Alba kept humming, writing notes as her eyes flicked around my paper. It was driving me crazy. I sat on the edge of my seat, fingers cupped around my knees and toes tapping furiously.

She finally dropped it, eyebrows furrowed worryingly in the middle. She was dressed in a crimson boatneck top and black flare pants which highlighted her leg-to-torso ratio beautifully. Her makeup was, as usual, flawless and I was tempted to derail the conversation with questions about how she got her collarbones to shine as they did. Her ballpoint pen rested between her tattooed wedding ring and middle finger, flicking back and forth like a metronome.

I leaned forward, lips chapped from all the chewing I'd put it through. "So? Did I pass?"

"It's not a test, Miles," she opened her glasses and put them on; they made her look sterner.

"Did I fail?" It might have been the first and only time I was eager to do so.

She tipped her head to the side, eyes warm and kind. It was the kind of look that told me bad news was coming. "You've ranked high for both anxiety and depression."

I reclined into my chair, eyes dropping to my feet. The shame that blanketed me at hearing that felt like something Alba should have known, so she could psychoanalyse it. I kept it to myself.

"The test is to rank how you felt in the last week, so I understand why the results might be skewed," she said gently. "You've got a borderline score, so regularly I suspect the symptoms are more moderate. But that's still important to know."

I let my eyes drift shut, blocking out at least one hyperactive sensation.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

I laughed a little before answering. "Uhm. Sceptical?"

"Why?"

I shrugged to my ears. "Because I don't feel depressed. Anxious, sure, I get nervous, I had one panic attack. Maybe I have mild anxiety, but I don't think I'm depressed."

She nodded empathetically. "They often go hand in hand. Especially in cases of delayed grief."

I linked my fingers together in my lap, unable to right my hunched shoulders.

"I don't want to analyse your answers too much," she put aside the paper, tapping her nails across the top of her clipboard. "But the last one stuck out. You feel worthless most of the time? Four out of five?"

I made a face. "I marked it in a hurry. It's probably more like a three..."

"That's still proportionately high," she placed aside her clipboard. She tended to do that when she wanted to dive deep. "Do you want to talk me through that?"

I swallowed. "Do you want me to?"

Her lips were plum-coloured today; it made it obvious when she smiled. "We can talk about whatever you want. But sometimes hearing yourself unpack those feelings can be more helpful than me trying and possibly going down the wrong path."

I found myself opening and closing my mouth a few times in several failed starts before I finally managed to get some words out. "I don't know. I do know. I'm failing my final year of school, I am living in constant fear that I'm going to drop one too many hints to Reece and he'll go mental, I hate what I look like most of the time, the guy I like is so not right for me to get involved with right now... I want my mum back. I've got her urn in my closet. I'm mostly invisible at school which is great for self-esteem, but it's better that way because when I'm not invisible I'm usually being chased down by some asshole who wants to beat the shit out of me. Not because I'm gay, just because they can and I won't fight back. I can't fight back. I can't fucking drive. Take your pick. I'm just not very... worthwhile most of the time. I don't feel worthy of the things I do have, like Aaron and Max and... my other friends. And when I feel good, I feel like I'm lying to everyone else in the process."

Alba listened, without intervening until my pause grew too large for the room. My eyes were dry, thankfully, despite the ever-expanding ball in my throat.

"When do you feel good?"

I sighed, loudly. Because I couldn't tell her. I absolutely couldn't. As much as it pained me. "I guess when I feel the least like myself. When I'm pretending to be someone else, who is hot and talented and put together."

Alba laughed softly. "I think we've all had to play that version of ourselves at some point. You'd be surprised how much that person has in common with you."

I snorted. "Not in my case."

"Well, if you can pretend to be someone who is hot and talented and put together," she echoed. "Who is to say you aren't all those things usually?"

I closed my eyes again. "Me. Because I'm not."

Silence filled the space between us again. I could acknowledge I wasn't giving her much to work with, but I was tired. Without good reason.

"This person, who is put together, and hot and talented," she finally said. "What do they look like?"

I sighed again. "Nothing like me."

"So, when you picture them, in your head, they don't look anything like you?"

I let my eyes crack open. "They are the furthest thing from me as physically possible."

Alba sat forward on her chair. "You sound like you've visualised this person before."

I worried at my bottom lip with my teeth, my rational and my heart fighting a bloody battle in the back of my throat. Maybe there was a way of telling Alba, without telling Alba.

"I like drawing," I uttered slowly. "I like drawing this... woman."

I watched Alba for a reaction. She gave away nothing, as per her standard.

"I've been drawing her for years, and she's kind of my best friend." God, that is so pathetic. Thank god these things are confidential. "She's everything I can't be, and more. Sometimes I'm jealous of her. More often than not, I just want to be her. She's better than me, in every sense of the word."

Alba nodded, her small smile growing slightly. "But can she drive?"

She could. Sephora Utah could do everything. Her preferred mode of transport was a motorcycle, but she had an assortment of expensive model cars she travelled in, with leather upholstery and custom plates.

I didn't answer, and Alba's face quickly switched back to a neutral expression. "Thank you for telling me, Miles."

Her sentiment echoed Aaron's, from Saturday. I didn't know how I felt about being perceived as so fortified that any piece of information given voluntarily required thanks.

"Do you want to see her?" I blurted out. Alba nodded enthusiastically. I dug out my phone and scrolled through my photos until I found some photos of my drawings, which I'd taken for Instagram. I deleted all evidence of drag, but the drawings were harmless enough to keep. I brushed my fingers across the screen before passing it to her silently.

Alba smiled gently and accepted it. I bounced my knee in a frenzied way as she swiped through a few of them, pushing her glasses up to the bridge of his nose.

"Wow," she exhaled, shifting in her seat to re-cross her legs. "These are good."

Pride swelled inside me. I hated how easy I was sometimes. "Yeah?"

"Yes," she flicked back to the first photo. "You're very talented."

I snorted. "I see your game."

"I'm serious, Miles," she handed back the phone. "Visual Art isn't one of your subjects, is it?"

I shook my head. "No. I don't get how people handle getting graded on art. I just want to do it for fun."

She sat back in her chair, looked across at me with newfound understanding. I shifted obviously, not loving having her eyes on me. I focused on her shiny, shiny collarbones.

"Can I make an observation?" she finally asked. Startled, but not retreating from the challenge, I nodded and waited.

"You believe you can only be all those good qualities when you're pretending to be someone else," she remarked. "I would argue that this... this quiet, insecure, can't meet my eyes, can't see his worth boy... I think he's the mask. I think he's the person you play so you can fit in. I don't think he's you. Not all of you. I think he's a very small part, exacerbated by your trauma, and your fear. Because the kid I see flashes of when you raise your head and surprise me, he's brave and witty and damn talented."

I sat in stunned silence. Alba removed her glasses, and our eyes connected fully.

"I wish you'd let other people see that side of you," she concluded.

I rubbed my lips together. "I came out to Aaron the other day."

Alba beamed. "That's really good. That's really, really good. How did it feel?"

"Like a weight was lifted," I confessed. "Aaron is incredible."

She angled her head in thought. "So Aaron, is he the only one of us lucky enough to know all of Miles Stewart?"

I laughed out loud at lucky, and crossed my ankles under my chair. "No. He doesn't know all of it. Only one person has that unfortunate privilege."

"I'm suspecting it's not me."

I rocked a little in my chair. "No. It's just this... guy. The guy I told you about last week. We didn't have anything to do with one another, and then we did, and bit by bit, he found out everything. My mum, Reece, these sessions, the panic attack... I met his family this weekend."

Her eyebrows lifted, and I rushed to correct myself.

"It's not like that. It's... complicated."

She huffed out a laugh. "Isn't it always."

I blew out a breath, sinking into the chair. "You can't talk. You're getting married. Clearly, it stopped being complicated for you at some point."

She nodded thoughtfully. "You would think so, wouldn't you?"

I sat up straight. "I feel like there's a story there."

"There are plenty. But that's for my therapist to deal with."

I felt my jaw drop. "You see a therapist?"

"I do."

"But..." I felt my brow knit together. "You're so organised. And beautiful. And you have Rory, and probably a bunch of people who love you and..."

I trailed off at her growing look of amusement.

"I do have a lot of reasons to be happy," she mused. "But mental health doesn't always work like that. You can't always counterbalance bad feelings with things that make you happy, especially if what you're experiencing is clinical. If tomorrow, you inherited a million dollars, moved out of home, and the guy you liked confessed his undying love to you, do you think you would just stop feeling anything negative about yourself?"

I considered it. The concept alone was laughable, the third point more than any other, but I tried for her sake. "Probably not."

"Being surrounded by supportive people who love you can help," she explained. "But it isn't a tipping scale. You can't pile up one end with good things to balance out the bad. Mental illness, I see it as more like gum on the bottom of your shoe, and as things pile up it grows bigger and bigger until it makes it harder to walk, and eventually fixes you to the spot. People can drag you along with them, but it doesn't go away until you make a conscious effort to take off your shoes and start picking it away."

I blew out another sigh. "So, it's up to me?"

"And me," she smiled reassuringly. "And medication, if it comes to that. There's no shame in treating illness, Miles. And there's no shame in slowing down a little to do so."

I rested my head against the back of the chair. "What next then?"

"We're going to give it a few more weeks," she told me. "And we're going to review the test. And if the results haven't changed, I'll refer you to a psychiatrist."

My blood ran cold. "No, no. You can't do that. Reece can't know."

She frowned. "I want to help you as much as I can, but if you need more than I can physically provide, I need to get you the right kind of help."

I shook my head, firmly. "No. Reece can't know."

"Why?"

"Because he'll..." I hesitated. Reece had never said anything outrageous about mental illness; but he ran with the kind of circle who I imagined called depression a weakness and anxiety as an excuse that middle-aged soccer mums used to get Xanax refills. "He won't understand."

Alba didn't linger on Reece, for which I was eternally grateful. "When do you turn eighteen?"

I exhaled in relief. "August."

She nodded, but she didn't look like she'd come up with a solution. She was still frowning. "We'll just keep these sessions as they are for a few more weeks. We'll deal with the other stuff when we get to it. Alright?"

I nodded readily. "Thank you."

She walked me to the door of her office, heels clicking to the threshold. I dragged my bag up onto my shoulders and gave her a smile I hoped was reassuring.

"Miles," she spoke quietly, drawing me back to her despite being halfway out of the room already. "We didn't get to talk about this much, but... when I came out to my parents – my Muslim, conservative parents – I thought they would never speak to me again. But it only took them four weeks to call me and apologise. They wanted to be a part of my life, and everything else came second to that," she finished. "People surprise you."

I gulped, feeling the corridor shrink around me a little. "That's great. For you. It won't go down like that with Reece."

"Do you know that?"

I hated that I paused, automatically, before nodding stiffly. Alba frowned deeper but didn't push.

"See you next week, Miles."

Aaron passed me a sheet of biology notes when I sat down next to him, late as usual. Ms. Trudeau didn't question it anymore, she accepted my hall pass with the slightest of smiles; which made my stomach churn, imagining the staff room conversations revolving around me, each of my teachers pitying me over cakes and tea. The thought made me want to puke.

I looked them over. They were handwritten, everything I'd missed while out at my session with Alba.

"You rot my teeth, Aaron Sanchez," I muttered to him, flicking open my textbook. He smirked knowingly.

"You'd do the same for me."

I made a face. "Sure. Can't promise they'd be legible though."

He patted my arm and directed my attention to the board with a jerk of his chin. It was somehow easier to pay attention in class, having him next to me, after our conversation on Saturday. My brain wasn't fogged with guilt and weighed down by mistruths.

Alba's pyramid, from our first session, came to mind. I felt like I was on a higher tier around Aaron than I was anywhere else. I made a mental note to ask Alba how that was possible. My mind felt like it was made up of a mountain range of Maslow's triangles, and there were dozens of different Miles's struggling up each one.

It was nice to have made some progress on one of them. If nothing else, it would help me pass biology. 

a/n: the k10 test is a real thing, and you can access it on the beyondblue website. i'd recommend it to anyone feeling down. if you ever need someone to point you in the right direction for resources when you're feeling low, hit me up <3

look after yourselves, dear readers ~