Chapter 7: The selor's Office

  The e on Ms. Thurngd's dleamed in the fluorest hallway lights: "Student Guidance selor." Remi stood before it, his hand h over the handle as the m bell rang in the distahrough the frosted gss window, he could make out a vague shape moving within—probably Ms. Thurngd arranging her ever-present colle of motivational posters and self-help books into their precise positions.

  He'd been here before, of course. The worn chair across from her desk had practically molded itself to fit him after tless "discussions about peer iions" and "strategy sessions for social iion." Each visit had left him feeling more hollow tha, ed in yers of well-meaning advice that had no bearing on his actual reality.

  A soft kno the gss made him jump. "e in, Remi," Ms. Thurngd's voice carried through the door. "I know you're out there."

  Taking a deep breath, Remi pushed the door open. The office looked exactly as he remembered it—motivational posters c every avaible wall space, a small desktop fountain providing what Ms. Thurngd called "ambient peace," and the ever-present st of vender from the essential oil diffuser she cimed helped students "ter their emotional energy."

  Ms. Thurngd herself sat behind her desk, her reading gsses perched precisely on her nose, her gray hair pulled ba its usual severe bun. She was writing in what Remi reized as his student file—a folder that had grown noticeably thicker over the years.

  "Sit down," she said without looking up, gesturing to the familiar chair across from her desk. "I've been reviewing your file while waiting."

  Remi sank into the chair, his backpack sliding to rest against his feet. The fountain burbled quietly, its peaceful sound somehow making the silence more awkward.

  "So," Ms. Thurngd finally looked up, removing her gsses with practiced deliberation. "Would you like to expierday's... i?"

  The way she said "i" made it sound like he'd itted some horrible crime rather than simply leaving school. Remi shifted in his seat, aware of how his father's punishment had left him feeling even more vulnerable than usual.

  "I just needed some space," he muttered, studying the pattern in the carpet.

  "Space." She repeated the word as if testing its validity. "And you felt that leaving school grounds without permission was the appropriate way to acquire this 'space'?"

  When he didn't respond, she sighed, the sound carrying years of dealing with what she termed "difficult cases."

  "Remi, we've discussed this before. When you're feeling overwhelmed, there are proper els to address your s. My door is always open—"

  "Your door en st time too," Remi interrupted, surprising himself with the bitterness in his voice. "When I tried to tell you about the football tryouts. About Coach Stevens and Shawn—"

  "Ah yes, the tryouts." Ms. Thurngd shuffled through some papers in his file. "As I recall, we had a very productive discussion about handling disappoi and developing resilien the face of setbacks."

  Remi's hands ched in his p. "That's not what happehey deliberately—"

  "What I see," she cut him off smoothly, "is a pattern of avoidance behavior. When faced with challenging social situations, you retreat into fantasy—yames, your oivities." She g another note in his file. "Your mother mentiohis m that your father has had to take steps to address this dependency."

  The casual mention of his puter's fiscatio like salt in an open wound. "That's not fair," Remi protested. "Those games, those people ohey're real friends. They accept me for who I am, not who everyohinks I should be."

  Ms. Thurngd's expression shifted to what Remi thought of as her "therapeuti" face. "Remi, at ye, it's natural to feel misuood. But retreating into virtual worlds isn't the answer. You o learn to navigate real-world social dynamics."

  "Real-world social dynamics?" Remi couldn't keep the edge from his voice. "You mean like Shawn and his friends ering me ihroom? Like Liza deliberately knog over my lunch tray? That kind of social dynamic?"

  "If you're experieng bullying—"

  "I'm not 'experieng' anything," Remi snapped. "It's being doo me. By specific people. People you keep telling me I o 'uand' ahize' with."

  Ms. Thurngd's lips thinned slightly. "Raising your voice won't help this discussion, Remi. Perhaps we should take a moment to ter ourselves." She reached for the essential oil diffuser. "I just got a new blend of ile and—"

  "No." Remi stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. "No more oils, no more breathing exercises, no more talking about my 'feelings' while ign what's actually happening."

  "Sit down, please." Her voice carried that edge of authority she reserved for what she called "emotioion situations."

  But Remi remaianding, years of frustrated seling sessions suddenly crystallizing into anger. "You want to know why I left yesterday? Because this—" he gestured around the office, at the posters promising "Peace Through Uanding" and "Growth Through Acceptahis isn't real. None of it helps. None of it ges anything."

  "Remi—"

  "You tell me to use proper els, to report problems, to trust the system. But the system doesn't work. Not when Coach Steves his star pyers do whatever they want. Not when teachers vely look the other way. Not when you—" He stopped, his voice threatening to crack.

  Ms. Thurngd regarded him with what she probably thought atie felt more like dession. "When I what, Remi?"

  "When you pretend everything be fixed with breathing exercises and positive thinking. When you act like I'm the problem because I won't just accept being treated like this."

  "I've tried telling teachers," Remi tinued, his voice rising with frustration. "I reported what happe tryouts - how Coach Steve Shawn and James keep hittier the py was dead. How they 'actally' checked me into the goalpost."

  Ms. Thurngd flipped through her notes. "Ah yes, I have the i report here. Coach Stevens indicated it was standard tact drills—"

  "It wasn't standard anything!" The words burst out of Remi. "They were deliberately trying to hurt me. Everyone could see it. Eveher pyers were unfortable."

  "That's a very serious accusation, Remi." Her tone carried that partiote of dismissal he'd grown to hate. "Coach Stevens is a respected member of our faculty. I'm sure if there had been any inappropriate duct—"

  "What about the cafeteria monitors?" Remi pressed on. "I've told them about Liza and her friends destroying my lunch. About Eddie ering youudents. They just look the other way."

  "Perhaps you're misinterpreting—"

  "Misinterpreting what? The way Shawn's friends followed me into the bathroom yesterday? The way they've been making my life hell since freshman year?" Remi's voice cracked slightly. "I've doted everything, just like you told me to. Times, dates, witnesses. None of it matters because no one wants to actually do anything about it."

  Ms. Thurngd sighed, removing her gsses to polish them with deliberate care. "Remi, high school is a plex social enviro. What you perceive as targeting might simply be normal teeeras that you're having difficulty processing appropriately."

  "Normal?" Remi let out a bitter ugh. "Is that what you call it when Eddie sms a freshman into the lockers? When James spreads rumors about anyone who stands up to them? When they deliberately sabotaged my ces at making any sports team?"

  "I think you're catastrophizing again," Ms. Thurngd said, her voice taking on that forced patience he koo well. "We've discussed this tendency of yours to view yourself as a victim—"

  "Because I am a victim!" Remi's hands were shaking now. "But every time I try to report it, every time I follow the 'proper els,' it gets turned around on me. I'm too sensitive. I'm misinterpreting things. I o learn resilience."

  She made a note in his file, the scratch of her pen somehow more infuriating than anything else. "I uand you're feeling frustrated—"

  "No, you don't." Remi's voice was quiet now, all the fight suddenly draining out of him. "You really, really don't."

  Ms. Thurngd set down her pen with deliberate care. "I think perhaps we should schedule another session for ter this week. When you're feeling more... receptive to guidance. In the meantime—" she pulled a pad of hall passes from her desk drawer—"you should get to css. Your teachers have been informed about yesterday's i, but you'll e to make up any missed work."

  Remi took the hall pass wordlessly, already knowing how this would py out. She would note his "emotional outburst" in his file. There would be more sessions, more talks about "g strategies" and "positive social e." Nothing would actually ge.

  "And Remi?" She called as he reached the door. "Remember what we've discussed about choosing appropriate respoo stress. Running away never solves anything."

  He closed the door behind him without responding, the hall pass crumpling slightly in his grip. The first period bell had long since rung, leaving the hallway eerily empty. Somewhere in the building, his regur schedule tinued without him—csses where teachers would give him ed looks, students would whisper about his disappearance, and Shawn's crew would be pnning their move.

  But for just a moment, standing alone in that quiet hallway, Remi allowed himself to imagine another world. A world where running away might actually lead somewhere better. A world where being different wasn't something to be corrected or seled away.

  A world where he could finally be himself.

  The sed period bell jarred him from his thoughts. He smoothed out the hall pass and headed toward his css, Ms. Thurngd's vender-sted advice already fading like m mist. But something else lingered—a feeling he couldn't quite name, a sehat maybe, just maybe, running away wasn't always the wrong choice.

  Sometimes, he thought, you had to run away from something to run toward something else.

  He just wished he knew what that something else might be.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Melinda Halistaad stared at her puter s, the quarterly reports blurring before her eyes. Her m schedule y in ruins after dropping Remi off at school, and now her mi drifting back to his face as he'd walked into the building, shoulders hunched as if carrying an invisible weight.

  "Earth to Melinda." Sarah, her office mate of five years, waved a hand in front of the s. "That's the third time you've sighed in ten minutes. Want to talk about it?"

  Melinda g the clock—10:30. She'd been at work for barely two hours, and already she was fighting the urge to call the school and che Remi. Instead, she turo Sarah, who erched on the edge of her desk with two steaming cups of coffee from the break room.

  "Is one of those for me?" Melinda asked.

  "Hazelnut, extra cream, just how you like it." Sarah handed over a cup. "Now spill. And I don't mean the coffee."

  Melinda accepted the coffee gratefully, ing her hands around the warm ceramic. "It's Remi," she said after a moment. "And Michael. Everything's just... it's all falling apart, and I don't know how to fix it."

  "What happened?" Sarah pulled her chair over, creating a small isnd of priva their shared office space. "Does this have something to do with why you o ge your schedule?"

  "Remi left school yesterday. Just walked out." Melinda's voice cracked slightly. "He was gone for hours. Wouldn't answer his phone. We were about to call the police when he finally came home."

  "Oh God, is he okay?"

  "Physically? Yes. But Michael..." Melinda set her coffee down, her hands trembling slightly. "He took Remi's puter. Said he o 'learn about reality' and 'stop living in fantasy worlds.' As if that's going to solve anything."

  Sarah's expression darkened. "Still trying to trol everything with an iron fist, is he?"

  "You don't know the half of it." Melinda lowered her voice, though their coworkers were well out of earshot. "He's been impossible ever since Remi didn't make the football team. Keeps talking about how his soo 'man up' and 'stop being so sensitive.' As if sensitivity is some kind of character fw."

  "Sounds like Michael hasn't ged much since college," Sarah muttered. She'd known both Melinda and Michael siheir uy days, had watched their retionship evolve—and, in some ways, devolve—over the years.

  "If anything, he's gotten worse." Melinda took a sip of coffee, gatherihoughts. "He doesn't see what's really happening. Remi's being bullied—has been for years. The coach's son and his friends... they're brutal. But every time Remi tries to tell someo gets dismissed. And Michael just tells him to 'toughen up' and 'deal with it.'"

  "Like Michael dealt with things in college?" Sarah's tone oihey both remembered Michael's tendency to solve problems with aggressive frontation rather than uanding.

  "Exactly." Melinda's shoulders slumped. "But Remi's not like that. He's sensitive, yes, but he's also empathetid kind. He sees the world differently than Michael does. His games, his online friends—they're not an escape, they're where he actually be himself without judgment."

  "And Michael took that away."

  "He thinks he's helping." Melinda's voice held a mixture of frustration a. "Says he's 'preparing Remi for the real world.' But whose real world? Michael's? Where everything has to fit into little boxes of what's acceptable for a teenage boy?"

  Sarah leaned ba her chair, studying her friend. "You don't agree with how Michael's handling this."

  "Of course I don't!" The words came out sharper than Melinda intended. She gnced around, but no one seemed to have noticed her outburst. "But every time I try to interveo suggest a different approach, Michael accuses me of 'babying' Remi. Says I'm enabling his 'weakness.'"

  "That sounds like Michael, alright." Sarah's voice was dry. "Still living in the 1950s where me allowed to have feelings."

  Melinda traced the rim of her coffee cup with one finger. "You should see how he treats Rachel differently. She be as emotional as she wants, spend hours on social media, have all the feelings in the world. But Remi? God forbid he show any vulnerability."

  "Have you sidered..." Sarah hesitated, then fed ahead. "Have you thought about seling? Family therapy maybe?"

  Melinda's bitter ugh said everything. "Michael would never agree. He doesn't believe in therapy. Says it's for people who 't haheir own problems."

  "And how's that w out for everyone?"

  "About as well as you'd expect." Melinda's puter chimed with another email notification, but she ig. "I'm worried, Sarah. Really worried. I see Remi withdrawing more and more. The synized swimming team was the first thing he's seemed excited about in months, but even that... Michael just barely tolerates it. Keeps making these little ents about it not being a 'real sport.'"

  "Sounds like Michael's the oh issues, not Remi."

  "Try telling him that." Melinda picked up her coffee again, but it had gone cold. "I just... I don't know what to do. If I push toainst Michael's decisions, it'll just make things worse at home. But if I don't do something..." She trailed off, the unspoken fear hanging in the air between them.

  Sarah reached over and squeezed her friend's hand. "You're doing the best you in an impossible situation."

  "Am I?" Melinda blinked back sudden tears. "Sometimes I feel like I'm failing both my children. Rachel sees everything that's happening—she's fourteen, not blind. And Remi... he needs someone in his er, someone who actually protect him. Instead, he has a father who thinks tough love is the ao everything and a mother who 't even stand up to her own husband."

  "Hey." Sarah's voice was firm. "You are not failing them. You're trying to navigate a plicated situation with a husband who's stu his ways. That takes its own kind of strength."

  Melinda wiped at her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. "I just wish... I wish Michael could see Remi for who he is, not who he thinks Remi should be. I wish I knew how te that gap between them before it bees too wide to cross."

  "Maybe it's not yap te," Sarah suggested gently. "Maybe Michael o do some of that work himself."

  "That would require him to admit he might be wrong about something." Melinda's smile was sad. "Ah know how likely that is."

  Their versation was interrupted by Melinda's phone buzzing—a text from Rachel asking if she could go to a friend's house after school. The mundane normality of it almost made Melinda ugh. Life went on, even whehi like it was falling apart.

  "I should get back to work," Melinda said, straightening in her chair. "These reports won't review themselves."

  "Mel?" Sarah paused at her own desk. "Just... keep an eye on things, okay? And remember you always crash at my pce if you o. You and the kids."

  Melinda hough they both knew she'd ake Sarah up on the offer. She'd made her choices long ago, for better or worse. Now she had to live with them—and hope her children didn't pay too high a price for her promises.

  Turning back to her puter, Melinda tried to focus on the quarterly reports. But her mi drifting to Remi, sitting in Ms. Thurngd's office, probably getting another lecture about "appropriate respoo stress." She checked the time again: 10:45. Still hours until she could pick him up, hours until she could see for herself that he was okay.

  Until then, all she could do was worry, and work, and hope that somehow, something would ge before it was too te.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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