Lucien didn’t really want to be a teacher. He wanted to write books – interesting books. Which is why he wrote about his turbulent romance with his first love. Now there was a second story in the works. The Upper East Side has a killer on the loose. This unknown assailant promised everyone that he wasn’t finished. He wants the city to be thrown into chaos and so far it was working. People were scared. Half the staff at Victrola Academy cleared out their desks and left. With the shortage of employees, Mrs. Calloway enlisted her son for help. He was magnetic, influential, and a great reader and writer. He knew the language of these kids. It wasn’t that long ago when he graduated from Victrola. But teaching an English class was one thing – playing the role of a grief counselor? He didn’t know shit about counseling but the school needed it. His mother needed him to be whatever, whoever, she asks him to be. So he submitted to her authority again. A grown man and he’s still an obedient, sackless, child whenever she tells him to do something.
So here Lucien was again, out of his comfort zone; hunched into an office chair with a clipboard, and pen in his mouth. How the hell was he supposed to talk about everyone else’s five stages of grief when he has yet to sort through his own? Victor may have been the headmaster at Victrola and an ally to most, but he was his father. Shouldn’t he be the one on the couch? Alas, Calloways weren’t meant to agonize and so Lucien wasn’t afforded the same empathy as everyone else who knocked on the door before entering.
“Yes. Come in. Get comfortable. I know this is mandatory but it doesn’t have to suck.” He laughed. Was that wrong to laugh? Or to say things like ‘it doesn’t have to suck’? He probably looked like a psychopath. “What I mean is, I get it. We’re all scared. Everyone has seen the pictures, watched the news, read about it in the paper… And hell, I’m not even a real counselor. I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you… But I’ve been told I’m a good listener… My father used to say that it was because I’m such a good listener that I’m such a successful writer. My entire family used to come to me with their…shit. I don’t know if they ever really took my advice but they kept coming back, so… Maybe I know how to help in some way. So I don’t know… How have you been processing all this? Do you feel ...unsafe?”
