I felt bad, but not as bad as I should have felt, which only made me feel worse. I had never understood the fuss over babies. My own window of cuteness had been wasted on a man too eyeballs-deep in grief to notice, and I’d managed to survive.
My new phone was saying “Connecting . . .” before I even realized I’d dialed it. It was a cheap relic with a tiny screen and no Internet capability, but at the moment it felt like a life preserver. I heard the receptionist at the Leishman Center answer as I unlocked the door to my room. A blast of heat greeted me; I’d forgotten to roll down the shades before I left that morning.
“If Dr. Davis is there, I’d like to speak with her. It’s Millicent Roper. I need phone coaching, but I don’t know her direct number.”
It was like an oven in there. To distract myself from how hard it was to breathe, I sang along with the hold music and struggled out of my clothes and prosthetics. Sitting naked on the air mattress, I stared at my ungroomed hands. Hangnails everywhere.
BPD whispered to me that Dr. Davis was never going to answer the phone. She was avoiding me, just like everyone else. Why wouldn’t she? What had I ever done to deserve anyone’s patience?
They’ve all given up on you. Dr. Davis, Dr. Scott, your own father. They can’t all be wrong, can they? There’s something wrong with you, deep down. Everyone can tell.
Stop it. Stop thinking. Fix something you can fix, like those hangnails.
Breath coming fast, eyes burning, I found a pair of cuticle scissors in the suitcase next to the mattress. One of my hangnails was stubborn, so I tore it off with my teeth. The stinging little notch it left in my skin filled in slowly with red. The pain was like a lighthouse, sweeping away the dark.
By the time Dr. Davis answered the phone, it was too late, and all I could do was cry.
“What’s the matter, Millie?”
Her voice didn’t belong to any reality that made sense anymore. I had washed out of dialectical behavior therapy. I was never going to see the beige walls of her office again. So I just cried, and she sat silent on the other end of the line. Except there wasn’t even a line. Not even the barest thread of physical connection linked me to anyone on this planet.
“You know I have to ask you, Millie. Are you having suicidal thoughts?”
I stopped crying, finding annoyance. “No. Never again. I’ve told you.”
“Have you engaged in any self-harm behaviors?”
I looked down at the cuticle scissors in my hand, the wetly welling slashes of red on my bare thighs.
“You could say that.”
“You know how this works,” she said calmly. “Once you’ve engaged in a target behavior, it’s too late to call me for coaching. I have to end the call now.”
I started crying again, the ugly kind of crying that’s like your eyes are throwing up.
“I want to go home,” I said.
“Where’s home, Millie?” When I didn’t answer, she asked it again. “Where’s home?”
I didn’t have an answer. I ended the call so I wouldn’t have to hear her hang up.
? ? ?
I woke to a rap on my door. It was still dark outside. I groped by the air mattress for my bathrobe and pulled it on. As I hefted myself clumsily up into my wheelchair, there was another knock at the door, louder. “Just a minute!” I snapped. “For God’s sake, I’m a cripple.”
I took the brake off the chair and wheeled my way to the door, throwing it open to find a groggy and pissed-off Teo. “Let me in,” he said forcefully. I was so startled that I backed off the chair and did as he asked; he shut the door behind us. “Show me your arms,” he said.
I wasn’t quite awake enough to process what he was saying. He grabbed my hand and yanked it up toward him, pushing back the sleeve of my robe. There was nothing there, but now I knew where he was going with this. I twisted my fingers out of his grip and started to back the chair away again.
“Don’t you try to hide,” he said. “Take that off.”
“Excuse me?”
He went for the ties of my robe, and a smoky phantom of whiskey teased at the back of my throat. I shoved the heels of my hands hard into his chest; he grabbed my wrists. My gut liquefied with terror. Even as we struggled, some half--rational part of my brain knew that he was trying to help in his twisted idiot way. “Don’t, Teo, don’t, what are you doing? Get your hands off my body!”
I have never seen a man let go of anything so fast. He turned and walked away and leaned his forehead against a -window. I stared at the back of his head, feeling the pulse pounding in my ears.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.
“Yeah, well, in general, don’t ever fucking do that to a woman. Or a man. Or a dog.”
“I’m sorry, okay?”