Heart to Heart

[Slam]

((Alex King continued from Kick Balls))

She was sitting hunched over, keeping her head lower than usual. She was holding an imaginary cigarette in her hand, reaching up to scratch her mouth and take a make believe puff every few seconds. Her leg wouldn't stop shaking, her foot tapping against the floor as her knee jerked around. Every few seconds, she took another look around to make sure no-one had seen her, as she waited for the door in front of her to finally open.

She never knocked, not even the first time she'd came here. She wasn't the only girl at school who got counselling, and someone else could've easily been in the room before her. She'd never actually noticed anyone come out when the door finally opened before, but that was because she'd always turned up five minutes late to her own appointment. That way, if there had been someone in the room already, they'd be long gone by the time she got there. Her counsellor had become accustomed to it.

Make believe cigarettes did little to calm her nerves, but she wasn't one of those retards who tried smoking in the bathrooms, or out back behind the school. There were smoke alarms everywhere, and watchful teachers everywhere else. She could get away with it once, maybe twice, but screw anything more than that: she would just be pushing her luck, and she had shit for luck in the first place. So, instead, the day between the first puff in the morning and the first puff of the afternoon was compensated by finger gestures. Still, she was only on half a pack a day, so she could've been doing much worse.

Finally, the door opened to a familiar, welcoming face. It was one of the few faces that Alex could look forward to seeing anymore, except perhaps her Mom on a day when she wasn't feeling so pissed off.

Snuffing out the imaginary cigarette on the seat between between her legs, she followed her counsellor inside, throwing her bag on to the sofa. When she sat down, her leg began shaking again immediately. Slower than before, but it was still shaking. Her counsellor waited patiently.

Alex always spoke first, save for the polite "How are you today?" that her counsellor always gave. Alex was always curt with her response, but rarely blunt. It was either "Fine." Or "Not great.", but she never went into an elaboration why by herself. There was always the pause whilst Alex organised her thoughts and lowered her barriers. Pushing Alex never worked out well, but it was something they were trying to work on. Progress so far had been slow.

"So, the other day, right?" Alex finally began, after a minute of awkward silence filled only by the sound of Alex fidgeting, "I'm walking through the park, cause of what you said about having to get out when I'm feeling shitty." Swear words were fine, as long as Alex knew when to use them. That was something they were working on too, but progress had been slower than the pushing element. "And like, there I am, listening to some music, minding my own business, and these two assholes kick a fucking ball right into my head!" Her counsellor cut her off with a gently raised hand. It wasn't to stop Alex from going on, but to remind her that was she was already losing her temper. Alex had reluctantly agreed to count to five every time she saw the hand go up, and did so.

"Sorry. So yeah, they just kicked it straight at my head, and they didn't' give a shit. They were just like. 'Oh, sorry. My bad.' Like it was no big fucking deal! I mean, you kick a ball at someone, and you could at least say sorry like you mean it, right?"

"And how did you react?" her counsellor asked her.

"Well how do you think I reacted? I got fucking pissed! I mean they kicked a ball right at me, I could've gone deaf from my ear buds going right fucking down my ear, you know? So excuse fucking me if I get a little bit annoyed." It wasn't the same anger as before: this time Alex was controlling her volume. That, as far as her counsellor was concerned, was a good first step to managing her moods.

"Well, that's perfectly reasonable. I'd get upset if someone hit me with a ball and acted like it didn't matter." She'd told Alex before that she was allowed to get angry, and Alex had no problem obliging it, but they were still working on her getting her anger out in a healthy way. They'd probably made the least progress on that out of everything, though.

"So then I kicked their ball away, and they just laughed at that. Yeah, I'm smarter than them by like, a mile, and can program anything I want, but I can't kick a ball. That's so important, isn't it? World always needs new scientists and technology to get somewhere, but we really need athletes before that, because fucking sports man. Hell, look at everyone going to school on sports scholarships, whilst I spent my time working my ass off and didn't get any scholarships." She was getting off topic, but that was normal. When Alex started ranting, it was usually only worth stopping her if she was getting angry. There'd be time to talk about controlling her anger when she was done.

"So yeah, that pretty much fucked up my day. I was just pissed off after that." Alex finished, turning to look out of the window as she held an imaginary cigarette again. Her counsellor waited a moment to be sure she was done.

"Okay. Now, like I said, it's perfectly reasonable to get angry over something like that. What I'm concerned about, is that you stayed angry. You sound like you're still angry, too." Alex shrugged at this, still staring out the window. "Alex, look at me." She did. "You have to calm down after something like this happens. I know you've got a lot of anger, but we've talked about how you really need to let it go after a while. You can't stay mad over something that's over and done with. "

Alex let out a sigh, and her leg stopped shaking. Then her face screwed up, and it started shaking again. "Well, you know, I'm just not good at it, okay? I know that it's not healthy, I know all about the fucking problems it causes, like people hating me, and my health and all that cardiovascular shit, and how it's going to kill me eventually! Hell, if I don't give up smoking, that's going kill me eventually!" she was flailing her arms at this point, laughing sardonically at her 'what ifs' "But you know what? I'm just not very good at calming down. I'm just –" at that point, her counsellor raised her hand again. Alex counted to five, on cue, and stopped. There was another moment's pause to make sure she had stopped.

"Alex, you just calmed down." Her counsellor stated, with a sly smile.

Alex stopped, blinking. Then, she smiled a tiny defeated smile. "...Yeah, nice one."

There was a moment of calm amidst the storm, before Alex looked back out the window. "I just don't see any point in not getting angry, you know? I mean, no-one at school likes me. I just get pissed off by stupid people, and I'm really good at getting angry, I guess. So what if I do? It's not like people are going to like me if I don't, and everyone I do hang out with I don't like anyway. Probably don't like me either, but screw it, I haven't seen them lately anyway."

Her counsellor nodded. It was a far cry from the rage she'd been letting out a few minutes ago, but such a change in mood was starting to become pretty common in their sessions.

"You know that If you get angry at them, people aren't going to want to get close to you." Her counsellor posed.

"Yeah, I know. I know. It doesn't matter, really? I mean, it's not like anyone would like me anyway." Alex rebutted.

"Well, why do you think that? Didn't Richy like you?" Her counsellor returned.

"Yeah, but that was ages ago. Now I'm just an asshole, and there isn't anything I can do about it." Alex deflected.

"Alex, you're being defeatist again. We've talked about this, you musn't give up on yourself." Her counsellor persisted.

"Yeah, I know..." Alex replied. Her tone went quiet, and they stopped.


Her head was firmly in her hand now, eyes glazed over. This was the most risky element of the sessions: if Alex withdrew, getting her to come out again was almost impossible.

"Look, can I just go, please?" Alex finally said, looking up from her hands with eyes lost of their fire. It was the dreaded reaction.

"Alex, the session isn't over. You can't keep walking out on me like this, otherwise I can't help you."

"Yeah, I know, but I just really want to go now." She had already grabbed her bag and stood up, much to her counsellor's worry.

"Alex, you really shouldn't go, otherwise we can't do anything."

"Yeah, but I just really can't be here right now. I'm gonna go. Thanks for the session."

"Alex!" her counsellor called after her, but she was already out the door.


It was the last session before the school trip.

((Alex King's pregame conclusion.))