by Andra Brynn
“Wait!”
His hand lands on my shoulder.
There is a dizzy moment where I see myself turning around and punching him right in his do-gooder face. The world slips and slides, my vision skews as two paths open before me, and the world bifurcates into two different futures—
Then his hand tightens, and the warmth reminds me of the kindness he showed me as I ruined his lecture by puking cheap wine all over his floor.
I don’t punch him. Instead I turn. “What?” I demand. I try not to think about how large his hand is, how strong his fingers are.
He doesn’t react to my anger. Instead his brow is creased, his wide brown eyes almost hurt. “I have a background in counseling,” he blurts suddenly.
I stare at him. He pulls his hand back and I swallow.
“If... if you need someone to counsel you. I can do it. I’d like to help you.”
I stare at him some more. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what he’s getting at. I almost think he’s hitting on me, if that weren’t absurd on its face. No one would ever be interested in a girl who stood out from the crowd by vomiting in the middle of class, especially not a man as pretty as this one is.
But he is insistent. “Please,” he says. “Let me give you my number. You can call me if you need to talk. Any time of day or night. I promise I’ll answer.” And he looks so sincere that I find my hand dipping into my pocket and pulling my phone out.
I watch as he takes it from my hands and dials his own cell. In his pocket it rings and he saves his number in my phone before handing it back to me. Then he pulls his own phone out. “How do you spell your name?” he asks.
“Bianca,” I tell him. “Bianca Ray. R-a-y.”
He types it in and saves my number, then shoves his phone back in his pocket. “I mean it,” he says. “Call me if you want to talk.”
And for some reason I nod.
He holds out his hand, and without thinking I put my hand in his.
His fingers are warm, strong, dry. It sends a little shiver up my arm. We shake and then part, and I back away a little quicker than I should.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Call me,” he replies.
I just turn around and push my way through the glass doors and into the October morning.
The wind picks up as I step outside, the gray clouds skittering across the sky, leaves dancing through the air. Even the sweet, cool breeze can’t revive me. Shaken, I cross campus, heading towards Marchand House in a daze. Classes are letting out now and as I walk, I look at everyone I pass. I feel pale next to them. Insubstantial.
I’m a real ghost now, I think suddenly. I’ve known people put on probation before. It’s weird, but you don’t want to be around them. They always feel like they’re living on borrowed time, but now I realize that everyone instinctively knows that they are already dead, and like all people since the beginning of time we fear it’s catching. We are all taking a test, in this time between high school and the adult world, and the ones who fail are dangerous.
Don’t touch me, I think at everyone I pass. I’m dangerous.
No one does. I drift through the crowds and to the edge of the campus, where Marchand House sits. Two trees tower in the front yard, ancient and gnarled. Their dry leaves whisper and click together as I trudge up the front walk. I key in the code and let myself inside.
Not even the familiar musty smell of the old mansion can comfort me. The anger has receded and now I’m just scared, bone-deep, soul-deep.
If I get kicked out of college, there’s nowhere for me to go except back home. And I can’t go back there. I’ll die.
Maybe I’m dying here, too, but it’s slow, and it feels good. Fucking too many guys and drinking too many nights away—that’s a slow death, but not a bad one. Of the two choices, I want to stay here. The thought of returning to my mother’s house, where everything is cold and sharp...
My heart squeezes in my chest. I peek in the living room to see if anyone is here, anyone who could take my mind off my impending doom, but there’s no one except a guy I don’t recognize sleeping on one of the couches. When I retreat, I see a message on the house whiteboard: “Don’t call the police. The vagrant sleeping on the couch is my cousin. Feel free to draw on his face. —Mason.”
The message doesn’t even wring a laugh out of me. I turn away and run up the stairs.
The room is empty. Tanya is at class. I drop my bag and grab one of her water bottles and drink half of it. Then I shimmy out of my jeans, climb to the top bunk where I sleep, and crawl under the covers.
I’m not going to cry. I’m going to bullshit my way out of this mess. Somehow.
I’m shaking with cold. I burrow down, close my eyes, and try to sleep through the fear.
.0.
You can’t conjure a ghost.
I know. I’ve tried. A lot of other people have tried, too, and they were all frauds or kooks. You just can’t ask a ghost to come to you. It has to come on its own.
I don’t know what it’s like to be haunted. I mean, really haunted, by a spirit. But I can guess.
My brain tries to kill me sometimes. Little things set me off. Things that seem innocuous. Things like gunning a car engine, or someone yelling at the TV. Or it can be something that’s never haunted me before at all, something like a telephone hanging on the wall.
The day will have been normal. Nothing strange about it at all, and I’ll be strolling through the kitchen when I spy the telephone. An old wireless one, the kind you plug into the wall and charge. And then I’ll think, I hope I didn’t ruin that nice 9-1-1 operator’s day.
And just like that I’m falling and it all comes crashing back in like the bursting windows of a sinking ship and I’m drowning in the terror and the helplessness, the cold and the despair, and I’m on my knees and I can’t breathe, and I’ll never get past it, it will always come back, I will never escape, never escape never escape, never never never never never never never fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK—
.0.
So.
That’s what it’s like to be haunted. You can’t just call it up, and anyone who wants you to is an asshole.
.5.
The Student Health Center is cold and sterile and smells like a veterinarian’s office. I hate that about places where people go to get healed. It never smells like health. It always smells like death.
It’s Thursday and I am sitting in one of the plastic chairs, waiting for the counselor to call me. I don’t know who is going to counsel me. I made the appointment yesterday after classes, a whole day after Dr. Arthursen told me to seek help. It took me that long to work up the courage to pick up the phone. My hands shook the entire time.
They’re shaking now. My body is full of adrenaline, fight or flight, and my stomach twists and turns inside me. I haven’t had anything to drink since Tuesday morning, and I am uncomfortably sober.
I wish, idly, that I’d slugged a couple of shots of Nyquil before coming. It wouldn’t be the same, but it would be something. Something to wrap me up and cushion me. Swaddle me in cotton, protect me from the sharp edges I just can’t avoid this time.
I hate counseling. I hate therapy. I’ve been to a dozen therapists at least, and none of them could help me, and right now I know, before I even go in the door, that this time will be no different. My whole body is curling up, curling in on itself. My feet are blocks of ice in my shoes and my heavy hoodie is doing nothing to keep me warm in the chilly waiting room. My teeth are starting to chatter, and I would kill for a glass of wine, a bottle of beer, a fifth of Jack. Anything.
Anything.
But of course I can’t. I can’t risk it. The only thing that I hate more than therapy is the thought of getting kicked out of school and having to go back home.
I can’t. I just can’t.
I stare down at the blue Berber carpet under my feet. I’ve always hated Berber carpet. It’s ugly and institutional. Just seeing it reminds m
e of my middle school. It had the exact same shade of blue Berber coating the classrooms.
My hands are fists and I’m chewing on my tongue.
“Bianca Ray?”
The sound of my name snapping through the air makes me jump, and I look up to see a young woman standing in the doorway, giving me a smile.
My own automatic smile answers her back. I hate how programmed I am. Smile. Be nice. Be pleasant to the person who is going to dissect you while you’re still alive.
I swallow and stand, shouldering my backpack.
“I’m Debbie Chandler,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you.” She keeps smiling as we shake hands, then she turns and I follow her into the place beyond the door.
I’ve been to the Student Health Center once before, to get a pap smear. The place is surprisingly small, but it still smells like a doctor’s office, clean and clinical and almost unused, and it’s probably the only building on campus besides the new state-of-the-art athletic center that was built in this century.
Debbie leads me down the white halls. We pass a couple of examining rooms and then turn a corner to another, shorter hallway. There are only two rooms here—a unisex bathroom, and a dark wooden door.
It’s so out of place in the white, sterile building that I almost pinch myself. The strange feeling that swept over me when I walked into my Holocaust class and saw Daniel McGuire standing there instead of Father O’Reilly comes crashing back. I’ve slipped sideways in the universe, and haven’t even noticed it. I’ve accidentally walked into a parallel world, and I don’t know the rules.
Then Debbie opens the door and I see that inside it is painted a dark green. There are two couches, a desk, some bookshelves, soft lighting, and, most egregiously, more of the fake plastic trees the administration likes to install in the academic buildings.
Every effort has been put into making this place like a room where you would talk to a friend. Homey. Comfortable.
I stiffen immediately.
Debbie goes inside, and I realize she’s wearing faintly professional clothes, slacks and a sweater set. Her ash-blond hair is swept up into a bun, little strands brushing against her lean, angular face. She’s thin, so thin I can see the bones of her shoulders jutting through her skin. She didn’t introduce herself as doctor, but it’s clear she’s going to be my counselor.
I swallow and follow her inside. She shuts the door behind me.
She gestures that I take a seat on one of the couches and I do. I’m finding it hard to breathe. She sits down across from me and hands me a box of tissues.
I put the box down next to me. If she thinks I’m going to cry in front of her, she is sorely mistaken. Therapists love it when you cry. It means you’re feeling something. But I don’t want to feel anything. Where is the therapist who will teach me how to do that?
“Hi, Bianca,” she says. “Please call me Debbie.
“Debbie,” I say. “Why not Dr. Chandler?
She smiles. “I’m a grad student in clinical psychology. This is part of my training. Are you comfortable with that?”
I nod, because the truth is I wouldn’t be comfortable with a regular doctor, or anyone. I don’t want to be here. I don’t. There are no windows in here, and I have to breathe deeply to get any oxygen at all.
“So,” she says, pulling a clipboard into her lap and tucking her feet under her, “what would you like to talk about today?”
I stare at her. She’s nice. Her blue eyes are sincere. Her lips are thin but her smile is genuine.
“I was told to come here,” I say. “I got put on academic probation on Tuesday.”
She raises her eyebrows. “On Tuesday? That usually happens at the end of the semester. Why Tuesday?”
I look away. “I came to one of my classes drunk.”
She writes something on her clipboard. “Do you drink a lot?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “A lot.” I am staring at the fake plastic plant next to me. It’s covered in dust. The picture of health, but it’s really dead and frozen. I suddenly have the silly feeling that this whole college is just a place where people go to be arrested in time. The lifers, the fifth year sophomores, the graduate students, the post-doctoral academics...we’re all here, suspended in amber.
From the corner of my eye I see Debbie look at me sharply. “Okay. Well, I can’t imagine getting put on probation helps with the desire to drink.”
I almost crack a smile at that, but I stifle it. “Yeah,” I say. “Probation is no fun sober.”
She nods and writes on her clipboard again, and my stomach is starting to churn.
I stand up and she looks at me in surprise.
“I hate sitting on the couch,” I say.
“You’ve been to counseling before?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I can’t sit on the couch.” Nervous energy runs through my limbs, and I bite my lips, my toes curling in my shoes.
“Has therapy helped you before?” she asks.
I hate saying this. “No.”
I can’t even look at her. I start to pace. My heart is racing and I cross my arms to keep my hands from shaking. I twist the thick material of my hoodie between my fingers and hold onto myself for dear life. If I let go, I think, I might fly apart. I see it in my head, my body disintegrating, floating up into the sky, scattering across the universe, until I’m just stardust and darkness.
“I see,” she says. I hate telling therapists that therapy hasn’t worked. Then they look at it as a sort of challenge. I will be the one who helps this poor girl, they think. I will save her.
I reach the end of the room and pivot, walking back to the desk. The space is so small, not nearly big enough to hold all my anxiety. I’m almost vibrating with it. I’ll fly apart. The thought is stuck in my brain, like a song on endless loop.
“What sort of problems have you had in the past that you’ve sought therapy for?” she asks me.
I laugh, and it’s short and sharp. “Depression,” I tell her. “That’s it. Just depression.” I’m going to fly apart. I hug myself tighter.
I reach the desk and pivot. My breath is cold in my throat. I can feel it curling in the back of my mouth, as though it wants to be let out in a scream.
“Depression is nothing to joke about,” Debbie says. “It’s a serious condition.”
I fucking know that, I want to tell her. No fucking shit.
“When did you first see a therapist for depression?”
“Middle school,” I say. I’m at the end of the room again. There’s a painting here on the wall, a terrible painting of a flower. It looks like something you’d find in a motel room. I wish I could rip it off the wall.
I pivot. Fly apart.
“Did something happen in middle school to trigger your depression?”
I don’t say anything. I can’t breathe.
“Bullying?” she asks. “Abuse at home? Divorce? Anything like that?”
I reach the desk. I pivot. I’m a tiger caged. I’m a wild animal. I’m lightning arcing between two wires. I’m going to fly...
“Bianca.” Debbie’s voice is gentle. “If you sit down, we can talk.”
“I’m not sitting!” I almost shout. If I sit, I’ll be trapped. If I sit, we will talk.
If I sit, I might say something I’ll regret.
“Okay,” she says. “That’s okay. Do you want to talk about your drinking?”
“No,” I say.
“Then the probation?”
“I don’t want to get kicked out of school.” I’m pacing so fast now it takes me only three steps to get from one end of the room to the other. I want to hit the walls with my fists, kick in the cheap sheet rock, escape, escape.
Don’t ask me anything else, I plead inside my head. Don’t make me feel anything else. I’ll—
“It won’t be the end of the world,” she says. “Lots of people leave college and then go back to complete their studies—”
“I’m on scholarship,” I say. To my endless sh
ame, my voice is trembling. “This is my one chance to go to school and not get buried in debt. If I flunk out, I have to go back home!”
Her blue eyes are sharp, watching me pace. “You don’t want to go home?”
“Who does?” I snap. “Who would want to move back home after getting to leave?”
I’m about to fly.
She writes something down on her clipboard.
“Stop analyzing me,” I say.
She looks up, surprised. “I’m not analyzing. These are just notes so I can keep my thoughts in order.”
I stop in the middle of the room. “You can’t help me,” I tell her.
She blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“You can’t help me,” I say again. “I can’t do this. I have to get out of here.”
She stands up, her thin hands reaching for me. I shy away.
“This isn’t right,” I say. “You won’t understand.”
She drops her hands. “Maybe not,” she says. “But I understand what it means to be happy and stable. I could teach you.”
I pick up my backpack. “No, you can’t,” I say. “You can’t. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I have to go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” I say.
She stands very still, as though I am a deer ready to bolt. “You can come back any time you like,” she tells me. “If you want to do your sessions outside, or somewhere else, we don’t have to do them here.”
Like it matters where I tear my heart out and give it to someone to look at. “No. I’m going.” I pick up my bag. “I’m really sorry,” I say again, and I will fall, I will fly, I will fall apart—
“It’s okay,” she says, and then I’m out the door.
Guilt burns in my belly. I’m terrible. I can’t even fake it for her. All I’d have to do is go in, have a little cry, pretend being sad is all that’s wrong with me, and then she’d feel better.
But I want to feel better, and she can’t help me. She wants to help me, and I know she can’t.
I hate therapists. I hate making them fail.
I half-walk, half-run down the narrow hallways, and I remember so many different offices before this one, places that were cramped, or spacious, or bright or dark, places that were oh so professional, and they would teach me oh so many things about being normal, about moving on, if only I would commit, if only I would allow myself to open up and do the work. Do the work, do the work.