From Nicole’s journal:
Thurs, 21 October-
This was my first face-to-face talk with Dr. Schmidt. She suggested I start logging my thoughts to chart the progress of my recovery, as if recovering from this is possible or even necessary.
Me: “You want me to blog about this?”
Dr. Schmidt: “No, a diary, just for you.”
Me: “As in Anne Frank.”
DS: “Exactly.”
Me: “Or Sylvia Plath.”
DS: “Let’s shoot for a nicer ending.”
Me: “Virginia Woolf.”
DS: “Just think about it.”
Still, I like Dr. Schmidt. Dr. Nye on the other hand scares me. He’s motionless. That red microphone icon blinking on his iPhone. The angle of his head, looking over his rimless glasses at me. The top edges of the lenses cut his eyes in half, and they look like blue suns on a warped horizon. “Did your father ever hit you?” “Do you think you’re still beautiful?” As if I ever thought I was in the first place. What kind of person asks that?
My face was on fire the whole day. My mind is on fire. My heart. The rage feels good. I only pretended to take my pain meds.
Mom: “You’re sure you took them? Promise?”
Me: “Swear.” Worse liar than she is, and she knows it. Magically the meds appear on the bathroom counter with a glass of cranberry juice. I wonder if she suspects I’m flushing more than pee. I’m sick of feeling numb. I want to be awake again. I was today, this afternoon, for about five minutes. In the waiting room, with Jay. The way he went to get a cup of water, pretending not to see the tear rolling down my cheek. He wanted nothing from me. He only wanted to give me the time I needed to wipe the tear away. To get myself together. He made me smile. It hurt more than crying, wrinkling my mouth up like that. But it was the good hurt, the one that makes me feel alive. Real. Remarkable, that his simple act of kindness triggered a relief from the numbness. It was a forgetting and an awakening at the same time, transitory but deep. Then there’s David.
He keeps telling me this doesn’t change anything, but how can it not? How can anybody look at me without pity, the last thing I need? He keeps saying it. The word. Rests his hand on my heart as he says it. “You’re still beautiful.” He knows he’s lying. What must people see when they look at me? No symmetry. No balance. Only Emma sees the old me. She’s incapable of lying, but for how long? Em, what will I do when you’re gone?
I won’t feel sorry for myself. I don’t. I can keep pretending.