Would You Believe Me?

The door slams open as a kid enters through the door with a dissatisfied expression on his face. His chin was badly bruised, and arms and knees were riddled with scrapes.

“Mateo Rosales I presume?” I said, reading his name off the list, “got into another one of your little fights again?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Isabelle Torres,” he sarcastically said, reading my name off the nameplate in front of me, “what else does it say on my file.”

I sighed and threw the papers on the desk. I was tempted to activate my Esper powers to calm him down, but I didn’t want to become dependent on it. Using my calming aura as a cheat code to resolve conflicts wasn’t the right way to grow as a mediator.

“Look here Mateo, I’m not your enemy,” I explained, “I’m just here to help you calm down and help you do better in school—something that you want too right? Unless of course, you enjoy being angry.”

For a moment, he pauses, as if considering what I said but then he shouts, “I just don’t understand why I’m the only one who’s in trouble here! They’re the ones who attacked me first, and I was just trying to defend myself!”

“We know,” I said in a stark tone, “why do you think you were sent to me and not to the detention center? For someone who likes to read name plates, you sure aren’t good at reading the whole thing.”

He looks back at the nameplate in front of me, reading the title underneath my name written in sharp capital letters, GUIDANCE COUNSELOR.

“....Sorry,” he apologizes, “it’s just that I haven’t seen you around before… I thought I finally got into enough trouble that they sent me somewhere more serious.”

“That’s alright, I’m only a recent hire anyway so I don’t expect people to recognize me.”

“It also doesn’t help that you started off by saying something generic… all that ‘I’m not your enemy’ and ‘I’m just here to help’ stuff—they all say that.”

Was it generic? I wondered, I should probably change up my approach next time.

“So you’re telling me, you thought you got sent to what—juvenile prison or something—and your first thought was to act all snarky with me?” I asked, “in a real situation that would’ve gotten you into some serious trouble.”

“If I was good at making the right decisions do you think I’d be here?”

I snorted. He had a point.

“So,” I said, taking a deep breath and hoping to restart the conversation, “why’d they decide to attack you?”

He looks up at me but doesn’t say anything.

Not so talkative now hmm? I figured, he’s probably too embarrassed to admit it.

“Just so you know anything you say here will be used against them,” I added, “so just think of it as incriminating them further.”

With that comment, his face brightens up a little.

“I just didn’t fulfill a promise on my end that’s all,” he murmurs, “in hindsight, I probably deserved it. I should’ve paid them back on time like I said I would but I got lost between all the other things I said I’d do for other people.”

He looks me in the eye.

“You said you’re here to help me right? If you really meant what you said, and weren’t just saying that to get me to calm down, then I want to know how I can be better… I only have two more years of school, and honestly… I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I continue as I am I won’t make it out in the real world for very long.”

I stared at him in surprise. If he was willing to admit something like that to a person he just met, then he must be telling the truth—he was scared—but that also meant that he was willing to change.

I looked at his file that I threw at the table. Throughout his school years, he got into a lot of fights with different people. He was suspended 22 times and was constantly failing all his classes, only getting a pass because his mother had argued that the suspensions were setting him back. It was a miracle that such an excuse worked, but the fact that it did meant that our system had failed him.

I don’t know if I’m capable of helping a kid like that, but I’m willing to try.

“If you want me to help you, then you have to tell me what you think your biggest problem is,” I said, “your records tell me what you did but not why you did them. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to ignore what you’ve done so far, and you tell me why you think you ended up in those scenarios. I want to solve the problem at its root, but I can’t if I don't know what's going on inside your head.”

He takes deep breath and admits, “I was told by someone long ago that if I wanted to accomplish something, the first step to doing so was saying that I will do it… but just saying it doesn’t make me want to do it any more than I did before, and all that it’s made me into is a liar—someone who can’t keep his promises and someone you can’t trust to keep his word. It’s honestly a miracle that those guys trusted me with their money.”

“Then why not stop making promises you can’t keep?”

“...I want to, but I feel like if I don’t say I’ll do anything, I won’t accomplish anything at all… it’s the only way I know to convince myself to do the things that I don’t feel like doing.”

I see, so his confidence in himself must be pretty low and it doesn't make it better than no one wants to trust him anymore because of the way he acts.

He needed someone that was willing to believe in him, but that wasn’t all; if it was that simple, he would’ve improved in himself as soon as the guys who beat him up trusted him with their money. What he needed first was the ability to start believing in himself.

“Why don’t you tell me what you want to do then?” I said, “surely there’s something that you actually want to accomplish. We can start with something small and then build our way up.”

“Well… I am pretty hungry right now…” he says.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I… I’m going to get some food then.”

“Then go get some.”

He looks around the place and asks, “do you have some on you?”

I snorted and reached into my drawer to toss some crackers at him.

“Thanks,” he said.

“See? You just said you’ll do something and you actually did it. Now what is it that you really want to do? You don’t have to accomplish it now, but it can be something that we can work up to together.”

“...You said you’re a new hire so I don’t know if you’re from around these parts, but you know about the Equinox Festival right?”

“I was born and raised in this very city of Sacromos, of course I do.”

“Then you must know it’s every little kid’s dream to get the chance to blow the horn during the ceremony. The only problem is that my father left when I was young and my mother is very frail and gets sick often, so I never got the chance to blow the horn. Not that having a father or a healthy mother guaranteed that I got to blow the horn, but it really sucked watching the other children get excited about something I had never had the chance to get. Now of course horn blowing isn’t something that I want to do anymore—that’s a childish desire… it’s just that if I become a father one day, I don’t want to be like mine. I want to become a father who’ll give his kid hope that they’ll get a chance to blow the horn… no, even further than that, I want to become someone strong enough so that my kid will get the chance to blow the horn.”

He then looks me in the eye and asks, “do you think I can accomplish that? Become a good father who won’t leave his kid behind?”

“I wouldn’t see why not,” I replied, and for the first time since our conversation started he let out a smile.

“Can I have another cracker?”

I laughed and tossed another one at him, but as I do so, the boy gasps as he catches a glimpse of the scales on my right arm under the sleeves I wore to cover them up.

“You’re an… Esper…?”

I nodded my head.

“Then that means…”

That the horn won’t sound for me when I die… Honestly, the only reason I’m still here is because it was easy to get this position. Once I build up my reputation and get a resume going, I’m leaving the mountain cities behind.

“Mrs… Torres,” he said, addressing me in the proper manner for the first time, “how about I make you another big promise? Would you trust me?”

“Go for it.”

“I promise you that the horns of the mountains will sound for you one day when you die,” he said.

This kid… talking like it isn't rude to point out that someone who's older than you was naturally going to die first… but still… I can’t help but be filled with hope at such a statement. Even if it was coming from a kid who’s just now becoming trustworthy for the first time in his life.

“I look forward to it,” I finally said, “but if you don’t keep your promise I’ll haunt you from the foot of the mountains.”