Chapter 10
The counseling room had a window that faced the county parking lot. I could see a row of cars, a pine tree bent toward the road, and a yellow line painted along the curb.
Mrs. Bell brought me there after school. She waited outside because Ms. Alvarez had explained that counseling was supposed to be my room, even if I was still a child.
The counselor, Mr. Reed, pointed to two chairs and a small table with a box of colored pencils.
“You can sit wherever you want,” he said.
I chose the chair closest to the door.
He didn’t ask me to move.
That helped more than I expected.
For a while, he asked questions that didn’t feel like questions about the kennel. What did I like to eat? What made school easier? What did I do when I woke up at night?
I watched his hands while he wrote. He kept the notebook on his knee, not between us.
“I don’t know what I like,” I said.
He looked up. “You don’t have to know today.”
I picked up a blue pencil and rolled it between my fingers.
“When people ask, I usually say whatever answer makes them stop asking.”
He nodded once. “That sounds tiring.”
I pressed the pencil against the paper until the wood left a faint mark.
“I’m tired a lot.”
“I know.”
The words made my shoulders tighten. I waited for him to explain what I had done wrong.
He didn’t.
Instead, he said, “Being tired isn’t a choice you made.”
I looked at the parking lot through the window. A car backed out, stopped, and waited for someone walking past.
“Neither was the timer,” I said.
Mr. Reed didn’t rush to fill the silence. That was different from most adults. Silence usually meant someone was getting angry or deciding what to say about me.
He only said, “No. It wasn’t.”
At the next appointment, he put three cards on the table. One had a red face, one had a gray face, and one had a green face.
“Some people use these to name feelings,” he said. “You can use words, colors, or not use them.”
I touched the gray card.
“What is that one?”
“Maybe sadness. Maybe being shut down. It can mean whatever it means to you.”
I thought about the hearing, Mrs. Hayes standing at the far end of the hall, and the way my stomach had folded when she looked toward us.
“Gray is when I know something is happening, but I don’t feel allowed to have a reaction.”
Mr. Reed set his pencil down.
“That makes sense.”
I looked at him sharply. “Does it?”
“Yes.”
No speech followed. No promise came after it. He left the answer where it was.
That afternoon, Mrs. Bell asked if I wanted to choose dinner.
I stood in her kitchen while she opened the refrigerator. There were eggs, vegetables, leftover chicken, and a container of macaroni.
“Whatever is easiest,” I said.
“What sounds good?”
I stared at the shelves.
The answer felt dangerous because it would become my fault if it cost too much, took too long, or made somebody unhappy.
“Macaroni,” I said finally.
“Macaroni it is.”
She didn’t praise me for choosing. She didn’t ask if I was sure. She just set the container on the counter and started heating it.
While we waited, she showed me a paper the county had sent about placement. It used words I had to read twice.
“You can tell them what matters to you,” she said. “Not everything has to be decided tonight.”
I held the paper with both hands.
“No dogs,” I said.
Mrs. Bell nodded. “I wrote that down.”
“And I want to stay at the same school.”
“I wrote that down too.”
I looked toward the stove. “Can I keep my clothes in one place?”
Her face changed slightly, but her voice stayed even.
“Yes.”
I added one more thing.
“I want the bottom drawer.”
She waited until I looked at her.
“The drawer with the yellow socks,” I said. “I want it to be mine.”
“Okay,” she said. “That can be yours.”
That night, I put my folded red uniform in the drawer and closed it myself.
May you like
The drawer was small. The room was unfamiliar. None of it fixed what had happened.
But the choice was mine, and nobody set a timer.
