4.23: Social Niceties

“Anything that you particularly want to talk about today?” Dr Peterson asked.

“Nothing important.”

“Oh, so unimportant stuff, then? Great! I love gossip.” He leaned forward and adjusted his pink spectacles.

“Well, the tour with my parents went okay. I just… well. This is going to sound weird. But… I guess it bugs me that it went okay?”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know! I just… they were so sure that this place was bad for me, at least Mum was, and they wanted me out of here, and then they get turned around by one little tour? I mean, they’re not admitting they got turned around, Mum’s still making noises, but they’re the kind that people make when they don’t want to admit that they backed down easily. So I’m kind of mad, I guess, that they just gave up on me so quickly? But that’s what I wanted to happen! I mean, she wanted to pull me out for a stupid reason. I’m the one who said no and convinced her to back off. I’d be a lot angrier if she hadn’t listened to me! Shouldn’t I be glad that she listened?”

“I don’t find ‘should’ to be a useful metric for evaluating feelings,” Dr Peterson said. “How you feel is how you feel. When your feelings upset you or impact your life negatively, we can work on that, but they are valid on their own whether or not they match how you think you should feel.”

“Okay, but if every single possible outcome involves me being mad at my parents, then my feelings aren’t exactly fair, are they?”

“To your parents?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you hurt them? Start an argument about it, perhaps?”

“No.”

“Then why does it matter how fair your feelings are? Feelings are value neutral. They are part of the input data that we use to shape our thoughts and actions. But if they’re bothering you, perhaps it’s worth considering whether you’ve correctly identified their source.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you sure that that’s what you’re angry about? If you think you’re judging your parents unfairly, why are you doing that? Is there perhaps another source of resentment motivating it?”

“I don’t resent my parents,” I snapped. “They did the best they could, raising and supporting a kid who they thought might accidentally kill them at any time. The fact that they held onto me at all was heroic. It’s ridiculous to expect anything more of them.” This guy was as bad as Hua.

“Okay,” Dr Peterson said after a slight but noticeable pause. “We only need to continue this conversation if you’re comfortable doing so.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Alright then. How did you go with discovering what sorts of things upset you?”

“Really? You’re not going to make me lie on a couch and cry about daddy not giving me enough hugs or whatever like on TV?”

Dr Peterson chuckled. “Fortunately, my job isn’t to create dramatic monologues for TV. It’s to help you reach whatever mental and emotional goals you might have for yourself. Most of my clients come to me because their old coping mechanisms are no longer working, or have become actively harmful or distressing, and most of my job involves identifying what specifically isn’t working and helping create modifications. This does usually involve some level of exploring past trauma, but in general, picking apart someone’s life and indiscriminately ripping open old wounds does a lot more harm than good. There is absolutely no point in discussing anything that you aren’t ready to discuss or that you don’t think is relevant.”

Good. I’d rather avoid this getting too uncomfortable if I could help it. I wasn’t there for help, after all; I was there to segue into asking about memory potions. That kept slipping my mind.

We discussed other stuff for the rest of the session, and then I got to a very important, sacred duty. I headed out to our Phone Reception Mountain and, phone in hand, ascended.

K

Hiya liss

M

What’s up? Everything good?

K

All fine. Tour went well. Btw did i tell you im datin the sexiest girl in the school

M

I thought your last partner was the sexiest guy in the school? I’m starting to think that you might be exaggerating.

K

No shes great. How bout u? Any buff musly gods on ur dance card

M

OMG Kayden, we aren’t all blessed with the constant presence of buff mages!

K

Hey most of the buff mages round here r adults so gross

M

And your ex-boyfriend.

K

Yea and him. U not into any1 rigt now? I told you mine

M

You haven’t even told me her name!

K

Saina now who ru dating

M

Nobody!

K

Not ur fanfic nerd even? What happened to that

M

We’re just friends! Anyway, even if I did like someone, that wouldn’t automatically mean we’re dating, would it? He could be taken.

Ah! Here we go.

K

No hell date u instead ur a total smoke show. Go ask the nerd

M

I’M NOT INTO MARTIN.

K

Wow suspicious denial ok. I could see u with a nerd tho. Like maybe you could talk him into getting muscles or whatever

M

There’s more to life than muscles.

K

Dont hide it ive seen ur fireman calender

M

You bought me that fireman calendar as a joke!

K

Yea a joke about how into buff dudes u are. But u say there arent buff dudes and u like SOMEONE so u must have gone for brains or kindness or something, tell me about him

M

There’s no point. He’s seeing someone.

She hadn’t denied the nerd thing, and Max was seeing someone… it mightbe him. I wanted to be more sure before reporting back, though.

K

Sum1 at school? Dont let Chel know shell kick the poor girls arse for you

M

No, she’s grown up a bit since those days.

K

Oh good I still remember her putting grass in Hannahs lunch that one time

M

In fairness, Hannah was VERY rude about rejecting you.

K

Hannah was too old for me. She was 9 and I was only 8. Anyway is the gf nice does she treat him well

M

She seems to, yes. I haven’t met her.

K

Oh she doesnt go to ur school? Maybe shes made up to make u jealous

M

Ha, no. He doesn’t go to my school, either.

K

When do u even get to pine after him then. Do u just stare at him at the bus stop or what

M

We text a lot? Like we’re doing right now? Do you just sit around pining for people you like?

K

I dont need to I like my gf and im dating her

Girlfriend Melissa hadn’t met, different school, communicated primarily by text. The case was strong for Max.

M

Braggart.

K

Got lots to brag about. Is ur boy sexy also

M

He looks like if a teenage librarian decided he wanted to look like a supervillain, actually.

Score! That was definitely Max!

K

Bad boy librarian sounds pretty sexy. G2g i have potions bye

M

Goodbye, Kayden.

Mission accomplished! I was so subtle.

I checked my other messages. The only important one was from Cheryl, our out-of-Refujeyo coven member, confirming that everything was set up for the coven’s little back-up plan for if we ever really needed to raise political hell. I grinned to myself as I deleted the message and cleared the phone’s temporary memory. I was pretty proud of that plan.

I stashed the phone in its usual hiding spot, and none too quickly, too; I’d barely gotten it hidden away before someone else strode into view.

It was Hammond. He gave me a cheery wave.

I waved back. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“Just going for a walk,” he said, offhand. I didn’t believe that for a second. It wasn’t surprising to run into Magistus at the gym, or Mae and Terry on the island; those were places that those people hung out a lot. But I’d never seen anyone on the mountain except for Kylie and Max. Happening to run into Hammond was… pretty coincidental. He must have sought me out.

“Right,” I said. After a moment of awkward silence, I added, “So, how’s life?”

“Oh, same as always.” He shrugged his massive shoulders like a pair of mountains suddenly rising out of the sea. “So I hear you’re dating Saina.”

Oh. Right. Hammond was Saina’s fiance, wasn’t he? And he was the size of three of me stuck together, and alone with me on this isolated mountain.

Saina had said it was fine, that they had an arrangement. But, well. He was the size of three of me stuck together. And we were alone. On this isolated mountain.

“Uh,” I said. “Yes?”

Hammond cracked his knuckles. There was absolutely nothing deliberately intimidating in the gesture; he just tended to crack them a lot, out of habit. I’d never read anything into it before. It was hard not to do so now.

“You two are happy together?” he asked.

I nodded.

“It’s just… well. With the pit comp team. If you two break up badly…”

I barely stopped myself from bursting into laughter. That’s what he was worried about? That if I broke up with his fiance, it would destroy our pit comp team?

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said. “I’m not planning on hurting her, at least on purpose, and I’m sure she’s not planning on hurting me. If we break up, we’ll be reasonable and mature about it. It shouldn’t endanger the team.”

He relaxed. “Right. Of course. Well, I’ll see you at practice.” He loped off.

Well. Okay. So they really were just staying out of each others’ romantic business. Good to know.

As soon I was back on campus, my tablet pinged a message at me from Robert Delano. Huh. Did I know a Robert Delano? Did I know any Roberts? Maybe it was a classmate or something?

Kayden,

I hope that you are well. This is an invitation to my birthday party next Saturday. It will be a casual affair.

What followed was a date and time. Okay, so apparently I knew a Robert Delano well enough to be invited to their birthday party, and yet I couldn’t remember who they were. That was awkward.

Robert, Robert… oh! That person at the graduation arty who’d looked like some kind of magical elven princess! That had to be them; I didn’t know any other Roberts.

Why was I being invited to their birthday, though? Probably because I’d been with Mae at the graduation party. They probably felt obligated to invite me. That had happened a couple of times at my previous school; Melissa had a wider social circle than Chelsea or me, so occasionally when she’d get invited to stuff, her friend would also invite us because we were her closest friends. It was always incredibly awkward. Imposing on this random birthday party would probably be equally awkward. I sent a polite reply thanking Robert for the invitation and wishing them a happy birthday, but explaining that I was already busy that day.

Regret panged in my chest as I sent the message. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to get to know Mae and Terry’s friends better, but… well. It was safe to assume that the only reason I’d been invited to that graduation party in the first place was because of how much of the group was… how did Mae put it? “Queerer than rainbow-eating unicorns?”… and I wasn’t going to just barge my way into their circle metaphorically waving my bisexual and trans cards and yelling, “Hey! We should be friends!” I was fine, I’d always been fine, I didn’t need any of… of that stuff.

And if I felt like I did, well, that was just me being whiny and difficult. I’d done just fine by myself so far. So I pushed down the stupid whiny little pang of regret and headed to lunch.

Anyway, I had the fate of the world to focus on.