Enough
(Day 60: Wednesday Afternoon)
"You couldn't wait to see me until after classes?" Ben skeptically complains as he sits down in front of the headmistress's desk.
She claps her hands in front of herself, "This is important."
"Important enough to pull me out of English?" Ben raises his eyebrows. "I've already been missing my morning classes, and now you're ordering me to your office during my afternoon ones?" He eyes her down, "You know that we don't even use English at the castle? If I'm going to speak it, I need to learn it here."
"I'm sorry to inconvenience you," she apologizes, "but I thought it would be best to address this sooner rather than later."
Ben slightly shakes his head, "Address what?"
She nods down, "I know you've been through a lot lately, and given recent events…" She observes him. "Frankly, I'm concerned for your wellbeing."
He almost laughs in disbelief, "What? Did Audrey talk to you, because she said she wouldn't? I told her I was fine."
It takes a moment for Fairy Godmother to respond, "I didn't hear anything from Audrey."
Ben lets out a long, tired breath, "Then why are you doing this? I'm not your only student, you know." He stresses, "You have others."
"Yes," she acknowledges, "but not all of my students go on live TV and say they can't kill themselves in that moment."
Ben brings a hand to his forehead, "He told me too. What was I supposed to say?"
"How about that you won't?" she suggests. "Or, perhaps, that no one deserves to die?"
Ben runs the hand over his eyes, "You have me in counselling. What more could you possibly want from me?" before laying his arm back down on the chair.
"Tell me how things are going."
"I'm getting my assignments," he informs. "I'm turning them in."
"I don't care about your homework," she insists. "I care about you. I want to know how you are doing."
He lifts a shoulder, "Just tired, I guess." and she waits for him to continue. "The trial. My workload. It's all been very exhausting."
"You are taking a lot of classes," she notes, and Ben stares at her in slight suspicion. "If the workload is too much with everything else that's been going on, then I can allow you to drop a class."
"No," he immediately shouts with wide eyes, before he shuts his them for a second as he takes a calming breath. "I just—" He stares at her, "I can't have any dropped classes on my report. It will say I attempted a number of points and failed."
"Ben," Fairy Godmother softly responds as she glances down at his file. "You've already earned a hundred and seventy-six points. That's more than enough to graduate."
"Yeah. I know," Ben shuts his eyes and stresses, "the record is a hundred and fifty-six, but I don't care. It will still look bad on my report card." He sighs, "Besides, there's no class I can afford not to take anyway."
The headmistress is quiet for a minute, "Well. If you're sure—"
"I'm sure," he insists.
She nods, "Okay, then. Is there anything I can help you with?"
Ben slowly shakes his head in thought, "No. There isn't." She doesn't speak. "May I leave now?"
Fairy Godmother hesitates, "Ben. I don't think that's a good idea."
"I have to meet the counselor in fifteen minutes," he excuses.
"You do?" she questions, and then he nods. "Okay, then."
Ben watches her pick up the landline, "What are you doing?"
"Just confirming your story," she comments before smiling at the person on the other end. Ben leans back in the chair and folds his arms, as he waits for it to end. He looks back up at the sound of the clanking phone. "Your story pans out. You may leave."
"Of course, it did," Ben mumbles as he stands. "Why wouldn't it?"
"Hold on."
Ben turns back around and suspiciously takes the brochures given to him, "What's this?" He tenses at the words and throws them back on her desk, "I'm not suicidal."
"It's just a precaution," she reassures.
"A precaution," Ben exasperates. "That thing had the suicide hotline number on it."
"It's anonymous," she explains.
"I don't care if it's anonymous," he shouts. "Everyone probably knows my voice by now." He sees her about to speak, before he raises a closed hand in stress, "And my girlfriend is standing trial. You honestly think I would leave her alone like that?"
Fairy Godmother calmly comments, "People can act illogically when they're depressed."
"Well, I'm not depressed, am I?" he counters. "I've taken the classes. I would know if were, and I don't need some merdique pamphlet to tell me what to do if I am."
"Yes. Well," the headmistress breathes, as she picks up the materials and hands them to him again. "You can tell the councilor how much you don't need these shitty pamphlets once you're done reading them."
Ben eyes the materials in annoyance as he takes them, before he mutters, "Have a nice day, I guess."
She smiles, "You too, Ben. Take care of yourself." and with that he strides out of the headmistress's office.
"It's like whatever I do I'm doing something wrong," Ben complains as he finishes the pamphlets and tears them into pieces. "Get frustrated. Get sent to the office. Become ill. Get sent to the office. Try to tell off some fucking guy outside of school grounds after school hours? Get sent to the office. Whatever I do it's just the same shit over and over again."
"I still don't speak French," the councilor reminds him.
"Exactly," Ben states in English. "That's the whole point."
"The treatment would be better if I could understand what you're saying."
He gives the blond a suspicious look, "Treatment?"
"The treatment plan," she explains. "It's standard procedure for anyone who has more than three visits with me."
"And what does my treatment plan say?" Ben slowly inquires.
"Well," she sighs as she fixes her black glasses. "The headmistress would like me to get you to open up and feel more comfortable talking with authority figures."
"I talk with authority figures," Ben informs in partial confusion. "I'm king. I do it a lot."
She hesitates, "I think that maybe she was referring in context of when you're just a student, a kid that may need help."
He tenses, "What would I need help from?"
The councilor shrugs, "I don't know. I'm just carrying out instructions." but Ben doesn't respond. "Is there anything you would like to specifically discuss today?" She nods down at the pile of shredded paper, "That, for instance?"
Ben lets out an annoyed breath, "Our lovely headmistress seems to think I'm suicidal, but I'm not."
"Why do you think she thinks you are?" the therapist calmly questions.
"Mostly, it probably has to do with that stupid interview." He pauses, "Did you see it?"
"Yes," she nods.
"What did you think of me? Did I look suicidal?" He looks off in thought, "If that's even a thing."
"You seemed stressed, and towards the end you did appear rather… well, upset."
"You mean that part where I had my hand to my head?" She doesn't answer, and then he sighs, "I wasn't upset at that point. I was just sick. The… excitement caused my fever to rise."
"If you had a fever, then why did you do the interview?" she inquires.
Ben's quiet for a moment, "It had to get done." before he quickly continues on. "Not that the interview really helped. I may have just made things worse." He shifts his seating, "I keep getting these messages online, people saying that the island is a part of Auradon and that selling drugs is still a crime." before he crosses his arms. "They think Mal should be sent to prison just based on the crimes she's had to admit to during the trial."
"Wouldn't they have to have those charges for a different trial, though?" she tries to reassure. "They can't just add those charges on, can they?"
"Actually, they could," Ben quietly responds as he glances down, "but because drug charges are irrelevant to the case they may not be." He half laughs, "Although. Because she confessed to it, they might be able to arrest her right after she's proven innocent." He looks up in thought, "Or, maybe, they will just decide she's a monster instead of a hybrid and execute her." He sits up straighter, quickly asking, "Is there any soda around here? I feel like having a soda."
"There's a machine out in the hall," she confirms.
"Great." He stands from his chair, "I will be right back." before he hurries out and then comes back in with six cans of Diet Coke. He places them in a line on the table, opens the first, chugs half of it, and then lets out a relaxing breath, "That's better." He lifts a hand, "What were we talking about?"
"Your girlfriend's charges," she reminds him as she partially smiles, glancing over the organized cans.
"Right," Ben comments as he turns all of the cans towards him. "I know I'm probably just being overly paranoid, and I know that they should be required to have a written confession, but if she confessed to everyone on camera, does it really matter?"
She watches him finish off the first can and open the second, "What do you think is really going to happen?"
Ben takes a drink, "What do you mean?"
"You said you understand that you're probably just being paranoid," she notes. "So, putting that aside, what do you think would be a reasonable outcome to all of this?"
He shrugs, "The judge somehow turning Mal's attempted crime into a real one and then her dying in prison, probably."
The councilor softly speaks, "You really think that's going to happen?"
"It's just one of the many brilliant scenarios I came up with." Ben lets out a stressed breath before lifting up the can and smiling, "But, yeah. That's the most reasonable."
She watches him open up the third can, "Do any of those scenarios end happily?"
Ben scrunches his eyebrows, "What would be the point in that?"
"To give you hope," she answers. "To give you something to strive for."
He gives her a look, "I strive to survive. I wouldn't be surviving if I didn't think about what bad things could happen when and what to do when they do." She doesn't speak, and he takes another drink. "I tell my girlfriend that she's innocent and that the judge will see that, because she is and it's what she needs to hear to believe it herself." He opens the forth can, "However, I will be extremely relieved if she gets to survive this."
"And if she doesn't?" Their eyes meet, "What would you do then?"
Ben looks away, "I don't want to think about that." but when the therapist doesn't speak he looks back up at her. "I've never really been happy. It was like I never really belonged anywhere, like whatever I do it will never be good enough… and that I'm a lie." He slightly shakes his head, "I've only ever been content, but Mal's made me happy. I don't want to lose that." He takes a sip of the soda, "I imagine it would feel a lot like falling off a cliff, high one moment and then just plummeting so fast… Being content wouldn't be enough anymore."
She nods with a frown, "And how do you feel right now?"
Ben's quiet for a moment, "Like I'm slipping, I suppose." and then he lifts a hand. "Not in the suicidal way, just—" He makes a hopeless noise. "Mal is my star, my light. Everything is just so bright and clear when she's around." He feels the tears intrude his eyes, "Everything just makes sense, and I have someone. I've never felt like that before."
"You've never felt like you had someone before?" Ben slightly shakes his head. "What about your parents? I know it's not the same kind of relationship, but they are there for you."
Ben's quiet for a minute as he looks down, "My parents try their best." before he looks back up again. "But they don't understand. And it's not just because I'm some teenager that's ignorant of their helpfulness. It really is just that they…" He wets his lips, "It's like they're parenting me separately. It's contradictory sometimes." He eyes the table again, "My mother's worry can overcloud her praise, and my father…" Ben shakes his head, "I'm never going to be able to make them happy. Whatever I do I will always be doing something wrong, so it's not like the things I achieve will ever actually mean anything." He shakes himself with a shiver, letting out a disheartened breath, as he rubs the tears off the corners of his eyes. He stares at her for a moment, "This stays between us, right?"
The councilor nods, "Yes. It does."
- Plot: I like that I'm having Ben allow himself to swear when he's speaking French. It almost creates another side to him that many people may not see (because the national language is English and he might get away with swearing in French without completely ruining his reputation)... The thing is, though, I don't really swear, so my bias may make his "personality switch" more apparent than it actually is... which, there isn't actual personality switch. It's just that he's more comfortable saying what he wants to when people may not be able to understand him... I should stop talking. I feel like if I try to explain my point here it's just going to be misinterpreted, because even I don't know what I'm truly wanting to say right now... What I will say is that when Ben isn't around his parents he allows himself to vent a lot more in French, I think, whereas when he speaks English it's more controlled. Maybe? I don't know how you guys are interpreting it, but all in all it may not truly matter anyway. It's not like it directly impacts the plot (or the mess I claim to be plot) or anything, so yeah.
- Technical: I had a word italicized within the dialogue once in each of these last two chapters. I hadn't done it before, because when I write in third person I use italicization to indicate thoughts, and I previously thought it might be too confusing to use italicization for emphasis as well. I took a chance with it, thinking that you guys would probably be smart enough to notice the difference when it's inside dialogue, but I'm not sure. It could have been read as a word someone was thinking as they were saying the sentence but that they didn't actually say that word aloud... I may have actually made that mistake in my Harry Potter fic once, just because I didn't know how else to do it... I don't know. Let me know whether or not the italicization within the dialogue was confusing or not for you, whether or not you even noticed it. If it was confusing I won't do it again, but if it wasn't confusing then it could be a good way to get tone across in a speedy conversation (instead of breaking up that argument with heavy and potentially distracting narration).
-As always, thank you so much for reading. I hope you've enjoyed. Also, thank you to those who have been answering my questions and giving help. You've been really great. Have a nice day/night.