“Are we here about me or you?” Gran asks the question so loud, it’s like she thinks the answer is stowed in my ear.
“Me,” I grumble while pretending to read a tabloid. I hope the specter doesn’t make an appearance during my appointment.
My turn comes, and I perch myself on the edge of his couch. His eyes take in my body language. He must notice that I look like I’m ready to spring.
“Make yourself comfortable, Ryan.”
I scoot my butt back, like, half an inch, unaware that I’m fiddling with one of the bandages on my arm until he looks down at it. He notices everything. “I know it’s protocol to go through this, but we’re all wasting our time. I’m not mentally ill. It was a stupid mistake. Stupidity isn’t an illness.” I clear my throat.
“I’d like to talk more about what happened the night you returned from the hospital. Your mother indicated that you had some kind of episode?”
Memory of my bedroom full of eyes bears down on me. My face flushes, making my cheek throb. This office is too hot. My mind squirms under his scrutiny. I feel like a bug that’s been pinned to a board while it’s still alive.
“I was tired.”
“I’m sure you were. You’d been through quite a lot.” He jots something down on a yellow legal pad. “You mentioned seeing eyes. Your parents said you wanted them to stop watching you?”
“I’d been sleeping. I had a bad dream, and I think I woke confused.”
“You were dreaming that eyes were watching you?”
I swallow loudly. “Yes.”
“You were standing and fighting with your eyes open,” he says in that question-but-not-a-question way. I don’t confirm or deny. He forges on. “And during your episode when you were on LSD, did you see eyes then, too?”
“Eyes . . .” I start to say yes, but that’s not the whole of it. I saw a girl in the mirror. She saw me. We fell into each other.
I’d never been in a fight before that.
“You fought the eyes?” the doctor asks, scribbling.
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken that out loud. “I was on drugs,” I stammer. “Seeing things. Isn’t that normal when you’re on LSD?”
Dr. Collier scratches his head with the tip of his pen and smirks. “It’s possible that what you experienced in your bedroom was what is known as a flashback. This can sometimes happen after taking psychedelic drugs. It’s very important to let someone know if it continues, Ryan. You have nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.”
You do. Yes, you do. Be afraid.
My head snaps up. Her threat echoes so loud, I wonder if he’s heard it too. I glance at the window. His gaze follows mine. There is no face in the glass, just the frozen arms of a cactus outside. My heart thrums in my ears.
Be afraid, she says again.
He has no idea about my fear.
“And how are your emotions? Would you say you’re feeling the normal range of emotions?”
“I’m not feeling much. My emotions are . . . deadened.”
You should be dead.
Inside my sneakers, my toes are curled so hard they hurt. My hands are shaking bad enough that I stuff them under my legs. The voice has cast a spell on me. The rest of our session is like a bad date. There are too many questions on his end, too many one-word answers on mine. I figure the less I say, the better. Ayida bookends my appointment with another five minutes alone with the doctor, and then we’re on our way home to make dinner. Gran has fallen asleep in the backseat. My mother is as rigid and silent as a tombstone.
Nolan is relaxing in front of the television, drink in hand, when my mom and I walk in, supporting Gran by her arms. She’s a little wobbly from waking up, tipping like she’s boozy. “Can we ride the motorbike again?” she asks through a yawn. I bite my lip, but my mom seems to take this as a dementia moment and answers, “Not just now, Mama. We need to make dinner.”
We settle Gran in a chair by the kitchen table and get to prepping food. The doorbell rings, and I offer to get it so my mother won’t have to.
Avery smiles and leaps on me for a tight hug. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since the night of the LSD. “You’re okay!” she squeals, then pulls back to look me over, taking in my bandages. “Are you okay? How bad is it?” she asks, pointing at my face.
“I don’t know yet. It hasn’t been unveiled.”
“Well, what’s a few scars as long as you’re alive and well, right?” She bounds through the front door and hones in on the savory smell of caramelizing onions wafting from the kitchen. “I wanted to wait until things settled down before coming over,” she says.
“Probably a good call,” I say as my mom sets another place at the table.