Perhaps if Patch hadn’t taken the conversation in the direction he did, she’d have fallen for his compliment. Her cheeks would have flushed like they were known to do with such flattery. Her eyes would have shifted elsewhere and her lower lip would have found itself trapped between her teeth until she found the ability to speak once more. Her lips would have pulled into a soft smile, a shy smile, until she eventually offered up a quiet “thank you” in response.<br/><br/>Perhaps if Patch hadn’t taken the conversation in the direction he did, she’d have openly shared more, conversed more. That compliment and their brief addressing of his artistic skill could have expanded into more. She’d have felt oddly comfortable with that smile he was so willing to give, with the way his eyes held onto hers, and the way his tone was so comforting, like an old sweatshirt that you’d had for years and never failed to warm you up.<br/><br/>Perhaps if Patch hadn’t crossed the one line she never expected anyone to cross, things would have gone differently.<br/><br/>Instead of becoming like any other girl would have in the presence of a man who was clearly skilled enough to know what to say to get a girl like putty in his palm, he knew things about her no one else should have. As a result, where her cheeks would normally have flushed and that smile would have appeared, all the color drained from her face instead, leaving a ghost of a girl, skin white as freshly fallen snow. Her heart skipped several beats as it sped up in its panicked haste to process what she’d just heard. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers and her lips parted and closed, no sound escaping as her mind remained in a state of shock, the rest of the class and its white noise escaping her completely in light of this new development.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">He knows...How...How could he know?</span><br/><br/>None of it made sense, that a complete stranger would know the one experience so many years ago, an experience she’d buried and prayed would never see the light of day. ...But it had, today, and there was no recovering from that.<br/><br/><span style="color: #00FFBF"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">“How is she today?”<br/><br/>A voice that should have been familiar filled the room, lit by the natural light outside the window a young girl sat in front of. Her hair fell in limp, lifeless strands about her face, shielding her hollow eyes from view; Even the light that window provided didn’t give her eyes any spark, any glimmer of life. For all intents and purposes, she was just a shell, lifeless and fragile. For how little she ate, and how little she moved, she was a wisp of a girl, looking as though a breath of wind would blow her frail body away.<br/><br/>“I won’t lie to you, Mr. Callow,” another voice said, a voice she’d heard daily for the last eight months. “She’s not improved. We’ve not made any progress at all with her.” A sigh as he looked over her chart, flipping through and shaking his head. “Not I, nor any of the other staff here have gotten her to respond. Her eyes show no recognition, nothing that would attest to conscious thought.”<br/><br/>Just then, a sob, quiet and choked from somewhere behind them. Her mother had just come back from getting a coffee at the vending machine, a coffee that went forgotten in her hand as it began to tip, the onslaught of tears taking her complete focus.<br/><br/>Without hesitation, Mr. Callow rushed to her side, taking the hot drink from her and set it down on a nearby table to wrap his arms about her, whispering words of comfort into her ear. Only when she’d quieted some did his attention shift back to the doctor in charge of her case. “And you’ve no idea what’s caused this?” he asked, trying not to sound as angry as he felt that there hadn’t been even a glimmer of a change. “What makes someone go from talking every day, being happy and healthy like any other child, to becoming...this?”<br/><br/>Another sob answered his question as his wife’s face buried itself into the collar of his shirt.<br/><br/>“It’s different for every-,”<br/><br/>“Don’t give us the same answer you give everyone else!” The suddenty of his snap made his wife jump and the doctor take a step back. “Do you rehearse what you’re going to say to distraught parents over and over? Do you even FEEL anything toward this whole thing?”<br/><br/>“I’m sorry I’m unable to give you anything more concrete, Mr. Callow...And I do understand how this must feel to be in your place, to have a child in this state…” His glasses were taken off and put into his coat’s pocket. “Without her to tell us what she’s feeling, the most we can do is speculate and continue to try and pull her out of it. We have no definite reasoning for what’s going on and no amount of yelling will help her get any better.” Eyes serious, though empathetic, his gaze slid to her, to the girl in the chair staring unseeing out at the day in front of her.<br/><br/>“...What will help is for you not to lose hope. If you can’t be strong for her, how can you expect her to be strong and come out of it for you?”</span></span></span><br/><br/>Whatever notes he was taking were lost on her, as she came back to the present day, came back to the woman she was now staring at the face of a man who somehow knew more about her than he was letting on. A man who knew intimate details of her life. The thought of that alone was enough to scare her.<br/><br/>Not another word was said, not another look was spared to anyone else; No, looking another in the eye (after having the most painful time in her life brought crash back down onto her) was going to be how things would have to be. Her possessions were scooped up, not even bothering to put them into her bag as she left the class. She’d write an email to her teacher later, feeling his eyes boring into her skull as she left before being dismissed, but for now…<br/><br/>...This was what she<span style="font-style: italic">had</span>to do.