, a big gusty why-am-I-doing-this-job exhalation. She reaches across her desk and places something on my knees.

I glance down to see it’s a brochure for the animal shelter where I used to work. Used to being the operative words.

“I got a call the other day from the shelter asking if we had anyone who was interested in volunteering because their current student up and quit on them. I thought you loved that job, Beth.”

I did love that job, I seethe inwardly. It started off as a requirement—every student at Darling has to perform twenty hours of community service starting junior year. I chose the shelter because I love animals and we could never have pets at home. And once my twenty hours were done, I kept volunteering.

It wasn’t my choice to quit. I have no choices left in my life. I’m always dancing to the tune of others. I have to do what my parents say. If I try to break free, I have to obey someone else, like Jeff. I fall in line or else. I’m powerless, and the helplessness I feel is like a noose around my neck that gets tighter with every breath I take.

“Like I wanted to quit! I did love that job. It was the best thing in my life!”

“What happened, then?” Ms. Tannenhauf is unfazed by my outburst, as if she’s heard this tale countless times before.

I shut down. There’s nothing she can do to help me. My parents wouldn’t listen to her. They won’t listen to anyone because their fear is too loud.

“Nothing.” I stand up on unsteady legs. “If that’s all, I’m going to go study.”

Ms. Tannenhauf nods and says nothing until my hand is on the door and I’m halfway out of the room. “By the way, Sandy Bacon at the shelter said if you ever wanted to come back, the door was open.”

“Thanks,” I manage to say. Any more words and the tears I’ve been holding back will spill out. I walk briskly to the corner of the library, choose a book off the shelf at random and sink to the floor.

I’m seventeen and it feels like my world is ending before it even gets started. It’s a melodramatic response, I know, but graduation seems like an eternity away. And even after, what do I do? My parents trashed my college applications. If their plans work out, I’ll be going to Darling College.

True freedom seems as far away as Paris and just as unattainable. And all this constraint makes me want to bust windows, get drunk and have sex with as many people as possible. I don’t know if it’s a way to show my parents that they can’t control me, or a way to experience some type of independence. I just know that I feel like screaming.

Everywhere I look, I see a closed door. A dark passage. Locked windows.

If there’s a way out, I can’t visualize it.

I wrap my arms around my knees and blink through the sting in my eyes. Then I stop fighting it, because who cares if I cry at school? It’s not like my life can get any more pathetic.

At the sound of footsteps, my head snaps up. I don’t have time to wipe my eyes before Chase rounds the corner and enters the aisle.