Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tea Party, But Lets Substitute Tea With Arsenic
From The Memory of Dr. Susan Miller, Ph.D
Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology, Penn State University
Subject 0079230
Kapor, Sophie M.
"It was brave of you to come here today, Miss ... ?"
"Kapor," she said simply. "Sophie Kapor."
"Miss Kapor," I nodded. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances."
She said nothing, jaw clenched, the already harsh lines of her face tightening even more. Her body resembled her face - sleek but tense, hardened, angry.
"Can I get you something?" I asked, motioning to the cabinet adjacent to my desk. "Water? Tea? Coffee?"
"I don't suppose you have scotch," she said listlessly, staring at the foot my desk with furious indifference.
I smiled. "No, my apologies. Not allowed on campus, no less in a Professor's office."
She gave a jerky nod, eyes still not meeting mine.
"Have you had psychological treatments before?" I asked, pulling my chair a little closer to hers - she backed away slightly, unconsciously, head tilting further down, eyelashes hiding the grayish blue of her pupils.
"No," she said, eyes still averting my own. "Never."
"That's alright," I assured her, resting my hands on my leg. "You know why you're here, I assume?"
She glanced up at me for the first time, icy eyes piercing my own - I remained still, although inwardly I reeled in shock at seeing such fury come from such a petite, pleasant looking woman. That anger could fuel a war.
"Because the University bigwigs feel that everyone who knew Kimmy is now a high suicide rate potential, and if they don't get us help for our feelings we're all going to sit in a field with candles , blaring Marilyn Manson and ritualistically drink arsenic from an empty urn," she said cantankerously, crossing her arms tightly in front of her chest. Her fingertips whitened from pressure.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Well are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Going to sit in a field and drink arsenic?"
She peered at me with a glare of haughty irritation and frowned. "No."
"And why aren't you going to do that?"
"Are you suggesting I do?"
"Not at all."
"Then why do you ask?"
"It's my job."
She said nothing for a moment, sniffed, then shifted slightly in her chair. "No, I'm not going to."
"And why not?"
She paused again. " ... I don't know where to find arsenic, and frankly I despise Marilyn Manson's self indulgent interpretation of death Metal gothic shitstorm music."
I smiled slightly, leaning back in my chair. "I agree with the latter. But if you knew where to find arsenic?"
She shrugged. "Not the route I'd take."
"Why?"
"There's better ways to kill yourself, I imagine. Less painful. Less extravagant."
"Have you thought of the different ways?"
Her brows furrowed in sincere disgust, arms falling onto her lap. Her mouth formed a tight frown, eyes glaring furiously at me, clenched fists shaking slightly in badly suppressed rage.
"Look," she said, the bitterness, resentment and anger in her voice filling the room. "My friend just died. She was alive six days ago, and now she's dead. I'm not a fucking doctor, but asking me how I feel about killing myself is a little inappropriate, don't you think?"
I nodded solemnly. "You're right. I apologize."
She blinked, leaning back slightly in her chair, but remaining uncomfortably rigid. "It's fine."
"To another topic," I offered, flipping a piece of paper over on my lap. "Kimmy."
"I don't want to talk about Kimmy."
"Why not?"
"Because that's all anyone's been talking about for the last week."
"This upsets you?"
"Talking about my friend who was killed in a car wreck? No, of course it doesn't upset me. Why on Earth would it upset me? I love talking about it. Let's go over all the details. Let's talk about our predictions of what the autopsy's going to say, shall we? What do you think her last moments felt like? Do you think she was scared? Do you think she knew what was happening? It's all very interesting, let us continue talking about this morbidly fascinating story, because that's really what I fucking feel like doing."
She shifted again in her chair irritably, knuckles white as snow from their firm grip on her pant leg. The sleek blonde hair so immaculately styled when she'd arrived now seemed disheveled, fly-away. What I assumed was just a permanently established spark of fury in her eyes was now almost overshadowed by a cloud of despair and misery. She was crumbling, the rock hard exterior slowly giving way.
"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, Sophie," I said softly.
"Then what," she said roughly, no longer looking at me. "What do you want to talk about?"
"What was Kimmy to you?" I asked.
(Subject 0079231)
Vincent, Harlow N.
"A friend," she said quietly. "A wonderful person. A teammate. A .. a lifeline."
I nodded, looking curiously at the remarkably beautiful girl sitting before me. "Interesting word to describe a person as. 'Lifeline'."
She said nothing, plump lips down-turned, fluorescently green eyes hazy. The chestnut hair hung limp, listless down her shoulders. Her thin hands were cradled solemnly in her lap, her shoulders hunched and that tawny face steadily losing it's color.
"You're the coach of the volleyball team, is that correct Ms. Vincent?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes, that's correct."
"You must have known Kimberley fairly well, is that fair to assume?"
"Yes."
"You handpicked her to be on the team?"
"Yes, I did."
"Why?"
"She has talent. Phenomenal abilities. And she's just … so likeable."
I crossed my hands in my lap, mirroring Harlow unintentionally. She was gazing behind me, at a point somewhere behind my right shoulder. Her eyes were blank, her answers perfunctory but oddly, in the present tense.
"She has talent, she's just so likeable. Do you mean to say she had talent? Was so likeable?"
Harlow said nothing, but her mouth thinned considerably into a hard straight line.
"Is that what you meant, Harlow?" I asked gently.
"I suppose so," she said softly, voice tinkling like a bell.
"You suppose?"
"I haven't wrapped my head around it yet, I guess."
"Well that is very normal," I assured her. "In psychology, there's the Kubler-Ross model of the different stages of grief. It's composed of - "
"I know," she said, rather apologetically. "I know of the Kubler-Ross model."
"You've read about it?"
"I major in psychology."
"Wonderful," I said, earnestly pleased. "Fascinating subject."
"Quite," she said softly.
"Then you must understand the five stages," I urged. "First year intro Psych."
"I do."
"What are they?"
"I don't understand why I need to explain the Kubler-Ross model of Stages of Grief to a professor of psychology at Penn State."
She looked at me full in the face for the first time, with a rather pained expression. "I'm sorry. Sorry. That was rude."
I shook my head. "No apology necessary. I meant for your own sake, not mine. Tell me what stage you're on."
"I've gone backwards to one," she said quietly.
"You've accepted it?"
"Understand more than accept."
"You've felt severe depression about her death?"
"I still do."
"You've bargained?"
"For about a minute."
"And you've been angry?"
"I am angry."
"So that leaves us … ?"
(Subject 0079232)
Thomas, Lindsey T.
"Denial," she said listlessly. "I'm not in denial."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because I know it happened."
"Knowing something has happened is not that same as understanding why."
Her dark brown eyes flashed irritably in my general direction, but the great crocodile tears continued to pour down her cheeks in miserable unison.
"Of course I don't understand why it happened. How could anybody understand why?"
"Drunk driving is so hard to wrap your head around," I said sympathetically. "When something as selfish as driving under the influence takes someone we love so much away from us so unfairly, it's nearly impossible to understand why it happened."
"She didn't deserve it," Lindsey said quietly, great teardrops pooling at the top of her sweater.
"No one deserves it," I agreed.
"But especially Kimmy!" she said furiously. "Kimmy never drank. She hated alcohol. She … she was going to be a doctor. For fuck sakes, she had a family! She had us! That .. th-that asshole, he hit her, didn't he know, doesn't he .. doesn't he care?"
I nodded, allowing the silence marked by her sobs to fill the room. I lay a hand on her knee, resigning myself to silence as she cried.
(Subject 0079233)
Carson, Emma B.
"It's hard to understand she's gone, isn't it?"
The petite blonde nodded, gazed distractedly out the window into the ground of Penn State below.
"It's confusing," she said simply.
"Why?" I asked.
She frowned, but didn't avert her gaze from the window. "It's just .. confusing. How it's all still going on, life, you know?"
"Explain to me," I pressed.
Still, she stared placidly out the window.
"I mean … how is the world still spinning?"
"Life goes on."
"But Kimmy was life."
"How so?"
"She brought life to everything," the girl explained, her voice not cheerful, but not nearly as broken as the others I'd heard today. "This world, this University, this room, these buildings. They just .. they can't exist without her. Surely, they can't. I mean ... she brought light to everything."
"She still can, can't she?"
"Well no, because she's dead now, isn't she?"
She finally broke her gaze with the window and turned to look at me. Half of the girls in the room had begun to cry barely five minutes in to the session. A few of them had passed misery and moved on to depression and denial. But the girl before me, Emma was her name, just stared at me simply. Slightly confused, slightly angry. But more just calm, generally complacent.
"Well yes," I agreed. "But even in death, can't people still give us light? Through memories, through how they lived, when they still could?"
She seemed to ponder this for a moment, eyes not leaving my face. Finally, she flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder and shrugged.
"Have you ever lost someone, Mrs. Miller?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"My mother and my father. Ten years ago and four years ago, respectively."
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright. Time heals all wounds. Why do you ask?"
"Weren't you confused?"
"By what?"
"By them dying?"
"Well .. No. I understood what happened. I was sad, and angry. Upset. But I was never confused. That's a strange word to use."
"It's the only word to sum up what I feel," she said softly.
"How so?"
(Subject 0079234)
Klumper, Ashlee. G
"How can everyone still be okay?"
I frowned. "I don't think everyone is okay, Ashlee."
She shook her dark hair behind her shoulders, rubbed angrily at the wet beneath her dark eyes. "I don't mean us, the team. I mean … the rest of the world. Everyone else. It's so confusing."
"They didn't know her, Ashlee. Not everyone."
"But … I don't understand it," she repeated, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. "I don't get it."
"Tell me what you don't understand."
"How can everyone just go on with life?" she asked quietly. "How can people keep studying? How can they eat, how can they sleep? How can they … live?"
She looked at me, legitimate confusion stretched across her thin face. "Don't they know that Kimmy's just died? How can the … how, how can the world keep spinning? She's gone."
She inhaled deeply, sighed raggedly. "I hadn't spoken to her in months … there was a fight, a big one, between half the team and the other half. She was on one side, I was on the other. I hadn't talked to her in a month."
"What was the fight about?"
Subject 0079230
Kapor, Sophie M.
"That's not important," Sophie said simply, returning to her angry slump in the armchair. "That's not why we're here."
"Of course not," I agreed. "But it's important to discuss. Many of the girls I've spoken to today - nearly half of them, actually - mention their guilt over the fight the team had nearly a month ago."
"My heart bleeds for them," she said indifferently.
"And you were involved," I pressed, but backed off slightly at the fleeting look of homicidal maniac that flashed through her eyes. "But if you don't wish to talk about it .. "
"I don't."
"Alright."
"Great."
We both sat in silence for a moment, not meeting one another's gaze. I felt uncomfortable around her. She clearly felt the same. I glanced at the clock, noting that our time had nearly come to a close.
"We're almost done, Sophie."
"I regret feeling gleeful about that."
"That, I doubt."
"Maybe you're not such a quack after all."
I smiled. "Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, Sophie?"
"Not really."
"Any final thoughts?"
"On what?"
"Kimmy."
She said nothing for a moment, twiddled her thumbs in counter-clockwise circles. Her eyes were dark, clouded with something I couldn't make out. Moments later, she peered up at me, face set, jaw sharpened once more.
"I loved her like a sister. I regret not speaking to her. I know she's dead. I know I'm sad. I know I'm angry. But most of all, I'm confused. But I don't want to talk to you anymore, and I won't. I will be confused, and I don't need you helping me with it I will deal with this - all of this - by myself."
"How can you manage to help yourself when you've admitted to me numerous times today that you're confused?"
"Because confusion is not necessarily an inability to comprehend. In this case, it's just a roadblock, and I am more than capable of driving myself the fuck around it."
(Subject 0079231)
Vincent, Harlow N.
"Confusion seems to be the common theme amongst all your teammates."
"Confusion is the unifying theme in all deaths, Mrs. Miller."
"Truth," I acknowledged.
She peered up at the clock above my desk, and returned her remarkably unnerving gaze back to me. "My session is over, ma'am."
I looked behind me at the clock - she was right. But I wasn't finished. Not quite yet.
"Are you confused, Miss Vincent?"
She blinked, but her pokerface didn't budge. "Of course."
"Why are you confused, Harlow?"
She bent and retrieved her book bag from the floor, laying it delicately over her knees. "Same reason as everyone else, ma'am."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"Everyone seems to be confused about more than just Kimmy's death, Harlow."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"I sympathize with them," she said softly, now swinging her bag over her shoulder.
"Why do you sympathize?" I asked quietly.
"Because I understand," she said, rising from her chair.
I stood as well, towering over her short stature easily.
"They don't," I said quietly. "And they're hoping you can help explain it. Help them ... find closure."
"I can't," she said, jaw clenched.
"Why is that?" I asked gently.
"Because I can't find the closure they're looking for," she said simply. "I can't give them the answers they believe I can."
"Why can't you?" I pressed.
She said nothing for a moment, unmoving and hands curled tightly around the straps of her purse. A look of understanding passed over her face, and she smiled a humorless smile up at me, backing away a couple of steps.
"Because I can't see her," she said simply, morosely. "I don't know why. I don't understand it. But I can't help them. I can't help."
And with surprising speed and agility, she disappeared from my room in the blink of an eye, the light coconut scent of her perfume the only thing she'd left behind.
(Sophie)
"Harlow, wait! Wait!"
I looked over Emma's shoulder at Lindsey, who was calling out desperately to Lo. With what looked like extreme reluctance, Harlow slowed, slowed, came to a halt, and turned to face Lindsey. Her face looked pained, paler than it ever had.
"Hey, Linds."
"Harlow," Lindsey said, her voice hoarse and ravaged. "Hey. Hey."
"Hey," Lo replied softly. The same look of tremendous pain was etched in every curve of her face.
Emma and I stayed quite motionless, facing each other but taking in every word, every whisper of their conversation. Emma's eyes were wide, teeth ground together. I could hear my heartbeat reverberating in my ears. We didn't dare move, dare intervene.
"Harlow, I need .. I need to ask you something," Lindsey said quietly.
"Sure, Linds, sure ... but I'm, I'm kind of in a rush, I - "
"Do you see her?" Lindsey said, her voice choked and despairingly hopeful. "You know .. do you see ... her?"
Harlow said nothing for a moment, but I saw her swallow in discomfort, roll back on her heels and tug anxiously at the strap of her bag. I met her eyes, very quickly and for less then a millisecond, and I saw how a mingled cloud of guilt and misery had washed over them.
"Lindsey," she said softly, painfully. "Linds ... I - no, I don't."
"But, Harlow," Lindsey said, slowly, as if trying to wrap her head around it. "You're ... y'know. You're psychic, you can see the dea - uhm. You can see things, things we can't. I just want to know if she's ... you know, if she's okay."
Harlow winced at every word Lindsey had so pleadingly whispered, her face growing more and more pallid every second she was forced to stay in this conversation.
"I know," she said quietly. "I know I'm supposed to, but ... there are limits, I guess, Linds. I can't see everything, everyone. I can't .. I don't see her. I don't know why, but I don't. It's different .. different cases, different people, different situations .. I can't control it, how it works."
A silence fell over the two of them, Harlow lost for words and Lindsey no longer looking for them. They both gazed at one another, Lo's face full of apologetic despair, and Linds' blank and unbelieving. There was another awkward few seconds of silence, before Lindsey backed away a few steps, and hung her head in defeat.
"Lindsey," Harlow whispered, eyes welling up with tears. "Linds, I'm ... I'm so sorry, I - "
But before she could finish, Lindsey had turned on her heel and disappeared through the adjacent swinging doors. A flash of hair, and she was gone. Harlow stood motionless in the center of the hallway, staring blankly at the spot Lindsey had only seconds ago stood.
I glanced at Emma, who's face was white as snow, and gave a curt little nod. Stepping around her, I made my way very slowly and very cautiously towards Lo.
She didn't seem to notice at first, but when I was within a few feet of her, she peered up and looked me dead in the face. The misery, the guilt, the tears, had vanished. There was something strange marring that beautiful face now, a certain haze I couldn't quite figure out. Nor one I'd ever seen on Harlow's face before. It wasn't sadness, or anger .. it was something else.
But it was gone before I could place it.
With a sigh, Harlow gave me a little nod and hitched her bag higher up on her shoulder.
"It's not your fault, Harlow," I said softly. "No one blames you for not being able to, y'know ... see. See her, I mean."
She nodded, and gave a small sigh. "It doesn't matter. I blame me. What good is being a freakish outcast if you can't even make use of it when you need to, right?"
With a lopsided, humorless grin, she turned from me and walked quickly and noiselessly away from her spot in the hall. The guilt I probably should've felt at the innocent comment would come later -
for now, all I could focus on was that last malevolent glint in the reflection of her eyes as she had turned to walk away.
Author's Note:
HIHIHIHI! I told you I'd be back!
Exams are over, I am off of school for the next month, I feel great, I feel cheerful (in spite of this chapter) and I am ready to write like nobody's business!
I apologize that the first chapter after 7 months is so dull and miserable, but I left at a bit of a cliffhanger and I couldn't just move on quickly from it ... I also think this was an important chapter to include, because although it might not be an obvious theme, death is a really big part of this story. Or any story, really. Personally, I've lost a grandma, a grandpa and a friend, all from different things, but I know that regardless of the way or the time or the age when they did go on, I always felt the same kind of feelings. Hopelessness and confusion were the main ones. So to humanize the characters, add a bit more sad to an already angsty story, I felt this chapter was super important to include. Although I don't wish any of you have felt this way before, I hope at least some of you can find bits of this relatable, whether or not someone you love has died, a friend has become an enemy, a pet's been lost, etc. Although death/loss is a natural progression in life, it still sucks, and I hope this chapter gives a respectable and accurate representation of what death and loss feel like to the majority of us.
And on another side note, just because I feel like it should really be included and I'm in a preachy mood and feeling unusually sad for Kimmy the fictional asian: please please, never ever drink and drive. It's a selfish act that can ultimately ruin more than just your own life, and it's never worth the risks.
*steps off soapbox*
On a brighter note, Mr. Buell shall be back next chapter, as will the rest of the gang, and for a brief couple of moments, we'll return to some sort of semblance of happy before everything comes crashing down at our feet, sound good? (Well no, but I made no promises this was going to be a happy ride)
SO much love to all the wonderful people who read, review and enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it! See you soon!
love; ellah!