Chrissyann344- I know he's dead, but I've chosen to keep him alive in this story (which I normally don't, but he made sense here). Hopefully, you'll understand after this chapter.
Thanks for your feedback, everyone. This chapter is in Kutner's POV.
You find yourself constantly watching Thirteen. It's not that you have some sort of preteen crush on her (not that you wouldn't date her if she'd let you), but in an odd way she's everything you wish you could be. She's confident, headstrong, and can keep a secret unlike you. You constantly find yourself slipping personal facts into ordinary conversations.
You can't believe she's crying right now. She's not exactly bawling, but tears are coming from her eyes and she's making no attempt to hide them. You can see Cameron's hands practically twitching to stop from comforting her. House is also in complete shock, he's actually too surprised to make fun of her.
Foreman comes over, but she holds out a hand as if telling him not to bother. Sadistically, that makes you a little bit happy. You never understood how she ended up with him.
Thirteen wipes her eyes, and heads towards the door.
"I'm pretty sure she actually locked it," House grumbles, but Thirteen tries anyway. She bangs her fist a few times, and then turns her back to the door and slides into a sitting position. She rubs her hand from the pain of banging it against the wooden door.
"Can someone call maintenance?" Cameron asks.
"I don't think Blue is going to be up for doing me any favors," House mumbles.
"We don't have to tell Lou that you're in here," Foreman says, as he pulls an iphone from his pocket.
"The classrooms don't get service." Cameron reminds everyone, not that you ever knew in the first place.
Thirteen continues to cry softly, and before you realize what you're doing, you've gotten up and have taken a seat next to her on the floor with your back pressed against the door as well. You constantly find yourself doing things with out realizing it though. It's like you're gone a lot of the time and your body is on autopilot.
She puts her head against your chest, and you cannot believe she's letting you comfort her. You feel awake suddenly, and an immense feeling of guilt washes over you.
You know that you have a sort of closeness with Thirteen that few others in this room have. You also know you're partially guilty for this. Thirteen was the one who found you when you tried to shoot yourself. Sure, Foreman came in too, but Thirteen found you first and Foreman is pretty emotionally resilient.
Thirteen's head is against your chest almost same way she held you the day she found you bleeding and slipping away from life. She sat with you in the ambulance as you drifted in and out of consciousness. She's at least 98% responsible for you being here today, and you don't really know if that's a good thing or not a lot of the time.
"Do you want to speak first?" Cameron asks, coming over to you two. She also takes a seat on the floor, but she doesn't try to touch Thirteen. She probably realizes that it would only make her feel more uncomfortable.
"I feel humiliated," she says, managing to sound relatively clear despite her tears. She sits up, you miss the feeling of her warm skin against your shirt, and wipes her eyes again.
"And we don't?" Taub asks sullenly.
"This situation sucks for everyone," Chase says, giving Taub a glare.
"Look, I don't want you all feeling bad for me. I'm dealing with things. I'm in therapy. My life is a million times better than it was when I was in New York, and I do talk about my problems," Thirteen explains.
"Just not with us," You find yourself saying. She gives you a look, and you know you had no right to say that. No one knew about your depression. You learned to bottle that up a long time ago.
"What do you want know?" she says, getting defensive and angry. Her shoulders heave and your eyes look to hers to see if she's going to cry again. She doesn't though; she just takes a long breath, "My mom died when I was ten. She started having symptoms when I was about six or seven. She used to torture me. Never physically, at least not on purpose, but she hated me." Thirteen explains, "and I hated her. She used to tell me that I was ugly, and I would never amount to anything. She used to call me the deviant."
"Wow," you hear Cameron whisper. Thirteen doesn't seem to notice. She rubs her hands together to comfort herself while trying to figure out what to say next. You don't think you've ever heard Thirteen say more than one sentence about herself.
"She hated the way I looked, the way I dressed, the way I treated my sister, she hated my friends. Everything annoyed her, and my dad tried so hard to keep her comfortable." Thirteen goes on, "When she died, my dad was a great parent. But, I already felt like he had chosen her over me. I did things to piss him off, and he took it. I did drugs and I broke curfews. The first time I ever dated a girl it was just to piss him off. My grandparents were coming in for the weekend, and they were very religious so I thought it could be funny to invite a girl to dinner. They freaked out, but he accepted it."
"He knows you appreciated him," you say, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off.
"I made his life hell. I'm probably the reason he's grey. I felt so bad about it later, I felt guilty about everything. I used that girl I took to dinner because I knew she was the class lesbian. I toyed with her feelings, and I made a lot of lives more difficult." She says.
You understand the idea of being weighed down by guilt. You constantly feel guilty about things. Since you were a kid you've been depressed. You had everything and yet you couldn't be happy. So then you feel worse about how you cant be happy and before you know it you're drowning in guilt over not being able to control your own emotions. You had an idyllic childhood with your parents. They owned a convenience shop and you remember going around everyday after school and getting to pick any candy item you wanted, you usually snuck two and your dad would wink at you and not mention it to your mom.
Then they died, and the Kutner family adopted you. They too were perfect. They loved you no matter how you did in school or how aggressive you were on the playground. They gave you everything you needed and put you through college and med school. They became your parents. You had two perfect lives, and you still tried to kill yourself. You are a terrible person.
"Teenagers by definition are miserable human beings," Foreman says, "I stole a car."
"I told my mother I hated her as she was dying." Thirteen says, a little louder than she had been speaking before, "and my father doesn't even speak to me,"
"You could call him," Cameron pipes in.
"I don't think he would talk to me," Thirteen shrugs.
"You could go see him." Cameron tries again.
"He wouldn't even recognize me," Thirteen pulls her legs into her chest, "I'm not the girl he raised,"