I can’t do that either.
He flips through my chart. “I can see if you can have something else to help you sleep. Like Xanax or Ativan. Do you want me to do that?”
Still, I can’t talk, but he must see something in my eyes. Horror. Despair.
His voice softens. He puts the chart down. “Got it. No Xanax for now. Just try and breathe, okay? I’m going to stay with you.”
chapter
thirty-eight
the wolf
I am not new to therapy.
I know the questions they will ask.
I know the answers I can give.
I know the diagnosis I will receive and the medications they will put me on.
None of it will fix me.
The day Keith, Siobhan, and I decided to die did not give me PTSD. Seeing their ruined bodies pulled from the river was consequence, not truth. Reaction, not trauma. That’s what everyone forgets.
The pact between us was never the problem.
It was the answer.
“Tell me about your wolf,” the doctor says. He sits across from me and presses his fingers together to form a tiny steeple.
“He’s stuck,” I say.
“Where?”
“Inside of me.”
“What does that feel like?”
“What do you mean?”
“What does it feel like to have a wolf stuck inside of you?”
“Oh. It makes me feel broken. Like I’m broken. I mean, I’m sixteen. I’m old enough. I should be changing. That’s how nature works.”
“What does your wolf look like?”
“How should I know?”
“You’ve never seen it?”
“No. But I…” My mind flicks back to what I saw in the meadow on the way up here. A young wolf that glowed like honey. “I had a vision of what my sister would have looked like. She was beautiful. A brown wolf. Very nimble and graceful. Maybe mine would be similar.”
“You think?”
“It makes sense.”
“By vision, do you mean you saw something that other people could not see?”
“I suppose,” I say.
“Your sister’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“Your brother, too.”
“Yes.”
“But they had wolves inside of them?”
“Yes. We all did. But they never changed. Keith was fourteen when he died. Siobhan was only seven. She was…”
“She was what?”
“Good. She was a good girl.”
“How did they die?”
“They jumped off a bridge. A train trestle. Back in Charlottesville.”
“I see.”
“They didn’t want to change,” I say.
“And you?”
“I did. I do.”
“You wanted to live,” he says.
“You say that like it’s a good thing. A virtue.”
“What is it really?”
I think about this. “Selfish.”
“Wanting to live is selfish.”
“Yes. Siobhan and Keith, they knew what we were. What the future held for us. And we all made a pact not to become … that. To never grow up and hurt anyone. But I wasn’t strong enough. I’m weak. And so I lived.”
The doctor’s lips part, but we both know he doesn’t have the right words.
“Your mother,” he says finally. “Does she have a wolf inside of her?”
“Oh, she must. She married one. She let us be raised by one.”
“I’ve spoken to her, you know. She tells me she suffers from depression. She has for a long time. She blames herself for what happened.”
“She shouldn’t. It wasn’t her fault.”
“Whose fault was it?”
I don’t answer.
“Was it Keith’s?”
I still don’t answer, but I’m not surprised by the question. It’s what people usually think. That Keith was sick and persuasive. That Siobhan and I were na?ve and corruptible. They’re wrong, of course, but that’s no one’s business but mine.
“Your parents separated soon after,” he says.
I stare at my feet. That’s when the hive inside of me heats up. It fills my ears with its caustic drone and beads my upper lip with sweat.
“Yes,” I manage. “But what happened, that wasn’t the only reason they split up.”
“What was the other reason?”
“My father got sued by a former student. He lost his job. It humiliated him.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see him. If I did, I’d…”
“You’d what?”
Every part of me trembles. I shake my head.
The doctor leans forward. His chair squeaks. “Tell me about your father’s wolf.”
“I’d like to lie down,” I whisper. “I’m tired.”
“You haven’t been eating.”
“They won’t let me run. I need to run.”
“You have a history of starving yourself,” he says gently.
I lift my head. I meet his gaze. “I have a history that I don’t like to talk about.”
chapter
thirty-nine
relativity