Healing Rain (3 page)

“Yes, I am,” I confirmed, still a little freaked out. “Does that mean I'm the
only
new student in the junior class?”

He smiled. “Not the only one. Just the only female,” he said. “There are two other new students, but they are twins and they are both male. They are moving here all the way from Phoenix, Arizona.”

I nodded. “Oh. So, can I have my card then?” I really didn't want to make small talk with this man; I just wanted to get this over with.

“Sure! Here is your card. All you need to fill out is the emergency contact information. We have already gotten your transcripts and background information from your other school.”

I winced a little when I heard that. I wondered what kind of “background information” he was talking about. Exactly how much did my new school know?
So much for starting off with a clean slate
, I thought miserably as I took the card and began filling it out. It was almost identical to the card I had just completed for Tyler, so I was done with it in a matter of seconds. I handed it back to the little bald man and smiled.

“Am I done now?” I asked, already starting to back away.

“Yes, I believe you are…Oh, wait! We actually have something special set up for all of our new students. I am going to need you to walk right over there to where you see that gentleman in the striped blue shirt. Just tell him your name, and he will take it from there.”

I rolled my eyes to myself and walked over to the guy in the blue shirt, unsure of exactly what was coming. I just wanted to get my schedule and get out. Timidly, I approached him. “I'm Rain Sawyer. I'm supposed to tell you that?” I didn't really mean for it to come out as a question.
Don't be so awkward
, I scolded myself silently.

The guy in the blue shirt gave me the most wonderful smile I had ever seen in my whole life. It was then that I realized how gorgeous this guy was. An athletic build was obvious in his khaki shorts and somewhat fitted shirt. He had slightly curly brown hair and very tan skin. His brown eyes matched his hair, and an adorable dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled. As I tried not to gawk at him, he said, “Hi, Rain. Welcome to Norris County High. I'm Ethan Collins. I'm the senior class president, as well as the captain of the varsity football team. My job is to take you up to guidance so they can talk to you about your schedule, and then I'll show you where your locker is and that kind of stuff. Sound good?”

I smiled slightly, suddenly very self-conscious. “Sure,” I said in a meek voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tyler look at me strangely. He must have picked up on my sudden weirdness. I prayed that he wouldn't mention it out loud.

“So, what brings you to tiny little Ridgewater?” he asked casually, smiling that enchanting smile at me again.

Before I could put together an intelligent answer, Tyler jumped in. “Our dad died, so we moved,” he said sadly.

Oh, great, Ty.
Let's freak him out right away by telling him too much personal information
, I thought, shooting Tyler a look that I hoped would tell him not to say another word. He didn't seem to notice.

Ethan's gorgeous smile was wiped off his face and replaced with a frown of concern. “Oh, wow, that's awful. I'm so sorry. I didn't…”

I shook my head at him, giving him a half smile. “Leave it to my seven-year-old brother to put our personal life out there right away and make everyone uncomfortable. Don't worry about it. How could you have known?” I was relieved to hear that my voice sounded light and normal again. Before he could ask any more questions, I decided to change the subject quickly. I didn't think he would press more about it, but I didn't want him to have the chance, just in case. “So, tell me about NCHS. What do I need to know before tomorrow?” I asked, hoping it would make him forget about the last part of the conversation.

It worked. He seemed relieved for a change of conversation. “Well, it's a pretty great school. It's kinda small, so just to warn you, everyone pretty much gets in your business. There's a lot of gossip. You probably didn't have to deal with that in St. Louis.”
He knew where I was from
, I thought, feeling pleased.

“I wish I could say that it's not like that in bigger schools, but I think that happens everywhere,” I told him, remembering my own experiences vividly.
Only in the big school, it's even worse, because people you don't even
know
stare at you and whisper when you walk by,
I thought.

He laughed lightly as he continued. “I think you'll like it here though. Most of the teachers are pretty cool, and I'm sure you will feel welcome right away. Pretty girls are always welcomed really fast, ya know?”

Wait, was that…he thought I was pretty? Did he just sneak in a compliment? I wasn't sure what to say to that. I could feel my face get hot as I thought about how to respond. I glanced up at him and could see that he looked just as embarrassed as I did. He stumbled over his next words. “I mean, uh, not that you'll only be accepted, uh, 'cause you're pretty. I didn't mean that the way it came out. That sounded really shallow and I…I'm sorry.”

I giggled. “It's fine. I didn't take it…” I trailed off, unsure how to finish that sentence.

There was a small and somewhat uncomfortable pause. Now it was his turn to try to change the subject. “So, were you involved in any kinds of sports or anything at your old school?” he asked.

Once again, before I could say a word, Tyler cut in. “She was a dumb cheerleader!” he said teasingly, making a face at me.

I could have killed him. It's not that I was embarrassed about cheerleading, but it's just that I knew what kind of stereotypes existed about cheerleaders (no matter how wrong they may be, they are still out there) and I didn't want that to be the first impression that people had of me.

Ethan looked at me with a smile that made me melt. “A cheerleader, huh? Well, I think it's too late to try out this year for football, but they'll have tryouts again for basketball season. I'm friends with some of the girls on the squad; I could introduce you to them so that you can get to know them.”

Before I could respond, we had reached the guidance office. He led me in, where I saw the counselor going through a file cabinet. The room was a disaster. Papers were strewn about everywhere – on her desk, on the floor, piled on cabinets and bookshelves. She looked flustered as she searched through the file cabinet and jumped when Ethan said, “Hi, Mrs. Mills.”

She put her hand over her heart. “Oh, Ethan, you scared me! Don't sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry,” he told her. “I'm taking Rain Sawyer around the school, and we're here to get her schedule.”

“Oh, Rain! Nice to meet you! Sorry about all this mess. The beginning of school is always insane for me,” she said, shaking my hand and smiling warmly.

“I can imagine,” I said, returning her smile.

“I have your schedule around here somewhere…” she said, searching through some folders on her desk. After a few minutes she found it. “Ah! Here it is! I just want you to look it over and make sure the classes sound okay to you. I tried to use your transcripts to decide what classes to put you in here.”

I looked over the schedule she handed me. Geometry, American Literature, Home Economics, American Government, Lunch, P.E., Zoology, Study Hall. “This looks fine to me,” I told her.

“Are you sure? I wanted to make sure about Geometry especially. You made such great grades in math all through your freshman and sophomore year, until that last quarter,” she said, lowering her voice on the last part of the sentence. “I just wanted to make sure you felt comfortable advancing when you seemed to struggle at the end of the year.”

Even though she was speaking quietly, I was almost sure Ethan could hear her. I was mortified.
Of course my grades suffered at
the end of last year.
My whole life suffered
, I wanted to tell her. Instead I whispered to her, “No, really, it's fine. I'll be okay. Thanks.” I turned and started to walk out the door.

“Glad to hear that! Come talk to me if you need anything,” she said, talking in her normal voice again.

I got out the door quickly, with Tyler and Ethan following behind me. I was distracted for the rest of the tour, as Ethan took me to my locker and showed me where my classrooms were located. Before I knew it, we were back at the front door.

“Um, thanks for the tour. See ya,” I said quickly as I held the door for Tyler to walk out ahead of me.

Ethan grabbed my arm before I could follow Tyler out the door. “Hey Rain, a bunch of us are going to lunch in about an hour at Roxano's. You want to go?”

Did I want to go? With him? Absolutely. But, besides the fact that I had a session with Dr. Hope in the afternoon, I also didn't want to go out to lunch with a bunch of kids I didn't even know at a restaurant where my mom was waitressing. “Oh, thanks, but I can't. I have to watch Tyler and I have some errands to run.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, flashing me that heart-melting smile again. “I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” I replied, hurrying out the door to catch up with Tyler.

Once we were outside, Tyler grabbed my hand to hold on the walk home. As we headed away from the building, Tyler said, “Ethan is awesome. I want to be the football captain when I grow up.”

I couldn't help but grin.
Yeah,
awesome
doesn't begin to cover it. I can think of a lot of other words to describe him,
I thought to myself, but instead I just said, “You think so, do you? Well, let's go home and make you some lunch so you can grow up big and strong enough to be the football captain someday.”

 

 

Before I knew it, I was walking across town to Dr. Hope's office. I had left Tyler at home reading a book after I made him a little plate of cheese and crackers for a snack and let our neighbors, the Klines, know to check in on him. As much as I did not want to go to my appointment, I was still practically skipping on the way there. For some reason, I was in a remarkably good mood – for me, anyway.

Well, if I was being honest, I knew what the reason was. My morning with Ethan was what put me in that good mood. I tried to tell myself how stupid that was. First of all, the only reason he talked to me was because he had to. It was his job to take me around the school. Second, he was obviously gorgeous and, as the captain of the varsity football team, I could pretty much count on the fact that he was popular and could take his pick from all the girls in the school. As he had told me, he was “friends” with the cheerleading squad and could introduce me. I bet he was “friends” with more girls than just the cheerleaders.

But still, no matter what my head screamed at my heart, I couldn't help my new secret crush. He had seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and he made me feel like
me
again. The
me
that I was before the meteor crashed on my family and shattered our lives. It seemed like it had been years since I had felt that way. As excited as that made me, it made me equally nervous. I didn't like the idea that a guy that I barely knew had that kind of power.

Thinking about all of this made the walk extremely short. All too soon, I was at Dr. Hope's office. I walked in and found her sitting at her desk, typing on her computer.

“Hello, Rain. Good to see you. Go ahead and have a seat while I finish sending this e-mail. I will be right with you,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the chair I had sat in last time.

I sat down and waited patiently, watching her as she typed. Her young face was twisted in concentration as she worked. After a couple of minutes, she smiled in satisfaction. “Done!” she exclaimed, turning to me with a grin. “Sorry about that. I was actually e-mailing your doctor. He sent me some of your files and I just needed to confirm that I had received them. How are you?”

“Oh, just fabulous,” I said as I rolled my eyes, not really meaning for the sarcasm to come through like it did. Wow – talk about a mood swing! Why could I not control that when I was here? Just moments before, I actually felt happy; why was I starting off the session by being a jerk?

She ignored it, even though I knew she noticed it. “Good to hear. How did your school registration go?”

“Fine,” I said.
Wonderful
, I thought.
The best day I've had in a while
. I chose to keep those thoughts to myself.

“Great. How do you feel about starting school tomorrow?”

“Fine,” I said again. I didn't want to tell her how my nerves over it had plagued me throughout the last week.

“Really? You're not nervous about starting at a new school?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, sure, I'm nervous. But it's not like I have a choice, right? I'm sure it will be fine. And besides, tomorrow is only a half day so we'll be out at eleven-thirty,” I told her.

“Did you meet any of the other students today?” she asked.

I felt my face get a little warm. “Um, just one student who had to take me on a tour of the school.”

She nodded. “Are you worried about making new friends?”

“No,” I lied.

She studied my face for a moment. “Do you keep in touch with any of your friends from St. Louis?” she asked.

I squirmed. “Not really,” I said, looking down.
What friends?
I thought.

“Not even on social media sites? Anything?” she pried.

“I don't
do
social media,” I said with a smirk.

She nodded. “I see. Have you contacted any of them since the move?”

I sighed. “No, actually. We didn't really end on good terms, if you know what I mean,” I told her, looking around the room.

She sat quietly for a moment. “Why not?” she finally asked.

I slowly looked her in the eyes. She had to know the answer to that question. Why even ask? Part of me wanted to yell at her and tell her to stop trying to force me to talk about the thing that she knew I didn't want to talk about. I silenced that part of me right away. After all, it was her job, and besides that, the sooner I finally talked to one of these stupid doctors about it, the sooner they would let me stop going to therapy. So, I decided it was now or never. I really didn't know her that well, but I hadn't talked to anyone about it up to this point, and in a really weird way, it was comforting to know that she was a stranger. It somehow made it easier.

I took a deep breath, and began to talk. “Because. I freaked them out. Everyone knew what I did, and no one knew how to talk to me. I didn't even get the chance to explain the real story. I think people didn't ask because it's not exactly a comfortable subject, ya know? And can you blame them?”

She leaned toward me. “The real story?”

I nodded. “Yeah, the real story. My side of it all.”

She held my eye contact. “I would like to hear it, if you don't mind. I know it's not a comfortable subject, and it's not something you like to talk about, but I would like to give you your chance to explain.”

I looked down. “It's really no big deal. I screwed up, but not the way everyone thought I did. I really wasn't trying to kill myself, or get attention or anything like that. But that's what everyone thought. People thought I was either suicidal, like my dad, or else I was just trying to get attention so people would feel sorry for me. But it really wasn't like that.” I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I didn't even care. As much as I had been avoiding this conversation, it actually felt good to let it out.

She handed me a tissue. “Help me understand. Tell me your side of the story. Don't worry about what everyone thought or said; just tell me the truth,” she said. Her voice was soft and somehow soothing.

I took a deep breath, and then it all came pouring out. “I was tired. I was just so tired. After the story got out about how I was the one who had come home and found my dad after he…after he died, I was completely overwhelmed. Not only was that image in my head, day and night, haunting me all the time, I then had people constantly at my house or following me around at school, wanting to comfort me. It was weird. Even people that weren't even really my friends were hanging around me all the time. It was exhausting. I was trying to stay positive so that people wouldn't worry about me and Mom wouldn't worry about me because she had so much else to worry about. I was taking care of Tyler all the time so that his life could stay as normal as it possibly could, plus I had these kids around me
all the time
and I just broke. I wasn't sleeping at night, and I wasn't sure how to fix it. When I found the bottle of sleeping pills in Mom's bathroom cabinet, I thought I might give it a shot. The first night, I only took one, but it wasn't enough. It didn't work. I still didn't sleep. So, the second night, I took three. It worked, but I still had nightmares that woke me up all night. By the third night, I was getting desperate. I started taking more, but I didn't want Mom to notice that her pills were gone so I went out and bought a few bottles of my own. Each night I took some, and it just seemed like I needed more and more of them every night to stay asleep.” By this point I was sobbing so hard I couldn't talk anymore.

Dr. Hope came over to my chair and put her arm around me. She let me cry and cry into her shoulder until I gained control and sat back up.

After she could tell that I had regained my composure, she pushed me a little further. “Rain, honey, that story makes sense. It really does. I believe you when you say that you were not purposely trying to kill yourself or even hurt yourself. I can imagine how exhausting it must have been, looking after Tyler and putting up this act for your friends and having all those people around you. But, there's one thing that doesn't make sense to me. What I don't understand is why you took a whole bottle at one time. I know that you said it took more than one to actually make you stay asleep, but a whole bottle? Obviously, you had to know that that would be way too much. You are a smart girl, Rain, and I know that you knew that. What made you decide to take them all, if you truly were not trying to hurt yourself?”

I shook my head, feeling the tears coming back. “I don't know. I don't know. I don't know,” I said stupidly, over and over. I truly didn't know. I had no idea how to answer that question. “But what I do know is that it was a mistake and I won't do it again. If you could tell my doctor that, I wouldn't have to come here anymore.”

She gave me a sad look. “Rain, you know I can't do that. I believe you when you say that you were not attempting suicide. But, there was something going on inside you when you made that choice. You were under a lot of stress and had a lot of emotional trauma in your life, and situations like that can cause you to do and feel things that you don't understand. I want to help you get through those issues and work through all those emotions so that we can try to make sure you do not make another choice that could harm you.”

I glared at her through my tears. “Look, it was a mistake. I messed up. I told you I won't do it again. What else can I do?”

She put her hand under my chin and lifted my head so that I was looking her in the eyes. “Rain, I want you to know how lucky you are to be alive right now. If you wouldn't have vomited in your sleep, you probably never would have woken up. Your body fought for you to stay alive, even though your mind wasn't capable of doing that. You are lucky that your body forced you to throw up those pills, and you are lucky that you didn't choke on the vomit. You are lucky that your mom heard you throwing up, realized something was wrong and took you to the hospital. The fact that you are alive, sitting in that chair, is a miracle. You get a second chance. I just want to help you make the most out of that chance. You are so young and have the potential to be something great. You are bright and funny, and you have a mother and brother who love you so much. Think of what it would have done to your mother if she would have lost you, too. And Tyler. They would have been devastated, Rain.”

I interrupted her. “You don't think I know that? There isn't a day that goes by that I don't look at Tyler and thank my lucky stars that he doesn't know what I did. I am more than his big sister. I'm practically his mom. I know that I help our family function. I really get it. And I see the fear in my mom's eyes every day when she looks at me. She is worried I'm gonna snap at any minute and she has no idea how to talk to me anymore. We used to talk all the time, and now it's like we don't know each other. I know I messed everything up. You don't think I know that I am lucky to be alive? And that for some unknown reason, I'm obviously supposed to be here, alive? I get it, alright?” I knew I sounded unnecessarily angry with her, but I didn't care. Sure, she meant well by saying what she said, but it felt like a lecture that I didn't need to hear.

She didn't seem fazed by my anger. “I'm glad that you know that, Rain. Let me ask you a question. Are you still taking sleeping pills?”

My mouth dropped. “Of course not! Would you, after what happened? I won't take any medicine. I won't even take Tylenol when I have headaches. I will never take a sleeping pill again; you can be sure of that. I'm not stupid.”

She smiled a little. “Rain, I wasn't trying to insult you. I have to ask that question. Unfortunately, the statistics are against you. Many people who get addicted to pills struggle with that addiction for the rest of their lives. But I'm sure you learned that during your short stay in the rehabilitation center.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, they mentioned that once or twice.” I had gone to a drug rehabilitation clinic for seven days after the incident at the request – no, the command – of my mom. It was basically to help my body detox from the extremely heavy-duty sleeping pills I had been taking, and I received counseling while I was there. I had to suppress my anger when she even brought up the topic of the rehab; it was a horrible week. I had to sit through group sessions with
real
drug addicts, which I knew was not me, no matter what my actions suggested. Drug addicts were supposed to be the kids with stringy hair and sunken-in faces that skipped school and had parents that didn't care about them, not athletes with lots of friends and a loving family. I didn't belong there and made sure all the counselors knew it every chance I got.

She studied my face for a moment, and then continued. “Okay, so you're not taking pills anymore. How are you sleeping?”

I put my head down. “Better.”

“I told you before, you will only get out of this what you put into it. If you really want help, you'll be honest with me,” she said, lowering her head to try to meet my eyes.

I sighed. “Fine. I don't sleep. At all, basically. When I finally do fall asleep, it feels like I've been asleep for, like, a minute and then I have a nightmare that wakes me up and I'm awake forever again. It's a vicious cycle.”

She nodded slowly. “I would like to talk more about these nightmares you're having, but I'm afraid we're out of time for the day. Maybe we can get into more detail about those in some of our upcoming sessions?”

I snorted. “That sounds great. Can't wait!” I said sarcastically.

She smiled. “I know none of this is pleasant, Rain. But I think it will be really good for you to talk about this in the long run. It's not healthy to hold all this in, mentally or physically. I'm really glad you opened up today and let me in a little. I really do want to help you.”

I just shrugged and stood up to leave. “Yeah, well, see ya Monday.” I was suddenly exhausted. That session had taken a lot out of me.