When he continued to gaze at my direction and I hadn’t spoken, I got the feeling he was being quiet for me. He wanted to hear more.
Breathing in deeply helped me gain a little courage, but in doing so, I took in much more of the spring soap scent he carried. “There’s a lot going on,” I said. “I don’t know where to start.”
There was the slightest incline of his head. He gently slid the laptop over until he could scoot a little closer to me, close enough that his thigh brushed up against my leg bent in front of me. He motioned to the notebook I’d been doodling on. “Will you hand that to me, please?”
I did, along with the pen. He glanced over my doodling, then turned to a fresh page and held the pen to the paper.
Behind my leg, I tugged at a loose piece of fabric of my pajama pants absently, waiting for him.
He gazed at me, part of the steel softening. There was a small reflection of the computer screen in his glasses, giving his eyes a glow. “Why don’t we start by writing down the things we’re thinking about? It’ll help us to focus a little.”
The way he spoke quelled my nervousness around him, like it was our problem together, not just mine. “Focus is good,” I said quietly.
He started to write a few things: results from blood work, returning to healthier eating, resting.
Afterwards, he passed the notebook to me. “Don’t think about if it’s important or not. Just write down everything on your mind.”
I took the pen from him, feeling the warmth his fingers had left on the plastic. I stared at what he’d written, considering what to put down. Where did I start?
He reached out to me, covering my arm with a hand and redirecting my attention. “Don’t think of if you should, just write it down. Anything that comes to mind.”
I nodded and tried to go over the most immediate things: Finding out how much Carol knew, discovering my father’s point of view of the situation, checking in with my stepmother, finding out what Marie had told everyone. The school, what was going on there?
Academy tryouts.
Going to talk to Lily with Kota.
I blushed while writing the next part: asking everyone how they feel.
It was an ambiguous entry for the list I was making, but I knew exactly what I meant. I wanted to ask Kota and the others directly about how they felt and what they were thinking about the plan. I needed to know.
After that, I quickly went through other things on my mind.
Once I was at a point where I couldn’t think to add any more, Mr. Blackbourne gazed at my list upside down. “Finished?”
“I think so.”
He offered his hand, palm open, and at first I thought he wanted my hand, but his gaze stayed on the notebook. I passed it to him.
The sliding door opened, Victor leaned in, phone to his ear and checked in with Mr. Blackbourne. “Do we care about color?”
“Same shade as the diner,” Mr. Blackbourne said without looking up. “We want people to ignore it. If they don’t have it, we’ll paint it.”
Victor spoke into the phone. “Does it come in blue?” He shut the door and his voice was muffled again as he stepped away.
I looked at the door, only hearing Victor’s voice but not really what he was saying. They were buying something that sounded so expensive...so I’d have a place to retreat to safely, and they could stay nearby. Just because Jimmy had come by today.
It sounded like a lot to do just for me.
Were we going to be able to keep up?
Mr. Blackbourne proceeded to go over the list. He tore the page out of the notebook, setting it aside on the bed. He kept the notebook and then spoke to me. “Tell me the top three most urgent things on this list.”
I stared blankly at the page. There were many items, and they all seemed important. How was I supposed to choose?
He waited and then used the pen against the original list. “If you need help, I could cross off the things that don’t need attention right now.”
I eagerly nodded.
He started by pointing the pen at each thing. “Academy tryouts,” he said and then marked an X near it. “They won’t prepare anything like that until we’ve told them you’re ready for it. We’re busy right now. This can wait.”
Would they disqualify me because I was inconvenient? Yet Mr. Blackbourne had always been adamant about me joining the Academy in the first place. I imagined if he said it could wait, then it could.
There was a small section about the school, Mr. Hendricks and even Volto. He boxed those together and he put an X near the box. “Important. Not critical. There’s a time and place for this. Now is not it.”
He continued down the list, showing me what he marked off, checking my reaction. Most of the things I’d considered to be on my mind, he calmed me by suggesting I should think about it later, or it wasn’t important, or it was something they were working on but that didn’t require my attention.
It was the way he worked over the list that I was drawn to. He studied it, considered every thought I had very carefully and didn’t make me feel silly about any of it. He simply put my mind at ease.
There were a few items on the page that he starred. Joining the Academy. He pointed to that line. “This is a goal, and it is important to you in the long run. It isn’t in our control at this time, though. We’ll keep it in mind, but there’s nothing actionable here.”
He hesitated over the line about asking everyone how they felt. He read it, seemed ready to mark an X next to it and then paused. “I assumed this was asking Marie or Carol how they feel, but I don’t think that’s what you meant.”
I adjusted how I was sitting, pulling my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs to hug them close to me. The headboard provided support. “Dr. Green said I shouldn’t worry about how the guys feel...that I should ask them.” My cheeks heated so much, and I felt the same warmth traveling down my neck, spreading everywhere. “I’m not sure if it is really important, though.”
He hesitated, hovering the pen over the list I’d made. I waited for him to make an X.
Instead, he redirected the pen to the clean sheet of paper.
He wrote down a numeral one, and next to it, he added: Taking time to ask everyone how they feel.
“We’ll go over this in a minute,” he said quietly. “Let’s focus on the rest.”
By the end, he’d only added two more items to the fresh sheet of paper: ensuring a regular schedule out of the house, and figuring out how to get Carol’s approval to go to a private school.
“Your father, we already know, wishes to send you and your sister to a private school,” Mr. Blackbourne said. This was third on the list of items, but he started with it. “This is a long-term goal we all share at the moment.”
I sighed softly in reaction to “long-term.” I hadn’t meant to be so obvious, or to sound rude, and I immediately clamped my hand over my mouth sheepishly.
He raised an eyebrow, with a steel glint in his eyes. “You disapprove?”