The minute I sat down in the chair across from hers, the school shrink gave me a warm welcome.
“Please don’t say it like that,” I told her.
Ms. Jordan leaned back in her chair and studied me. “Don’t say it like what?” she asked.
“With all capital letters and an exclamation mark at the end.” I sat on my hands. “Rafe and I aren’t the same person. And besides, he’s not as bad as everyone around here thinks.”
I thought about how he’d helped out at the garage sale and defended me to the Lizard King—even though that hadn’t really happened—and I got a warm, fuzzy feeling.
“Hmm.” Ms. Jordan picked up a pencil and bounced it off the table a few times. “So—what brings you here, Georgia?”
Um, royal command of the Lizard King?
“It’s a long story.”
“I have a lot of time on my hands,” Ms. Jordan said.
I sighed. Clearly, I wasn’t going to escape until I’d delivered my autobiography.
I tried to give her the condensed version.