"I'm sorry, sir." She cast a quick glance towards me before turning back to my father. "She won't speak to me. Every session goes the same way and I can't continue to work with her if she won't even utter a single word. She has selective mutism and it's gotten to the point where it seems as if she's choosing to be permanently mute."

"How am I supposed to handle this? I can't take the silence anymore!"

The conversation ended after I shifted in my seat, letting them know that I was not oblivious to their attempted whispers.

Before we left, my fourth therapist gave me a sad smile, one that touched her eyes with a glimmer. She was a nice lady and I felt bad for being so silent, but I had to. I didn't deserve to speak in this world anymore.

My dad remained silent during the car ride, which also continued as we reached home and went inside of our suburban house in Rosefield, Pennsylvania, where all of the memories still lingered.

I killed my mother five years ago, when I was twelve.

I listened to her singing voice as my fingers twisted the dial back and fourth, watching the blue fire rise and die on the stove. My mother's sweet voice echoed throughout the house as I grabbed a plastic spoon and put it into the fire.

The whole spoon was swallowed by the flames, which also made the fire on the stove rise and grow into a much bigger mess than intended. The white plastic spoon melted into the stove and turned to a dull shade of gray. I panicked, but of course, was too afraid to let my mother know because I knew she would punish me for being so silly. I thought I could handle it.

I kept trying to turn the dial down, but the fire remained. I put a spatula into the fire, holding it there as if I were roasting a marshmallow and when I took it out, the flames stuck onto the spatula and I screamed with pure terror.

Lacking any conscience, I flung the spatula behind me and with my luck, my mother was standing in the kitchen doorway and happened to meet right with the flying spatula.

The flames clung to her as she ran to the stove, working all at once and trying to stop the fire instead of caring more about the flames burning her skin.

She was screaming and crying as the fire grew and the flames from the spatula hit the curtain, igniting an orange, red and yellow burst of colors. Before you knew it, smoke was everywhere and we were both coughing for our lives.

"Leave the house and get help, Poppy. I love you." I heard her say. Listening to the familiar voice that I had listened to all my life, I left the kitchen, watching my own mother get swallowed by the fire.

The kitchen survived, but my mother did not. I refused to speak after that, and for a full five years I had not spoken a single word to anybody.

I was in seventh grade when the incident occurred. Come eighth grade, the teachers realized it became an issue that I didn't talk anymore and contacted my father. I took off of school the rest of eighth grade.

I didn't attend my freshman, sophomore or junior year either and instead was put into a psychiatric hospital where no improvements were made for a while. I still took private classes at the hospital with a fair amount of homework, with nurses watching me of course, so I still had a chance of attending college even though the chances were a bit slim.

My suicide attempts were occurring regularly, and it got to the point where the only thing in my room was a bed. I had to be held by a nurse when I needed to use the bathroom and had to be watched when I showered or used the toilet and sink.

After I began to absolutely dread being watched, I stopped attempting suicide. I started to eat healthy and showed that I was not going to hurt myself. I even made conversations with the nurses with a paper and pencil. They eventually let me out in the summer before my senior year of high school.

I still remained silent, and instead my therapy became running. I would run endlessly for hours on end, through streets and forests and around the surrounding neighborhoods. I ran during thunderstorms where the rain would pelt against my skin and my drenched clothes would stick to my frame.

Before I started running when my muscular legs and arms were nonexistent, I was pale from the lack of sun with constant bags under my bloodshot eyes. My bones would jut out in awkward places on my frail skin, and the stares I received indicated that I looked sick.

I was sick, but not the type of sick that involves getting a fever or throwing up. I was emotionally sick, with an emotional plague that wrapped around my figure. My life felt like there was always a rain cloud above me, and it ended up becoming such a familiar feeling that I didn't want to feel anything else.

When I walked into my new school on the second day, being completely petrified was an understatement. I had missed the first day because my father went to the school to talk to the teachers and principal about my "situation."

There were people my age, so many of them. I assumed there was at least four hundred people just in this entrance of the school.

A man with a brown suit and pale cream colored shirt underneath walked up to me.

"Are you Poppy Rose?"

I nodded.

"Such a lovely name. Come this way please."

I followed him into an office, the eyes of lingering students pelting bullets of anxiety into my body. When I shut the door behind me, I stood there dumbfounded.

"You can sit, honey. I don't bite."

I sat in the leather chair in front of his desk.

"I'm the guidance councilor for the senior class. I'm Mr. Garcia. I've been expecting you. I'm aware of your issue and I've notified the staff of the school that this is a serious issue that we will work with, as long as you are comfortable with it. Is that okay?"

He had such a warm look to him. He had brown hair and fairly tan skin, with honey-colored eyes. His voice was high pitched, and his feminine manner somehow made me feel safe here in the presence of him. He slid a piece of notebook paper over to me, and then handed me a pencil.

"Write down any questions you may have, whether it has to do with the school or the students or the classes or anything else."

I wrote:

Is there a cross country team?

"Yes, of course there is. We have football, baseball, softball, soccer, baskeball, lacrosse, cheerleading, track and field, swimming" he said. "And cross country, obviously. We also have activities such as yoga and dance, as well as singing lessons, a painting class and almost anything you could think of. However, I'm not here to brag about all the things this school holds for you, I'm here to help you."

I smiled in response to his rant.

He handed me a map of the school, which consisted of four floors that would probably take me a long time to get used to. He also handed me my schedule with all my classes.

"I also have one more thing to give to you," he said. He took out a piece of paper and jotted down a few words I couldn't see from where I was seated. He slid it over to me.

"Directions to my office. This school is big and if you ever feel you are in an emergency and need to get to me for whatever reason, you'll have immediate directions and won't have to look on the map."

I smiled. The sheet of paper I wrote on before, the one that he had asked me to write down questions on, I wrote down something again.

How many students are in the school?

I slid it over to him.

"Three thousand. Don't worry much about that, though. Everybody mostly keeps to themselves and you can go to a variety of different places during your free periods or lunch. If anybody gives you shit, let me know and I'll deal with it. It wouldn't be fair to you to have to endure any bullshit."

I wrote on the sheet of paper one more time, with an amused smile lighting my face at his choice of words.

Thank you so much, I appreciate it more than you'd ever imagine.

"It's my pleasure, Poppy. I promise I'm here for you. You don't have to hide in the shadows anymore."

As I made my way out of the office and into one of the main hallways, I decided I liked him a lot. Maybe I would talk to him.

I aimlessly wandered about in the hallways, taking in everything. Thankfully I had thirty minutes to spare so majority of that time would be getting to know my way around the school more than I did now. There was a large cafe with at least a hundred tables. Most of them were filled with teenagers sipping coffee, eating breakfast, reading books or on their laptops and phones. It was extremely hard to contain my anxiety because this school was huge, and obviously it was a school that a variety of different towns attended and was for students who were wealthy.

I noticed that on the top of the walls were long, rectangular windows where if you were tall enough you could see into the classrooms. These specific windows were everywhere, creating such a modern look to the corridor as I kept walking.

This floor was obviously the main floor. There was a cafe, only a few classrooms, and other rooms with windows from ceiling to floor that allowed you to see right through. These rooms were all different. One had easels with paint supplies scattered just about everywhere, while another had rows and rows of computers. I noticed the yoga room, which had blue mats and a built-in stereo, and then there was a weight room with endless rows of machines for exercising. Walking farther down the hallway, on the right was an indoor track and to the left was an indoor pool, probably for the swim team.

Instead of taking the direction of the crowded stairwell, I walked into the elevator with glass doors. A man slipped in before the door shut. I assumed he was a teacher.

I was stiff and far too awkward to look in his direction, but I could see his reflection in the glass. He had brown curly hair, which was the most that I could see before the door opened and he was gone.

And when the bell rang, gripping me out of my daze and back into reality, fear started to kick in. I read the directions to my first class and made my way there.