All Things New, page 14
“Have you noticed a pattern to the wounds?” Dr. I asks calmly. “You said you don’t see them on everyone. So have you paid attention to who you do see them on? Why some people and not others?”
“I don’t know,” I say, irritated. i need answers not more questions. “Shouldn’t you be telling me?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Jessa,” he says gently. “My job would be a lot easier if it did.”
“Awesome,” I say flatly. “You can’t help me, either.”
“I am helping you,” he says, and there it is again, that familiar calm in his voice. “I’m telling you that what’s happening in your mind isn’t random. But you already know that. You said yourself that what you’re seeing is specifically connected to your own experience. You were hurt. You’re now perceiving other people as being hurt. If I were you, I’d start there.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” I say, frustrating rising. “Start where, do what?”
“Think like a philosopher,” he says. “Figure this out.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” I say, sarcastic, too sarcastic, why am i being such a bitch? My eyes drop back to my lap. “Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s just— I’ve tried all the things. Meds, therapy, supplements, a hundred different diets that are supposed to reduce stress. Nothing has ever worked.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds.
“What do you have going on before school tomorrow?” he asks then.
I shrug. “Why?”
“About a year ago, some students started a support group, open to anyone who felt they needed to come. It meets Tuesday and Thursday mornings at seven-twenty at the recreation center down the street.” He looks over at me. “I was thinking you might like to try it out.”
thanks no thanks
I start to shake my head.
“The group is completely confidential,” he goes on. “The students take that very seriously. Which is probably why the group is so popular. Anywhere from twelve to twenty kids come every week. I’d guess the majority suffer from anxiety, like you, or depression. But others are dealing with bipolar disorder, OCD, eating issues, addiction, self-harm.”
I try to let these terms bounce off me, but they lodge beneath my skin. “And they all go to Crossroads?”
He nods. “When the group first started, the administrators assumed it would be mostly alternative school students. But it’s turned out to be a fifty-fifty split between the two programs, and spread out fairly equally among the four grades.”
There’s an odd sort of comfort in this.
“Why doesn’t it just meet here?” I ask.
“The students thought about holding it in a classroom,” Dr. I replies. “But for many of the kids who come, school doesn’t feel like a safe place to open up.”
is any place safe?
“I think it could be really good for you,” Dr. I says quietly. “Very low pressure. There’s no faculty member there, only students. And no one will expect you to talk on your first visit. Unless you want to, of course.”
“I won’t,” I say quickly.
“So you’ll go then?”
There is pretty much nothing I want to do less.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “I’ll go. Do I just show up?”
Dr. I nods. “It meets in the big room beside the gym. Just make sure you get there on time, because at seven-thirty they shut the door.”
“Okay,” I say, but I feel my mind changing, the excuses trickling in, the reasons I might not show up.
“How about I meet you there at seven twenty-five?”
“I thought you said it was students only?”
“It is. But getting through the front door can be hard the first time. Sometimes getting to the parking lot is even harder.”
so much for those excuses
Eventually, I nod. “Yeah, okay. I’ll meet you.”
Dr. I points at the wooden spoon peeking out of my bag. My hall pass. It seems like an eternity since I left sixth period. “Do you need to take that back? You’ve only got five minutes before the bell.”
“Probably.”
He gets to his feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then,” he says. Then he gives me a little wave and walks off.
Chapter Fifteen
The rest of the day passes quickly, minutes tumbling past, leaving a snowball of dread in their wake until the bell rings and it’s time to go home. I think about finding Hannah again, but for what? Our conversation earlier left me more rattled, not less.
“Hey, Bear,” Dad says when I get in the car. “How was your day?”
“Not great,” I say, and feel a wall come up between us, the wall that keeps him out. “Marshall’s in the hospital,” I add, and the wall comes down.
“What? Why?”
“He has a blood clot,” I say. “In his leg. And I guess it’s really risky for him because of his heart condition—”
Dad frowns. “Marshall has a heart condition?”
“He was born with a hole in his heart,” I say. “They were going to leave it there, but now because of the clot, they’re putting a device in to close it. Tomorrow.”
I’m looking out the window but Dad is looking at me, studying me, gauging my reaction to all of this. We’re still parked in the same spot.
“That’s a lot to process,” I hear him say.
I nod. And then, out of nowhere, but really out of everywhere, I say, “I talked to the school counselor today.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d that go?”
“Good. He wants me to come to a support group tomorrow. Before school.”
“Are you going to do it?” He’s trying to sound so casual but I can hear the hope in his voice.
“I guess.”
“I think that’s great,” he says. I can tell he wants to say something else but he doesn’t. Instead, he just backs the Jeep out of the parking spot and heads home.
As soon as we’re in the house I’m pulling out the phone-book and looking up the hospital’s main line, digging a pen from my bag to write the number down. My eye catches the folded pink paper in the inside pocket. no boyfriend!!!! it shouts. I ignore it and dial the number.
The only landline is in the kitchen, but it’s cordless so I take it outside as the operator connects me to Marshall’s room. It rings four times before he answers. I’m just about to hang up.
“Uh, hello?”
“Hi.”
“I should’ve known it was you,” Marshall says, and I hear him smile. “Calling the landline. So vintage.”
“Right?”
“Where are you calling from?” he asks.
“My dad’s,” I say, sitting down on the patio steps. “We just got home. How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Bored of sitting here with my leg propped up. How are you?”
“Hey, is your mom with you?” I ask instead of answering.
“No, I sent her home. She’s coming back with my dad and Hannah. Why?”
“Will you tell me more about the support group you went to? The one you told me about Friday night?”
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
“I dunno. What it was like. How it worked.”
“We basically just sat around a circle and talked,” he says. “When new kids were there, the doctor in charge would ask everyone the same question, the way he did on my first day. But most weeks it was more of a vent session. Not so much about our physical issues, but what we were feeling.”
“What was the point of it?”
“To feel better, I guess. The doctor in charged used to call it shrinking our dragons. He said that by putting them out there, naming our fears, they’d get smaller. Or less scary at least.”
A dragon is exactly what it feels like, my panic. Breathing fire in my gut.
“You still there?” I hear Marshall ask.
“Yeah.”
“Why did you want to know about the group?”
I hesitate. “I think I might go to one,” I say finally, haltingly. “A support group. Tomorrow morning, before school. Dr. I told me about it. I—I went to talk to him today.” These are just words, facts I am reciting, why is this so excruciatingly hard?
“What’d you think of him?” Marshall asks.
“Dr. I? He was fine. I’d met him before. Why?”
“People are mixed on him. Just wondering what you thought. The support group sounds cool. Is it the one that meets at the rec center?”
“Yeah. You know about it?”
“Not really. Only that it exists.” He pauses. “I’m glad that you’re going.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“What made you decide to do it?”
I’m quiet for a few seconds. It’s only one word, but that doesn’t make it easier to say. “You,” I tell him.
“Because I went to one?”
“More like you having a blood clot and needing a heart procedure.” I take a breath, just say it, pull the band-aid off. “I have an anxiety disorder,” I blurt out. “Since before the accident, before the thing with my mind’s eye. I get panic attacks, and . . . other stuff, too.”
“Like what?”
“Like really dark thoughts I can’t stop thinking.”
Marshall makes a sound in his throat, a cross between an ah ha and an oh man. “You’re worried about tomorrow.”
“So worried,” I whisper. This truth is terrifying to speak. It doesn’t feel smaller now that it’s out there. It feels like the biggest thing there is. “Aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” he says softly. “I’m a little sad, weirdly, that they’re closing it, after I got used to the fact that I’d have it forever. But mostly relieved that I won’t have to think about it anymore. And supes disappointed that I won’t get a cool Frankenstein scar to show for it.”
unlike you, frankenstein barbie
Heat floods my cheeks, fast and prickly. “Yeah, bummer,” I say sarcastically.
“I’m an idiot,” Marshall says quickly. “Obviously scars are hard for people who actually have them. I just think they’re cool. Especially yours.”
I don’t say anything.
“You won’t believe me because you haven’t seen them,” he says. “But your scars are most definitely the cool kids of all scars. Scar royalty.”
I stand up so I’m eye level with the window. The blinds are down so my reflection is impossible to miss. Less clarity of detail than the mirror in the school bathroom, but I can see them still, fourteen lines scattered along the left side of my face.
“I have, actually,” I say, with a punch of take that. “Seen them. I’m looking at them right now.”
“Really? What happened to avoiding mirrors?”
“What can I say? Today was filled with progress.”
“Go you,” he says. I hear his smile. “I’m really sorry to hear about the anxiety,” he says then. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It’s not something I generally lead with.” or talk about ever with anyone
“How long have you had it?”
“Since seventh grade.”
“You were so young,” Marshall says.
“Yeah.”
“Are you getting treatment for it?”
“Not anymore,” I tell him. “It was pretty bad when it first started. I was pulling my hair out and stuff like that. It freaked my mom out. So she took me to therapy and put me on meds.” I fumble for a piece of hair, realize I’m doing it and sit down on my hand. “The therapy didn’t help and the meds made me feel worse, but it was easier on both of us if I let her believe that I was getting better. So I started hiding it more . . . twisting my hair instead of pulling it, making myself throw up when I’d have panic attacks so I could pretend I was just sick. Mostly, she bought it. Or she pretended to, so she wouldn’t have to deal.”
“And your dad?”
“He was here. I don’t know how much my mom told him. Not a lot, I’d guess.”
“Does he know now?”
“He knows how bad it got. After the accident, I couldn’t hide it anymore. It’s the reason I’m here, probably. He saw how messed up I was and freaked.”
“You’re not messed up,” Marshall says. “You’re human. We’ve all got our stuff.”
Annoyance flares in my chest. “Yeah. Well. You won’t have yours after tomorrow. I’m sort of stuck with mine.”
Neither of us says anything after that.
“I should probably go,” I say finally. “Homework and stuff.”
“Yeah. Okay. Good luck at the support group tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
I hang up without saying bye and then feel so bad about it I almost call him back. He can’t help it that his broken places are fixable. It’s not his fault that mine aren’t. But the positivity is obnoxious, because it’s not actually based on anything real. Sometimes it feels like he doesn’t even see the people around him, not really — he just sees what he wants to see. No wonder Hannah gets so irritated when he tells her how awesome she is at piano. Inside she must be screaming YOU HAVE NO IDEA. What was it she said about him when we first met? He likes being the weird guy with the heart defect. It means he doesn’t have to try to be anything else. Meanwhile the rest of us are struggling to be anything other than fragmented, anything other than torn apart.
I go back inside the house.
The next morning, I spend a good twenty minutes trying to talk myself into driving myself. In the end I chicken out. I probably would’ve bailed on the whole thing had I not told Dad about it yesterday, which maybe subconsciously I did for that very reason, to make sure I’d go.
We pull into the rec center’s parking lot at seven twenty-two. Dr. I is sitting on the bench out front, the book he had yesterday in his hands. He smiles when we pull in.
“I’m proud of you for doing this,” I hear Dad say.
i don’t want to do this
“Thanks,” I mumble, and fumble for the door handle, dread churning in the space behind my belly button.
“You made it,” Dr. I calls when I get out of the car.
I glance back at my dad. He gives me a super awkward thumbs up.
“I’ll see you after school,” I say, and shut the door.
Dr. I stands as I walk toward him, pocketing his book.
“You ready?” he asks.
no
I shrug. “Sure.”
“Let’s do it then,” he says, then turns and heads inside. One foot in front of the other, I follow him, on autopilot now, the safest mode, because when I’m on autopilot I do not think. Not about my issues, or Dr. I, or the kids inside the building. On autopilot I just do, there is no space even for me to be.
Autopilot takes me through the front door. Then autopilot promptly sputters out. My legs stop moving and I am just standing there in the lobby, sweating. The heat is chugging from the vents. I tug at my scarf.
Dr. I points at an open door nearby. Voices inside, the buzz of several conversations at once. “It’s in there.”
“Okay,” I say, but don’t move.
“I’ll wait for you in the gym,” he says.
I start to shake my head, start to tell him I can’t do this, that I’d rather talk to him about my issues than wear them into a room full of strangers my age. But then there are footsteps behind me, and a girl in a puffy green jacket and Uggs is coming my way. I see the scars first, zigzagged and puckered, like a little kid drew lightning bolts across her cheeks with a stick. I blink, hard, willing my brain to behave, but of course it doesn’t. The scars stay put.
“Hey,” the girl says casually, her boots dragging with every step. “First time?”
“Um. Yeah.” I glance over at Dr. I.
“Go on in,” he says lightly. “I’ll see you when it’s over.”
“C’mon,” the girl says, and smiles. “You can sit by me.”
“Be present,” I hear Dr. I call from behind me. “Don’t let yourself check out.”
“I know it’s terrifying,” the girl in the green jacket says when we get to the door. “Walking into a room like this for the first time, with people you don’t know. But this is a safe place. You’ll see.”
I follow her in and take the seat next to hers. There are a dozen kids seated in twice as many seats arranged in a circle in the center of the room, drinking water from styrofoam cups, bagel halves on little paper napkins in their laps. My eyes hover on their knees, avoiding interaction. I feel myself start to retreat, to pull back from this moment. To check out.
be present
Reluctantly, I pull my eyes up, force my mind to engage. I immediately regret it.
My brain has painted wounds on every face in the room. There’s no pattern to it, no method I can see, everyone just looks messed up, from the boy in the beanie with the horrible bruises, to the girl with the braids and the skin-twisting scars, to the boy whose cheeks are burned so badly the skin is nearly peeling off.
i can’t do this
Shaking, I drop my eyes to the carpet, where it’s safe. My fingers are already in my hair, spinning, making knots, tugging at my scalp so hard it makes my eyes sting. Inside, behind skin and muscles, the walls are coming up, keeping reality out, keeping me in.
“Let’s get started,” the girl in the green jacket says to the group. The boy nearest to the door gets up to shut it. “As always, what’s said in this room stays in this room. The only other rule is honesty. We don’t lie to each other. Everyone agreed?”
There are nods around the circle.
“Awesome.” She smiles warmly. “I’m glad you guys are here. New peeps especially. Who feels like sharing today?”
“I’ll go,” a girl to my left says. My eyes are on my knees so I can’t see her face. “I’m Amber. I have an eating disorder. Anorexia. I started restricting when I was eleven. Not because I wanted to lose weight or anything. But because not eating made me feel safe.” I hear her take a breath. “My dad had – has – a gambling problem. On days when he was winning, he’d bring home steaks and he and my mom would drink champagne and dance in the kitchen. But on days when he was losing, which was most of the time, dinner was whatever I could find in the cupboard. A can of beans. Instant oatmeal. If that.”
