“I’m sorry,” I blurt.
“For what?”
“For your boyfriend. He’s…he’s stopped coming around since I came, and if it’s because of me, I’m sorry, and I know that’s arrogant to think, but the nurses blab and I can’t help but think –”
She pats my hand and smiles. “Shhh. It’s okay. They don’t know anything. He’s just busy is all. He works a lot, and he has school.”
“I have school,” I grumble.
She plops the book she brought down on my lap. “And you have seven chapters of The Crucible to read if you wanna catch up before you go back next week!”
I contemplate seppuku, but after remembering how big the medical bill for a cracked head is, I refrain. Mom’s having a hard enough time paying without me adding spilled organs and general death to the list. Besides, I can’t die yet. I still gotta thank Jack properly. Dying before you pay someone back is just plain rude.
“I don’t wanna go back to school,” I say.
“Yes you do.”
“I totally do. It’s a snoozefest in this place.”
“Then we better get reading.” Sophia smiles. I groan and roll over, and she starts reading aloud. She enjoys torturing me. Or she’s just happy to have someone here with her. I can’t decide which. We might get a long great, but she’s still a huge mystery to me. Me! The queen empress of deducing what people are all about! I study her face, her hands, her dress as she reads. Everyone in the hospital knows Sophia, but no one knows what she has, exactly. The nurses don’t like to talk about it. I asked Naomi and she glared and told me it was under doctor-patient confidentiality. Sometimes Sophia stays in her room for ‘treatments’, and those last for days. She doesn’t limp or cough or vomit, and no bandages or stitches are on her. Except for the fact she’s so pale and thin and sometimes complains she has migraines, she’s perfectly healthy as far as I can see.
“Soph,” I interrupt. She looks up.
“Yeah?”
“I know this might be super invasive, and historically invading has been pretty bad overall, but I don’t think I can physically contain my curiosity any longer. Or, I could. But I’d like, implode the star system from the stress. Why are you in the hospital?”
Sophia slowly closes the book. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
Her eyes dampen with sorrow. She stares out the window for a long time before sighing.
“What?” I insist. “What is it?”
Sophia looks back at me. “Oh, nothing. It’s just sad, is all. I’m sad for him. He was so happy, for a while.”
I wrinkle my nose, and before I can explode with the demand for answers, Sophia starts talking again.
“I have the same thing you have.” She taps her head with one finger. My mouth makes a little ‘o’.
“You…split your head open like a melon, too?”
She laughs, the sound like bells made of crystal. “Something like that.”
I look over at the bag she brought. A bunch of romance books crowd it, various clones of Fabio flashing their brooding frowns on every cover as a scantily dressed female is in the inevitable process of fainting on a rock somewhere nearby, preferably directly beneath his crotch.
“Why do you even like those? Aren’t there just like, princesses and kissing and misogyny?” I wrinkle my nose. Sophia shrugs.
“I don’t know. I like the princesses.”
“They’ve got great dresses and fabulous hair and loads of money. Kind of hard not to.”
“I suppose I like the way the stories always end happily. Since…since I know my story won’t end as happily.”
My heart twists around in my chest. She sounds so sure of herself.
“H-Hey! Don’t talk like that. You…you’re the closest thing I’ve ever met to a princess. Like, a real life one. Minus the tuberculosis and intermarrying. And like, beheadings.”
Sophia laughs. “You’re a princess too, you know. Very brave. And noble.”
“Me? Pft.” I buzz my lips and a delightful spray of saliva mists the air. “I’m more like…more like…I guess if I was in one of those books I’d be like, a dragon.”
“Why?”
“It just makes more sense!” I smooth my hair. “Fabulous glowing scales. Beautiful jewel-like eyes.”
“Wings for arms?” Sophia smirks.
“That’s a wyvern! Dragons have wings independent of their limb system! But I forgive your transgressions. I’ve encountered a bit of heartburn today and am not in the mood to eat a maiden like you in the slightest.”
“What would you do as a dragon?”
I shrug. “You know. Fly around. Collect gold. Fart on some townspeople.”
Sophia is quiet for a moment.
“But I still don’t get it. Why does a dragon make sense for you?”
“Think about it. I’d just make a badass dragon. I mean…nobody really likes the dragon. You get to be alone, in a cool quiet place. As a princess everybody likes you and you gotta be in the middle of hot sweaty balls all the time.”
Sophia raises an eyebrow.
“Ballroom…balls. Dances. Uh.”
She laughs that chime-laugh, and I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up, too. I sound like a donkey.
“And I mean,” I add. “You know. Dragons never have to worry about. Um. What I mean is, princes don’t fall in love with dragons –”
Ugly.
“ – they fall in love with princesses –”
Did you think that’s what this was? Love? I don’t date fat girls.
“ - so it makes more sense, you know?”
“Isis?” Naomi pokes into the room. “Let’s go. It’s time for your session with Dr. Mernich. Hi Sophia.”
“Hello,” Sophia says, and smiles at me. “You should go.”
“Ugh, no thank you. Mernich’s going to ask about my feelings and frankly I’d rather swallow a centipede than talk about those things. Or become a centipede and crawl away. Can I become a centipede? Do they allow that in America -”
“Isis,” Naomi says sternly.
“- you can become a certified lightsaber maintenance engineer in America, so I really think you should be allowed to become a bug - ”
“Arthropod,” Sophia corrects.
“ – arthropod, and Naomi! My, what big hands you have. The better to grab me with, am I right? ACK, gently, woman! I’m damaged goods!”
Naomi steers me out of the room, Sophia cheerily waving after us.
***
Dr. Mernich is the kind of woman who forgets to brush her hair but somehow makes the crazed lunatic look work for her, which is weird, because she works with crazies. Not that crazies are bad. I’ve met a few and am probably one of them. I just don’t know it. Or I do. But I refuse to let it get in the way of my fabulousness hard enough to require a shrink. Mernich is my way out of this place, in any case. She’s the one who’s keeping me here until she’s satisfied I’m alright in the head. Which is dumb, because mentally I am a diamond fortress of impenetrable logic and sexiness.
Dr. Mernich clears her throat. “Isis, you’re –”
“I will someday not think aloud, and that will be a sad day for humanity. Also, quieter.”
“How are you feeling today?”
“Parts of me are feeling lots of things! For instance, my intestines are feeling lots of things! That means I need to poop. Sometime in the next hour. In addition to this riveting prospect, I’m worried about my mom so if you could just write me a note so I can get out of here that’d be great.”
“What have we said about avoiding the subject with flippant jokes?”
I squirm. “Uh, it’s vaguely negative. I think.”
“And why is it vaguely negative?” She asks patiently and scribbles some more.
“Because I don’t confront anything, I just run away from it,” I recite.
“That’s right.”
“But to be clear I run away from it like a Baywatch babe, n
ot a fat, sweaty kid in gym class. I mean, I am still fat as heckie but it’s an alluring sort of fat, you feel me?”
“Isis, do you really think you’re fat?”
“Duh. And unlovable. But you already know that.”
Her eyes spark. Of course she already knows that, she’s spent two weeks with me, talking about my life. I’d stalled around her with jokes for a good week until I realized she was the one who gives the go-ahead to let me out. And then I had to start actually cooperating with an adult. Ugh.
“You already know everything about me, right?” I tilt my head. “So c’mon. Why don’t you just let me out of this – pardon my French – absolute shithole?”
She adjusts her glasses. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m certain there are still some things we need to work on. You’re close, but not quite there.”
Even this shrink is obvious. Her self-satisfied little smile as she says that gives it all away. The trophies and awards lining her stuffy walls give it away.
“You like it. Knowing things about people. It makes you feel powerful.”
Dr. Mernich looks up from her scribbling, the faintest whiff of startled hanging around her.
“Excuse me?”
“You. Like. The. Ego. Trip. Shrinking. Gives. You,” I say slowly. “I understand. I see things about people and I just love knowing I know. It’s weird. It’s stupid. But mostly it’s fun and it makes me feel superior. Maybe I’ll turn it into a way to make money someday, too. I gotta think about that kind of stuff, you know, with college and everything a few months away.”
Mernich is completely frozen for point four seconds, and then she starts scribbling madly. She does that when I say something super interesting that she can dissect. So she scribbles a lot. Because I am, objectively, an insanely interesting person. I better be! I work hard to be interesting, dammit!
“Anyway what was I saying?” I scratch my chin. “Right, I feel really cooped up and sort of tired of hospitals. Also I feel bad for Sophia. Did you know she has no parents? And her grandma died? How sucky is all that death? Majorly sucktastic.”
Mernich nods. “I’m her psychologist as well. She’s quite the strong girl, if a little tragic.”
“Wow. That’s sort of condescending? I said I feel bad for her but you went straight to giving her labels like tragic? Wow. That’s interesting. Wow.”
I can see Mernich start a glare behind her glasses, but she quickly cuts it off and resumes her usual passive face. Oh, she’s good. But not better than me. Not better than Jack.
I pause, my swinging legs stopping under the chair. Jack? Where did that come from? How would I know Jack is any good? I haven’t been around him for more than thirty seconds that first time when I woke up and he yelled at me.
“What about Jack, Isis?”
“Uh, I don’t know. It just…it just popped into my head. Which is weird. I mean, most things that pop into my head are really weird, like that one time when I thought about Shrek in Victoria’s Secret underwear, but I think this actually beats Shrek’s Secret.”
Mernich leans back. “What do you remember before the incident, Isis?”
“I was applying to colleges. Boring.”
“And before that?”
“I…I was at school. And I – I yelled. At someone. I don’t remember who. Kayla, maybe. Maybe Wren? Yeah, I think Wren.”
“What did you yell about?”
My palm suddenly stings, and I remember the sudden feeling of slapping someone.
“I slapped someone. I yelled and I slapped them. Wren must’ve done something stupid, I don’t know.”
“And before that? Do you remember any major events?”
“There was a party. A big one. Avery’s house. Halloween – I dressed up as Batgirl.”
“Did Kayla go?”
“Yeah, she was a mermaid. Her and her boyfriend – ugh, what’s his name? I don’t remember his name, but I know I slightly despised him.”
“Despise is an awfully strong feeling.”
“Yes well being alive is an awfully strong feeling.”
“Isis –”
“I didn’t like him. Or, something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t know.”
“And can you recall what happened at the party?”
My head suddenly gives a massive throb, my spine tingling with pain. I squeeze my eyes shut and rub them.
“Isis? What can you remember?”
Leo’s face comes back, leering at me from the doorway. Panic wells up in my throat. I’m not going to be able to save Mom.
“I – I don’t know! Stuff!”
“Try to remember specifics. Did you drink anything? Did you dance? Who was wearing what costume?”
“Wren was…he was a green guy. Link! Link from Zelda. And I drank…coke. I think. With rum. Don’t tell my Mom that. We joke about me drinking but she doesn’t really know I drink. And I danced and there was someone –”
He’s going to hurt her. He’s hurt someone before. He hurt Sophia. Sophia? No, that’s not right. Leo doesn’t know her. Who, then, has hurt Sophia? A baseball bat. Avery came at me with a baseball bat, and someone grabbed it. I can see their broad, spidery hand wrapped around it, wrenching it from her, their low voice saying something with an amused tone to a startled, frozen Avery –
The pain ricochets through my head like a tennis ball on fire.
“Fuck!” I grab my forehead and put it between my knees.
“Take deep breaths, Isis,” Mernich says softly. “You’re doing well, but don’t give up now. What else happened there?”
A bed. A soft bed, someone’s soft lips, someone whispering my name –
The pain splinters, blossoming in my brain like a demented, evil flower. I can’t see anything – the world goes black and my ears ring.
That’s what you get for trusting someone.
Ugly.
Maybe I’ll love you. If you hold still.
Mernich says something but I can’t hear her. It hurts. It hurts and I want it all to stop.
You got guts. I like that.
Have fucking fun trusting nobody for the rest of your life!
I don’t go out with ugly girls.
Ugly.
Ugly.
“Isis! Look at me!”
I look up. Mernich’s face is pale.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to push yourself anymore. I’m sorry. Just breathe. In, and out. There you go. Slowly. Sit up.”
When I lean back into the chair, I realize my hands are shaking. My whole body is trembling, like a thread in the breeze.
“Why?” I murmur. “Why can’t I remember what happened?”
She pulls her clipboard out again and clicks her pen. “Well, to find that out, we need to go to the beginning.”
“You mean like, biblical genesis? Because I have three rules for a happy, fulfilling life, and never time travelling ever is one of them. Because, you know. Dinosaurs kill things. And the black plague. And let’s face it – with my supreme amounts of unnatural charm, I’d be burned as a witch.”
She chuckles. “No. Not that far. I just want you to tell me your story. The real one. The one about Will.”
I flinch, my skin crawling at the sound of his name.
“Pulling my own tongue out and setting it on fire would be preferable to talking about that guy.”
“I know. But I think it’s time to stop running. I think you know that, too.”
I hate her. I hate her so much. She’s the reason I can’t leave. I’m racking up more and more pricey bills the longer I stay here. She’s the reason Mom worries. But I can tell she really wants to know about Nameless. If I tell her the story, maybe she’ll let me go. Nothing else has worked so far. It’s worth a shot, even if that shot will pierce through my guts and leave them to bleed all over the floor.
“From the beginning?” I ask softly.
“From the beginning.” She nods.
I inhale, and let it out as a long sigh. Somewhere outsid
e a bird chirps. I want its freedom more than anything.
“When I was in fifth grade, I developed a crush on a boy. This was my first mistake. He wasn’t a particularly attractive boy, he was sort of quiet and spit sometimes, but he had pretty, dark, silky hair. The female teachers complimented him on it. I wrote him a love note that said ‘I like your hair’ and he wiped his nose on it and gave it back to me at recess. I should’ve seen the warning signs in the mucus. But I was smitten. He’d paid attention to me! Me – the fat roly poly girl with frizzy hair and a constant cloud of B.O. surrounding her! He actually didn’t snub me, or push me in the mud, or call me a fat whale, he just wiped his nose on my declaration of love and gave it back to me. It was the most promising social signal I’d received in my short ten years of life on the planet Earth.
Thus began my descent into utter madness.
I did anything short of committing crimes to get his attention. Also, I committed actual crimes. Like riding my bike on the freeway shoulder lane to get to his house and stare at him through his window while he played video games. But then I found out it was illegal! You can’t ride your bike on the freeway at all! So I started taking the bus to look at him through his window while he played videogames.
Anyway, so there I was, in the prime of my life, and by prime I mean not prime at all. Mom and Dad were going through the divorce, which involved a lot of shouting and money and guilt, so Aunt Beth offered her home for a few months so I wouldn’t have to switch schools, which turned into nearly five years, but Aunt Beth was totally cool about it. We had grilled cheese almost every night and she let me watch R-rated movies. So basically I’d died and gone to heaven and neither of my parents gave a diddly-damn except Mom who sometimes got guilty and sent me lots of exceptional socks. I love her, but really, socks?