There’s nothing in Seventeen about what to wear to see your shrink. I grab yoga pants and a hoodie from the back of the closet and pull the half of my hair that’s long enough into a ponytail.
It’s my first appointment since going home, and there’s another drive to the city. No Red Bull or Jolt mints for me this time. I eat a healthier cereal for breakfast, the one with all the raisins, and when Mother, Father and Stephen are at the table, I take the opportunity to make my case for the birthday party. It will be good for me, I say, to be around people again. I’m totally ready and need to start small, in the comfort of our home, before I take bigger steps like going back to school. It’s all bullshit. The truth is, I hate that I am ruining everyone’s lives.
Finally, Father agrees. “We’ll keep it small and short and invite your friends too. And if you get tired, you can go hide in your room. But only if you promise to take me with you. Your mom’s friend Lucy can be super annoying.” We all laugh, and it’s a done deal.
A few hours later, Mother and I are in Dr. K.’s waiting room. Mother pulls the hood of my sweat-shirt off my head and touches her hand to my cheek. “I’ll sit here and read a magazine,” she says. “When you get out we can go have lunch. How about Taco Bell? You always loved it there.” She picks up a Reader’s Digest but doesn’t wait for an answer. You always loved it there. I have become the past tense.
A few minutes later the receptionist calls my name, and I follow her down a dingy hallway to an office with an open door. Dr. K. is sitting in a big chair.
“Jessie!” She stands up with a huge smile.
She looks different, somehow, outside the hospital. Her hair is pulled up in a bun, and her long skirt makes her look a little Mary Poppins-ish. As much as I wish I was done with head doctors, I’m glad to see her. Obviously, my life is beyond pathetic. Dr. K. walks toward me.
“Is it okay if I give you a hug?” she asks.
I nod and we give each other a quick embrace. Then she gestures for me to take a seat.
I’m disappointed there’s no comfy chaise longue where I can stretch out and relax while she tries to get some reaction out of me. There’s only a regular gray-metal chair with green padding on the seat and back. The walls of her office are covered in serene nature photos: icebergs, mountain scenes, a close-up of green leaves. Once sitting, I cross my legs, uncross them, then try to slouch, but that’s so uncomfortable I sit up straight again.
Dr. K. laughs. “We need new furniture, I know. That chair is pitiful.”
“It’s fine,” I say. I’m sure most people who sit in this chair have other, bigger things on their minds than interior decorating. Or nothing on their minds at all.
“How are you doing, Jessica?” She leans forward, her brown eyes warm with genuine concern. “I’ll bet you’ve been enjoying the freedom from questions and tests and rehab exercises and all that jazz.”
“For sure,” I say. “But of course I missed you.”
She laughs again. “I know sarcasm when I hear it.”
This is friendly chitchat, I know, the warm-up to the real discussion. She’s softening me for the tough questions she will soon hurl at me. But if I were to spill my guts now, I would tell her that I missed it all: the smell of the hospital, the sounds of the elevators and meal carts, the dumb exercises in the rehab room, even the grumpy nurses. But then she’d know how nuts I really am.
“But seriously, Jessica”—her tone takes a turn, from shooting the breeze to let’s pick your brains in the nicest way possible—“how has it been, going back home? Has it been what you imagined?”
What I imagined? First real question and she’s already got me stumped. I let out a long, intelligent “Uuuuuh” to show her I’m not ignoring her but thinking.
What did I imagine? A week ago already seems like a whole other lifetime, and whatever I might have envisioned for life at home has been replaced by real, fresh images of reality.
“Well,” I answer slowly, “it’s been all right.”
She waits. But the crazy thing is that even if I did want to talk about it, I don’t know how I feel. I like being around Stephen. Mother and Father try so hard, and seriously, how could any sane person prefer the hospital? But the problem is, I don’t feel like I belong in that house with those people. I’m like an ungrateful guest with no manners.
“It’s confusing,” I say finally, as Dr. K. peers at me intently. “I want to like it. But mostly it’s just weird.”
“What is weird, exactly?” Dr. K. loves specifics.
The first thing that pops into my mind is Mother standing beside my bed, asking me if I want to go for a walk. I can feel the heaviness of her expectations as though she were sitting on my chest.
“Everyone wants me to be normal. Or at least try harder to be like the old me. But I don’t feel normal at all.”
“What’s normal to you?”
She, of all people, understands I can’t answer that question. I try counting in my head to calm myself, to keep from snapping out something nasty. But she sees right through me.
“You know, Jessica, you can tell me if you don’t like a question. But I will probably still want you to answer it. This whole therapy thing is not going to be easy. But if you give it a chance, it will help you transition more smoothly back to real life.”
Real life. Normal. Could someone tell me what those things are? I want to be that Girl they all want me to be, but I didn’t exactly get an Idiot’s Guide to Being Your Former Self when I woke up from my Deep Sleep. But Dr. K. wants an answer. Now.
“All right. Yeah, I don’t like the question. How am I supposed to know what real life is or how to fit back in? I’m a bit of a freak, if you haven’t already noticed.”
Dr. K. frowns. “Please don’t call yourself names. I know it’s your way of joking around, but you are absolutely not a freak. You are a fabulous, bright, young woman, and you have had something horrible and difficult happen to you.”
Her words are like a kick in the side. Horrible. Heat rises in my face, and my eyes water. But it is not sadness. I feel like smashing something, hurling nasty words at the universe for what’s it done to me. It’s true. It is horrible and not fair, and I want to know what I’ve done to deserve this.
“Actually,” I say, “I hate your useless questions. And I hate trying to hold everything in all the time. I hate, hate, hate it!” I stand up and push the cheap, ugly chair so that it lands with a clatter on the floor. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it will leap out of my chest.
Dr. K. stands up and comes toward me. “It’s okay,” she says, her voice soft but firm. “I know this is tough.” Her hands are on my arms, pushing them firmly to my sides. “We’re here to work things out. You’re very brave to do this.” She steers me over to her chair and sits me down. She leans close to me, forces me to look into her eyes.
“Jessie, I know you feel everyone wants something from you. But the only thing I want is to help you. And I can, if you let me. I’m going to be giving you some homework assignments, okay? I want you to start by writing a list of ten things that you are grateful for. We are going to try to focus on the positive side of everything as much as we can. You are too strong for self-pity.”
I unlock my eyes from hers, and when I look up I see a print on the wall I hadn’t noticed earlier. It’s a pasture with a rickety wooden fence at sunrise, the misty dew of early morning sprinkled on the grass and hay bales. It reminds me of our farm, and I am hit with a feeling, or more of a memory of a feeling: it’s peaceful and warm and feels like belonging. Like what home should feel like. I think of the Girl’s eulogy, and how she fit so well into her little cocoon of a life. My shoulders sink.
“She was so damn perfect,” I say.