What Kind of Girl

by Alyssa Sheinmel

  But I also got Dr. Kreiter.

  In our first session, I sat stiffly on the couch across the room from Dr. Kreiter. No way was I lying down like they did in the movies.

  She introduced herself, then said she’d worked with kids like me before. I bristled just like my dad had. We’d barely exchanged pleasantries and she’d already reduced me to a type.

  “Cutters, you mean?” I asked. I’d Googled cutting and self-harm months earlier. Apparently, the urge can manifest in more socially acceptable ways, like people who have lots of tattoos. And some cultures have ritualistic scars, and no one accuses them of being mentally ill.

  I mean, it’s not like I thought what I was doing was okay. I’m not an idiot. I kept the cutting secret for a reason, careful to use tissues or sometimes toilet paper to blot my wounds, flushing them down the toilet to hide the evidence. I knew it wasn’t normal, but maybe I’m not normal.

  Then again, according to what I read, it’s not that weird either. One website said that one in fifty teens cut themselves. If that statistic is right, then (given the size of North Bay Academy), at least seven of my classmates were also doing this to themselves. Even Princess Diana was a cutter at some point.

  Plus, plenty of people bite their nails, cut their cuticles until they bleed, pick at scabs that haven’t healed. Isn’t that just a (socially acceptable) kind of cutting? Mom never suggested I see a therapist for nail-biting. (And okay, yes, I read once that some people develop obsessive disorders that take nail-biting and scab-picking too far, so those habits can become problematic too.)

  But what I did wasn’t nearly as bad as what some other people do. I read about teens who burned themselves, or used thicker, dirtier devices like nails and screwdrivers to cut themselves, not clean razor blades like I did. I even read one story about a girl who broke her own arm, another who broke her kneecap.

  In fact, people have been hurting themselves for hundreds of years. In Victorian times, doctors bled sick patients, cutting into people’s skin to make them well. The science behind it had long since been debunked, but maybe it offered patients relief nonetheless, even if it was just a placebo effect. And even before that, people cut themselves for religious reasons, like self-flagellation.

  The truth is, I’m not sure anxiety and OCD are particularly good reasons for what I did. Some of the case studies I read online were about teens who’d been sexually assaulted, physically abused, seriously neglected. And here I was worrying about my SAT scores and not having plans on a Saturday night.

  But Dr. Kreiter said, “There’s so much pressure on teens today. It’s not enough to get good grades, you also need the best extracurriculars, the best friends, to wear the best clothes, and drive the best car. It’s a lot to take on.”

  I looked past her to the framed degree from Duke University that hung on the wall behind her desk. Was I supposed to believe she’d gotten into the college and graduate school of her choice without a perfect GPA and extracurriculars?

  I slid my hands beneath my thighs, hoping it looked like an absent gesture, just an awkward teenager trying to get comfortable.

  She said, “The endorphin rush that comes with cutting can be incredibly powerful.”

  I nodded, because I’m a good student, and that’s what you’re supposed to do when a teacher makes a point, but the truth was, I didn’t think the doctor’s endorphin-rush theory applied to me. I cut to calm down, not to get high.

  Then Dr. Kreiter asked me if I had people to lean on.

  “Of course,” I answered. “My parents. My best friend. My girlfriend.” Almost-girlfriend, at the time, but Dr. Kreiter didn’t need to know that.

  She nodded. “Do you go to them when you need help?” I didn’t answer. Dr. Kreiter rephrased, like she thought maybe I didn’t understand what she was asking. “Do you trust them enough to let them see your weaknesses?”

  I tried to imagine telling my father that I worried about getting into Stanford, that I didn’t know if I wanted to be a lawyer. I thought about Maya, so busy with Mike that I hardly ever saw her anymore. I thought about Tess, who thought I was cool because I never bothered getting to class on time. If she knew it was a symptom of OCD, she’d never look at me the same way. And if she knew about the cutting—well, then she might never look at me again at all.

  “Juniper?” Dr. Kreiter prompted. I shrugged. “It sounds like you don’t trust any of them enough to let them see when you need help.”

  I wanted to say that it didn’t sound like anything because I hadn’t answered her question, but she kept talking.

  “I’d like to help you develop that trust with some of the people in your life.”

  I nodded, but really I wanted to roll my eyes. Tess wouldn’t fall in love with a crazy person. My parents were already disappointed enough about the cutting and my diagnoses—letting them see any more of me would only make things worse. And everything came so easily to Maya. She would never understand.

  “And,” Dr. Kreiter added, “we’ll work together to help you find healthier ways to reduce and manage your stress.”

  I didn’t like the sound of reducing my stress. Did she mean she wanted me to drop some of my extracurriculars, move from advanced classes to regular ones? Had she already decided I wasn’t strong enough to do the things I had to do to get into Stanford like Dad?

  “For now,” Dr. Kreiter continued, “I want you to know you can trust me. You can ask me for help, and I promise I won’t judge you.”

  I nodded again, but I mean, what did it matter if I could trust Dr. Kreiter? I didn’t care whether or not she loved me.

  Today, Dr. Kreiter tells me she’s already spoken to my mother, so she knows about the situation at school. For a second, I think she means how Tess broke up with me in front of everyone, but then I remember that Mom doesn’t know about that, so she can’t have told Dr. Kreiter, and anyway it’s not nearly as important as the real situation—the one between Maya and Mike.

  “This must be difficult for you,” the doctor says.

  I shake my head. “It’s difficult for Maya,” I correct her.

  She nods. “Of course it is. But these things don’t happen in a vacuum.”

  “That’s true,” I acknowledge. “My mom wants to get the parents together to talk about it. I mean, something about our school created an environment where Mike thought he could get away with hurting his girlfriend.”

  “Perhaps,” Dr. Kreiter concedes, “but that’s not what I meant.”

  She wants me to ask her what she did mean, but I know if I wait in silence for a few seconds (letting the clock on our hour tick down), she’ll explain.

  “I meant that the things that happen in the world around us affect us. Maya is your friend, and she’s in pain.”

  I don’t say anything. Dr. Kreiter continues, “When things happen to our close friends, we tend to absorb them, especially at your age.”

  I hate when Dr. Kreiter says things like at your age. It’s reducing me to a type again. They really should’ve taught her not to do that in medical school.

  I never told Maya that I’m in therapy. I never told her about the cutting. When I missed school in February, I said I had strep throat. She and Mike came over after school with flowers and soup. (And my homework assignments, since I didn’t want to fall behind.) She returned the tank top I’d lent her to wear on their V-Day date. I didn’t really want Mike to see me sick in bed like that (I kept my legs under the covers, afraid they’d be able to see the bandages through my pajama pants), but Maya hadn’t called to check first, and it’s not like I didn’t know that a visit from Maya would probably mean a visit from Mike too since they were always together. Anyway, Mike would have been her ride, and it’s not like I could have asked him to wait in the driveway while Maya and I talked.

  I asked how her Valentine’s Day had been, and she shrugged like it was no big deal because she
knew I’d been alone, and she was always thoughtful about things like that.

  “It was awesome,” Mike interjected. “Did she show you the bracelet I got her?” He’d been standing in the room with us the whole time, so obviously he knew that she hadn’t. Maya held out her pale arm to show me the slim silver bangle around her wrist. “She promised never to take it off,” Mike said.

  Now, when I think about it, the bracelet reminds me of a handcuff. But at the time, I thought it was pretty, and I wondered if Tess and I would ever have the kind of relationship where we exchanged gifts, where everyone knew that if you invited one of us somewhere, the other was likely to come along.

  Now, I can’t remember if Maya was still wearing the bracelet when I saw her earlier. I should’ve looked.

  “This must be very unsettling for you,” Dr. Kreiter says. “After all, Mike is your friend too.”

  I shake my head. “He’s definitely not my friend anymore.”

  Dr. Kreiter nods. “Okay. So that’s at least one way in which your world has changed since Maya’s confession.”

  I don’t like her choice of the word confession. Like Maya’s the one who did something wrong.

  “Can you think of any other things that have changed?”

  I have nowhere to sit at lunchtime. I’m determined to plan a protest that my mother won’t want me to attend.

  Oh, and my girlfriend broke up with me in front of the entire school.

  “Juniper?” Dr. Kreiter prompts.

  My parents unintentionally named me after a Franciscan priest named Junipero Serra who set up missions along the California coast. They saw the name on a sign and liked the sound of it for a girl born in June, so I’m Juniper Serra Mesa-Stern—my parents hyphenated my last name so both of their heritages (Mexican Catholic and Eastern European Jewish) would be represented.

  Because I have a June birthday, my parents could have waited a year before having me start kindergarten, so that I’d be one of the oldest kids in the class instead of one of the youngest. Apparently, my pediatrician suggested waiting, because in addition to being young, I was also (I still am) small for my age, and he was worried I might be intimidated by bigger kids.

  But my dad said he wasn’t worried. He said I was big on the inside.

  Of course, I was young enough that no one asked what I thought about it. Young enough that I didn’t even know these conversations were happening at all. I only know now because my dad loves telling that story.

  Dr. Kreiter is still waiting for an answer. I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say finally. Then I glance at the clock and add, “Time’s up.”

  Wednesday, April 12

  Nine

  The Activist

  The thing is, I actually think Tess was right the other day when she said that if Mike hurt one of us, he hurt all of us.

  Well, actually, she didn’t say that, because I cut her off before she could finish her sentence, but I think that’s where she was headed.

  It is about us: about the girls, the women, of North Bay Academy. We deserve a school where we feel safe.

  And how can we possibly feel safe with Mike walking the halls?

  How can any of us feel safe coming forward in the future if this time, the first time (that we know of), the administration takes the side of the abuser rather than the abused?

  I send a text message to almost every female classmate whose number I have in my phone. (After a pause, I decide to include Tess, though a wave of butterflies crosses my stomach when I type her name.) I invite them to a meeting, but I ask them to keep it quiet, explaining that I don’t want the administration to get wind of it. I say boys are welcome too. I say we’re meeting on Wednesday after school. That’s when the LGBTQIA+ Alliance meets, so I already have a classroom reserved.

  I don’t include Maya. She doesn’t need this on her plate. I’ll loop her in after all the details are ironed out.

  About thirty girls show up. Maybe ten guys. Some of them look like boyfriends who’ve been dragged along. “Is this everyone?” I ask, standing on a chair in the center of the room. That’s something my dad taught me—be in the center of the room, not the front. It promotes a feeling of equality, plus you don’t have to shout as loud. I suppose my standing on a chair mitigates the equality part of things, but I’m so short that no one would see me otherwise.

  I shake my head. “This is pathetic.” There are around two hundred girls at North Bay Academy, about fifty girls per grade.

  “It’s just the first meeting.” I turn and see Tess standing behind me. She wouldn’t have to stand on a chair to be seen. We must have looked ridiculously lopsided walking down the hallways hand in hand. “Word will spread.”

  I jump off my chair, pretending not to see it when Tess offers her hand to help me down. “We don’t have time for word to spread.”

  “What do you mean?” There’s so much chatter in the room that Tess has to raise her voice.

  “We have to act fast. The school’s board of trustees is meeting on Monday to decide how to handle this. We have to show a united front before then.”

  Someone shouts out, “How is Maya?” The room goes quiet. I get back up on the chair.

  “If you’re here because you think I’m going to give you some details that haven’t been included in the rumors floating around school, then you’re gonna be disappointed. We’re here to help, not to gossip.”

  I reach into my backpack and pull out a wrinkled piece of paper. I hold it up over my head.

  “Do you guys remember receiving the North Bay Academy code of conduct freshman year?”

  Most of the girls shrug. Lucky for me, I’m a pack rat; this page was tucked into a folder beside my freshman schedule. (One of the benefits of my particular form of OCD: I don’t throw anything away.)

  I practiced this speech last night. I wrote it down and read it over and over until I memorized it. I watched myself recite it in the bathroom mirror. I didn’t want to risk not knowing the right thing to say.

  “I’m sure you guys gave the code of conduct as much thought as I did on the first day of school—barely any at all.” A few of my classmates laugh, and I continue, “But Mike is clearly in violation of it. It says that physical violence among students is unacceptable.” The crowd murmurs and I keep talking. “We have a precedent. A few years ago, two sophomore boys were expelled for fighting on campus.”

  “Yeah, but Mike didn’t do anything on campus.”

  “As far as we know,” someone else adds.

  “But it doesn’t matter whether it was on campus or not, if there weren’t any witnesses. It would be her word against his.”

  “What about her black eye? Doesn’t that count as proof?”

  “That happened over the weekend. Not during school hours.”

  I hold up my hands to try to quiet the conversation, but it’s taking on a life of its own. I glance at Tess, and she puts her fingers in her mouth and lets out a deafening whistle. Everyone shuts up. I try to ignore the butterflies that have returned to my belly. I’m here to work, not to flirt with my ex-girlfriend. And definitely not to think about the fact that I’ve never called her my ex-girlfriend before.

  “The code of conduct doesn’t say it has to be on campus. It just says violence.” I figured someone might ask this question, so I practiced this response too.

  Someone shouts, “Yeah, but fights break out at parties all the time, and no one gets kicked out.”

  I nod. “That’s because no one turns anyone in.” I pause, then resume my speech. “The truth is, North Bay doesn’t have a policy in place for this sort of thing. And whatever the code of conduct says, I know this probably isn’t what they had in mind.” I practiced that too, deciding which words to emphasize. “But that means what happens next—what happens with Mike—is going to turn into the rule that applies the next time this happens, and the next t
ime, and the next. We have to set an example. If Mike gets away with it, what’s to stop the next guy from doing what Mike did? From doing something even worse?”

  The crowd rustles with agreement.

  “We have to show a united front. Let the administration know what we want. Insist they do the right thing.”

  “What is the right thing?” someone calls.

  I take a deep breath and say, “Mike Parker should be expelled.” The murmur softens. “I know it’s harsh,” I say carefully, “and the code of conduct says that punishment is at the school’s discretion. But we can—we have to—organize and insist that North Bay’s policy is one of zero tolerance.”

  “I thought maybe suspended for the rest of the year.”

  “Kicked off the track team.”

  “Sent to summer school and like, anger-management classes or something.”

  I nod. “Look, all that would be a good start, but even if he gets suspended, eventually Maya will have to walk onto a campus that welcomes her abuser. It’s bad enough she has to do that now, while we wait for Monday’s board meeting. Bad enough she’s had to do that for the past few months.”

  Someone shouts out, “We’re sure she’s telling the truth, right?”

  Tess answers before I can. “What are you suggesting, Erica?”

  “I mean, like Juniper said, it’s been months—Mike and Maya have been together since last semester, right?”

  “Right,” I answer. The last time I drove her to school was the first week of November.

  “So,” Erica continues, “I just think we have to be sure—we don’t want to stand behind her if there’s a chance she’s lying.”

  “Lying?” Tess echoes.

  Erica shrugs. “Exaggerating, maybe. Or confused. I mean, remember what happened when that magazine article about campus rape was debunked? It hurt the whole movement.”

  My hands are shaking so hard, I can’t even manage to shove them into my pockets. I swallow a gasp of surprise when Tess reaches up to take one of my hands in hers. Her palm is cool against my clammy one.