Chapter 54: Promise (Part 1)

"Did you think you’d come back?"

Milo stared at Miss Cox, his new psychologist, from the depths of an armchair padded in cheap, white-flowered linen.

Whatever they’d saved on, it wasn’t the cushions. He hadn’t sat or lain this comfortably in months, possibly years.

"It’s Monday," he said.

"That does not answer my question." The woman, in her mid forties, gazed down at her clipboard and slipped another sheet into view. "You had a week to think about it."

From the chair, he could probably read a line or two if he sat forward. Yet, knowing what she had on him lost to staying comfortable.

"So? Just because the lessons were suspended for a week of mourning doesn’t mean I’ll just not come." Milo waved a hand at the door. "I made a promise."

Miss Cox nodded, brushed the brown strands of hair from her face and noted something down.

"What are you writing?"

"That you came because you’d promised."

"Is that worth writing down?"

"Everything you tell me I consider worth writing down."

"Is that not a little obsessive?"

"If anything, excessive is the word I’d use."

"I’d use the word creepy."

"I see other patients. It helps me remember what you actually said." She hooked the pen on the clipboard and tucked it against her chest. "The notes are only for me."

"And those pages underneath?" Milo tipped his chin at the clipboard. "Those are from my previous consultant?"

"Correct."

"That’s weird. Cause he told me it’d be only for him, too." He crossed his legs and shrugged. "Yet here you are."

"I’m responsible for your consultations now. His notes were passed on so you wouldn’t have to start again." She leaned forward, her brown eyes meeting his. "Does that bother you?"

So the woman also had the descriptions of his erased family, along with the breakdowns and ideologies the previous man had found concerning. Great. Add a photograph and they could issue him a neat little schizophrenic card; there would be time to correct the details once they had him behind the reinforced door.

"I don’t really care."

As the silence stretched, the faint ringing resolved into the buzz of the lamp overhead and a distant rumble coming from the academy’s corridors.

Hearing no follow up, Miss Cox adjusted her white cuffs and returned to the subject of the last couple of days.

"Milo, if I may address you by name. What did you do during the week? Did you find yourself thinking about coming here?"

Clever question, he’d go as far as to say. Two birds with one stone, since she could learn about his activities and what was ordinary versus not.

"Not really. I went out with a friend."

"What’s the friend’s name?"

"Layla."

Scritch-scritch.

The pen resumed its travels, what Layla’s name had prompted staying hidden.

"Can you tell me more about her and what you did together?" she asked, her gaze darting every now and then to a point above his eyes. "Maybe the place you went."

"We ate."

"What do you like to eat?"

Milo’s eyes swept the room, snagging on the outline of Cald’s infirmary rod.

"Unsure."

"I can see that your bruising has faded." Her attention lingered at his brow. "How did you get that cut?"

Seems everything he revealed to anyone came back to bite him later, and by this point he could only wonder who’d mentioned it: Thwaite, Cald, or perhaps Henry?

"A bookshelf fell on me. Well, the books from it, more precisely. That’s what did this."

"Were you alone?"

"Layla was outside the door."

"And she came in to help you?"

"Nah."

"Why?"

"I told her I was hungry."

After the storm calmed, Layla had gone for food. Washing his face twice made him presentable enough to meet her at the door, where he proposed a park and all its fresh air. She could watch him eat there without inspecting what he had done to the flat.

Miss Cox scratched his testimonies onto the page.

He’d meant to discuss grief, even though that decision was outdated, made before the academy was sealed. It had made sense in advance. Now he could not get the word felt out of his mouth.

Since he was clearly failing at that approach, he might as well try to be honest about Layla.

"She checks that I eat," Milo added. "We went out almost every day, but I... f-felt guilty about sitting so far away from her."

"Why were you sitting apart?"

"I didn’t want to give her anything. Sorry. I’m just worried."

"Anything?"

"I had a fever. Mild one, so I went out. But yeah."

Miss Cox leaned into the cushions of her armchair, tapping the pen’s top against her lips.

"You must’ve experienced tremendous amounts of stress during the Plague outbreak. Stress can compromise your immune system."

The fallen bookshelf, the shattered glass, the lamp rolling its broken light through the dust.

How long would stress suffice, he wondered, if she had been there with him, trying to find new words for it while the room dismantled itself.

Through all that noise, Layla had stayed outside his door.

All his news came through her knock.

If not for her, Milo wouldn’t even have known that the principal dismissed everyone for a week of mourning, and would’ve waited outside the gate like an imbecile.

Going over to the towns he’d noted down was ludicrous, indeed. Had his mindset not shifted, he’d be working his ass off and unleashing storm after storm. His walls weren’t exactly invincible, either.

With a mobile device, he could track instances of the Plague over his entire region. Unless a case was reported, he didn’t have to go anywhere.

"I heard you don’t eat much," she said. "Are you hungry right now?"

When the rumble reached the door, Milo peered through the glass at janitors wheeling crates of gray-amber crystal. The rain had been broomed up from the field, and whatever the Church hadn’t taken now belonged to the academy.

Every crystal bore the Plague trait. A handful might finish Day, and if not, there was the Plague Section to feed.

Milo turned his head back to Miss Cox.

"Somewhat."

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Promise (Part 2: Finale)" ... ⤵︎ [!]