Flawed

From Lost and Not Found

to Run and not Hide

My Hand Inside Your Hand

Chapter Seven

It was a well kept secret of hers, one she hid from behind the doors of her new, makeshift office in P.S. 118. The sound proof walls that had been installed provided a certain amount of privacy for her patients, a haven from the rest of the school. They also provided as a means for her own escape. Indeed, Dr. Bliss was a certifiable, grade A music junkie. Music blasting from a boom box (or as they were called back-in-the-day, Ghetto Blaster) filled the room as she filled out a paper about the recent project in one Mr. Simmons' class. As a part of her student-confidentiality pact, all portions of the project that had to do with her patient's direct cases had to be kept anonymous in case they accidentally fell in the wrong hands. Privacy was something that she herself clung to, it was only fair that everyone who confided in her would get the same consideration. Her black ball point pen met yellow legal pad to the throbbing beat of drums and bass pouring from her CD player.

Analysis: While some students are just scraping their way through the project, others are putting a real, genuine, commendable effort into it. (IE: Harold and Rhonda, Gerald and Phoebe, Arnold and Helga). Side project with my patient is running as according to plan, from what I can tell. Make sure that patient's partner doesn't know about my involvement. It's a very complex situation, and knowledge of my hand in the pairing of partners may overthrow the delicate balance.

She tapped the silver metal end of her pen against her lips as she thought about that last sentence she'd scrawled. "How are they doing now?" was the question on her mind. Shaking herself from this singular thought, she finished up her notes.

Curly still insists that his sock puppet is his true partner and now he says it's his soul mate. Make sure to give his parents a call and see about scheduling him in for an appointment. Or five. Or a scheduled weekly slot.

Another pause as she thought of what else to add to the page. The song on her CD ended and switched to a much calmer beat. She sang a few lyrics to herself, letting her hand trace words across the page without much thought as to what they were. Her hand moved rhythmically to the strum of the acoustic guitars, black ink flowing across a sea of yellow paper. As the song ended, she came out of her stupor and looked back down at the page. Flushed with embarrassment from the words scrawled on it, she tore it out, wadded it up, and threw it into the plastic trash can at the side of her desk. A fresh piece of paper on her desk, she started again. It would be a long night.

Meanwhile, the paper in the trash can unfolded itself slightly, just enough for snatches of words to be seen. Though the writing was near unintelligible, one name stood out. That of Robert Simmons.

~*~

"As you can see," Phoebe concluded, closing her black pointer up and moving away from the foam board visual aid she had been gesturing to during her report. "Myself and Gerald have learned much through this recent portion of the assignment. We have discovered not only new things about each other, but new things, though maybe not the most pleasant, about ourselves. Through the conversations that myself and Gerald have had over the past day or so, I can conclude that we have learned valuable lessons, and that our friendship has grown stronger in the process." A blush crept over her face at this, and she pushed her round, blue glasses closer to her face.

Gerald cleared his throat, speaking up for the first time in the entire presentation. "Yeah, what she said." He added with a nod and a suave wink. The hot blush only grew wider across Phoebe's face as their class applauded them. Moments later, the front of the classroom was cleared of their visual aids, and Mr. Simmons was standing once again in the center.

"Our next group up is Arnold and Helga." He smiled, looking down at his list of groups. He waited a few moments, the room silent. He questioned again as he looked up from his paper. "Arnold? Helga?" His eyes settled on two empty desks.

"They aren't here, Mr. Simmons." Rhonda called out from the back of the room, examining her nails. A chorus of "oohs" rose up from the class (with the exception of Curly's shout of "They've broken out of the Matrix!")

A timid clearing of her throat brought the class' attention back to Phoebe. "Um, Mr. Simmons, Arnold and Helga were both called out earlier by Dr. Bliss. I thought you had seen it?"

"Oh, well then." Mr. Simmons sighed, "I guess we'll just look forward to seeing their 'special' presentation at a later time. Now who wants to go next? Harold, how about your group?"

"Aww man!"

~*~

The rapping of a dull eraser against a pad of yellow memo paper rang out as dull thuds to the rhythm of a Jars Of Clay tune. Sitting in front of her, her most interesting patient and her pet project. Dr. Bliss could honestly say that she loved her life. Though she didn't understand what had been going on between Helga and Arnold. She had been keeping her distance to let the two work on their project in peace, but they had never been this silent before, she thought to herself. They sat like that for a while, soaking in the music, minds wandering farther and farther into the "what if"s and "maybe"s that the world had to offer, until...

"What? Cat got your tongue, Football head?"

A startled pause at the broken silence. Arnold blinked, and a half smile appeared on his face. "I hope not, I'm allergic." He cocked his head to the side and looked up at Helga. "Wouldn't my mouth swell up or something?" A glance over at Dr. Bliss, and a short laugh. "I never understood that saying, do you?"

Dr. Bliss smiled. "I should say I haven't, but then again, there's some things better left unknown." Mulling that over for a moment, along with the newfound understanding of her patients, she continued, "Or unspoken." She flipped to a clean piece of notebook paper and positioned her pencil tip right above the first line. This was going to keep getting interesting.