CHAPTER ONE: EGYPTIAN PLOVER

Adam's POV

"Adam? Adam, what are you thinking about now?"

I'm so-so-so sorry, Adam

The words skipped around in my mind's eye like a scratched up movie disk. I rested my right hand under my chin and kept my eyes closed while I breathed as calmly as possible. "In through the nose, out through the mouth," is what my mother would've said to me about now. But she wasn't in the room with me. The only people occupying the Roman-like room were me and my current therapist. My mom had gone through a complete frenzy when she'd found out about Fiona dumping me at the end of my junior year in high school. Naturally neither I nor Drew had explained why I'd been dumped. We'd just said it had something to do with her being too far away from me.

And my mom being my mom had immediately begun worrying about me going into deep depression or anything of the sort in that category. But I wasn't Drew. When Drew had found Bianca cheating on him in an alley, he'd started acting all melodramatic. And he barely came out of his room unless it was mandatory and involved going to school, using the bathroom, or taking a shower. Other than that, he was a prisoner of his own sad, sad soul. Mom had left all of his meals outside of his room for two months. Two months!

I had always thought he was overreacting, but I'd gotten my own taste of the break-up blues before the summer. Having to say goodbye to Fiona had really, really hurt me. But when I found out about Bianca's little game she'd played, her hand had grabbed a hold of my heart and had squeezed tight. And clearly the grip she'd had on my heart had been tight enough to give me a few bad dreams every now and then. Not bad like the ones Drew had had, but they were…bad.

People change, Adam-Adam-Adam-Adam

"Adam!"

"Hm?" I jumped a little bit in my place on the Victorian loveseat. The fabric was rough and had an ugly golden-like tinge to it. But the intertwining lines blending in with the fabric were chaotic. I hated this loveseat. It reminded me of Bianca.

Dr. Mendel's eyebrow's met above his nose, and there was a worried glint in his eyes. His eyes intrigued me. They were a funky electric green color right now. But if I waited a little longer they might switch back to evergreen again. Perhaps it was the lighting. His office did have poor lighting after all.

"You looked lost there for a second, Adam? Were you thinking about something or perhaps someone?" He arched a sand-colored eyebrow at me.

"Um, no, I was just thinking about school. It starts back up in a couple of weeks actually," I lied. I was only lying about me thinking of school. Whether I liked it or not, school really was starting in only two weeks from today. I'd finally be a senior.

"School, eh?" Dr. Mendel didn't buy it. But if he got more money from our session, what did he care, right? "Are you looking forward to seeing any of your friends?"

"Most of my friends graduated last year. But I guess you could say I'm excited to see some of them."

I'd already told him about what had gone down with Bianca before the summer, so what he asked next didn't surprise me or make me look at him funny. "And what about Bianca? Are you excited to see her?"

I thought of the first thing to say back to his sudden remark. "Bianca graduated last year."

"But you did say that your friend Eli who graduated last year was still in town, didn't you?" he asked after scribbling something down with his pen. The scratching noise was imprinted in my brain.

"But that's Eli. Bee…I mean Bianca was smart. Smarter than most people gave her credit for. The likes are that she got accepted to a good medical school and that she's traveling out of Canada as we speak."

"Is that what you'd like to happen, Adam? For her to leave?"

"What? No," liar, "I just figured she'd be gone by now. Honestly I don't care what she does or where she goes. She's not a part of my life anymore."

Dr. Mendel made a sound in the back of his throat. I couldn't figure out what exactly that sound had meant. I counted the number of ticks that came from the clock while he scratched across his notebook with a pen. I sat and waited while he continued to scribble. I thought about big brown eyes while I waited. I hated those big brown eyes. They reminded me of mud.

I know that I'm not a reasonable choice to you-you-you

A smile crept across Dr. Mendel's slightly wrinkled face. "I suppose we're still not getting very far on the subject of Bianca, so I'll try something else. How have your nightmares been?"

Nightmares… Honestly I think that my mom is overreacting about my so called "nightmares". I mean, if they really were nightmares, wouldn't I remember them a lot better? Drew only tells me that I tend to say a certain someone's name in my sleep and groan a lot. I've woken up on the floor once or twice, nothing too bad. My mom's just doing her job by being a worry wart. Because I'm fine. I'm okay. Even if no one seems to believe that I'm not okay, I am okay. I haven't been acting differently or anything. Maybe my mom's just going crazy.

"I already told you; I don't have nightmares. They're just recurring dreams," I complained softly. I kept my eyes on the floor the whole time. There was the scratching sound of paper being written on for a short moment before Dr. Mendel continued. "Okay, so how have your recurring dreams been? Have you been having them often?"

"Actually, I haven't been sleeping at all."

"Too much on your mind? Or maybe somebody on your mind?"

I let my walls come down. I never was able to keep a secret from Dr. Mendel for a long time anyways. I might as well just rip the bandage off. "Yes, I have been thinking about Bianca."

Dr. Mendel looked a little taken aback by my sudden use of her name. But he never broke eye contact with me. "What comes to mind when you think of her, Adam? Are you angry, depressed, disappointed…scared?"

My heart was rattling up a storm in my chest. "I'm not scared of Bianca. I'm scared of myself… I'm scared of what I'll do when I see her. I've got so much hate built up because of her."

"Because of what she did to you." It sounded more like a statement than a question, but I nodded anyways. I didn't have much to say anymore. Just talking about Bianca took so much energy out of me. I didn't hate her. I wasn't mad at her. I just really wish I could go back in time and stop her from doing all of that to me. She made me fall in love with her and then she practically stuck a foot up my ass. What had I ever done to deserve that? Nothing, that's what. I'd never done anything horrible to Bianca. She's the one who had ruined my life twice! I'd rather she'd never shown up in my life at all. It would've saved me a lot of pain and heartache.

Dr. Mendel's eyes glanced at the clock on the wall. I followed his gaze. The bird carved into the top of the clock mocked me with a smug grin. "Time flies by so fast when I'm with you, Adam. It seems our session has ended. But I'll see you next Saturday at two o'clock sharp."

"Sure," was the only thing I could muster out of my arid throat. What else was I supposed to say?