Thank you for the reviews :)
I found this chapter very hard. Amelia and Meredith are easy to write as troubled teenagers but Maggie is too stable in the show for this to ring true, I think. I suspect she's going to end up being a much more minor character than the other two. I will bring the three characters together from the next chapter, anyway.
Maggie - Before
'How are you feeling today, Maggie,' Tessa, the school counsellor began. 'Would you like a cookie?' Maggie shook her head and fixed her eyes on the photo above Tessa's head. 'I'm ok,' she replied. 'It's a good day. I think.'
'Did you make any friends?'
'No. But mom says it's only been a month. And a month isn't very long in High School.'
Tessa nodded her head thoughtfully and scribbled something down. She had never worked with such a young student before. High School began at 14 for a reason, she thought to herself. This place was like a jungle sometimes and the little 11 year old in front her was being swallowed alive. Maggie had been referred to her two days into the new school year after having a panic attack in homeroom. And in the four weeks since, her file had filled with a catalogue of incidents, all pointing clearly to a child who was miserable, out of her depth and sinking fast. In all ways but academically. When it came to her lessons, Maggie was already top of the freshman class. Her teachers thought she was wonderful. Her classmates thought she was odd at best, an insufferable know it all freak at worst.
'So what made today a good one, Maggie? It's great to hear the positive things.'
'I got an equation right in Math that nobody else could do. Mr Porter called me to the front to explain and I showed everybody how I did it. They didn't understand at first. Most of them aren't really that good at Math. They should study harder. I told them that but they didn't seem to care very much. I don't know why.'
Tessa raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything. The child certainly wasn't enamouring herself to her peers but she didn't want to take away from any positives that Maggie could find right now. 'Any other good things?' Maggie thought for a second. 'The cookies didn't have raisins in. That's a good thing. I have to pick the raisins out usually.'
The counsellor hid a smile. 'Okay, Maggie, that's great. Now what about your targets?' Maggie wrinkled her nose. Her targets were too hard. She had told Tessa that last week. 'Did you sit with other students at lunch today?' Tessa persisted. On her first day, Maggie had sat confidently down at a table of other Freshman and began discussing the morning's lessons and how she hoped the topics would be covered in a lot more depth very soon. She asked about their favourite books and lessons asked them what they wanted to do when they were grown up. The table full of teenagers first smirked and giggled, then sighed and looked at each in frustration and finally got up and moved away, leaving Maggie sitting alone. She'd sat alone for a further week then started eating at the teachers' table. 'Nobody wants to sit with me,' Maggie sighed quietly.
'Okay, how about the bathrooms? Have you been in them this week?' The bullies hung out in the bathroom. The smokers, the super popular girls doing their make up, the gossips, the gangs and all the children Maggie was most afraid of and felt most different from. She couldn't make herself go in there at all. After twice peeing in her pants on the bus home from school and giving herself a UTI, Maggie was now allowed to use the disabled bathroom but she was supposed to be learning to face the others, not avoiding them. 'It's still really scary in there,' she whispered. 'There's no teachers in there and some of the girls are really mean. I walked inside yesterday but people were laughing and pointing at me so I ran away again.'
'Alright then, what about the safe steps? How are you doing with reducing those?' Maggie screwed her face up, willing herself not to cry. 'I need to do them. You're cruel if you try and stop me. I need them.'
'Why do you think that, Maggie? How do they help? Does the jumping help you or does it hurt your feet? Does it feel good when you bang your head? Does it help you do things? And what about all those things that take up so much time and make you late? What's good about them?'
Maggie felt like she was drowning. She didn't have good answers for Tessa. She knew what she was supposed to say but it wasn't going to change how she felt. 'Please don't take them away from me,' she whispered, tears rolling down her face. Tessa took the child's hand in hers and squeezed it, frowning as she noticed more barely scabbed sores caused by the excessive handwashing Maggie found so necessary. 'I'm not taking anything away from you, Maggie,' she replied. 'I just want you to try. For yourself. Not for me. Try something that you think will make you happier. It's lunchtime for you now, right?' Maggie nodded. 'Okay. You go and you sit with some other students from your class ok. Just give it a try.'
Maggie turned away from the canteen, tray in hand and looked around. Most of the tables were full already. Sarah's table had a spot free. Sarah was nice, Maggie thought. They weren't friends but she'd never been nasty to her. Some of those other girls on the table though … Maggie shivered. Taking a deep breath she walked over to the table. 'Is anyone sitting here?' she asked timidly. There were an awkward silence broken by some smothered giggles and a groan. 'Shut up, Lucy,' muttered Sarah to the groaner. 'She's just a kid. No, Maggie, nobody's sitting there. You can if you like.'
Maggie sat down in silence, her hands shaking as she began separating all the ingredients in her risotto from one another. The other students stared at her. 'Er, are you going to eat that?' one asked. 'When it's safe,' Maggie answered far too truthfully. 'I can't have things touching other things.' Suddenly she felt a thump on the back of her head and her face hit her plate. 'What's up, freakoid,' she heard a boy's voice call. He sat next to her. Jasper. He lived on her street. They'd been friends when they were little. She'd even thought he was cute. Now he was the worst of the bullies. 'Not chatting with the teachers today?' he asked her. Maggie stayed silent, concentrating on brushing bits of rice and pepper out of her hair. 'Peed on any busses lately? Smacked your head against any walls? I don't know, Mags, what are we going to do with you, eh? You're our very own little psycho freak, aren't you.'
Maggie pushed her chair back and ran from the cafeteria.
It was nearly a full hour later that Mr Ambrose, the freshman AP Biology teacher, asked his class where Margaret Pearse was. Several students looked uncomfortable. It was Sarah who spoke up. 'She got upset in the cafeteria. She ran out but I don't know where she went.'
Tessa located Maggie another 30 minutes later. The girl was in a little used bathroom near the top of the school building. She sat with her back to the wall whimpering slightly. Her hands were a bloodied mess where she had scrubbed and scrubbed at them for nearly an hour. But more frightening than that were the bloodstains on the wall where Maggie had sat and banged her head against it over and over again until she was bleeding, dizzy and nauseous. Tessa knelt down next to the little girl. 'Maggie?' she asked her gently. 'Can you look at me, please? Maggie, it's Tessa. You're not feeling too well right now, are you. We're going to take you to the hospital to get you checked out, ok?' Maggie nodded almost imperceptibly. 'Ok?' repeated Tessa. 'Ok,' Maggie whispered.
