In order to keep from being medicated anymore, I have to convince them that what my mom suggested was true. What I’m experiencing are flashbacks from the LSD, and I need time. I just need time.
After the physical examination, the written test, and the doctor trying very hard not to look frustrated as I give him as little information as possible, I am led out into the excessively beige waiting area. I wonder if they purposely leave it colorless so as to not provoke emotions in people. The receptionist glances furtively in my direction every few seconds while shuffling papers as Dr. Collier talks to my parents privately. She’s acting like she’s not watching over me, but I know she is. Everyone is watching me.
My parents come out of his office, ashen-faced and grim. My dad gives a tilt of his head that conveys his displeasure.
“Well?” I whisper to my mother as we head to the next appointment right across the street.
“Honestly, Ryan, I don’t know what you told him?—”
“Or didn’t tell him,” my father interjects. They flank me as we walk: wingmen to the cuckoo bird.
My mother roots around her purse for something, then answers while dabbing fuchsia lipstick on her generous lips without a mirror. “He says he can’t conclusively diagnose you at this point.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Ayida stops walking and whirls toward me. “I am not disappointed he didn’t diagnose you with bipolar disorder or paranoid schizophrenia or any other mental illness! I am disappointed you weren’t honest with him! I have no agenda but to see you well, to see you get back to yourself.”
“You want that, don’t you?” Nolan asks me. His voice is uncharacteristically gentle as he opens the door to the medical facility.
I enter, and my footsteps stutter on the gray carpet. It’s familiar. Too familiar, but I can’t say why. “I don’t want to go in here again. This place treats people like walking germs.”
My mother scowls. “Baby, you’ve never been here before in your life.”
My lips purse together. I could swear I’ve seen this place?—?though maybe it was in my bad dreams. The memory is dreamlike, hazy. Haven’t I previously shuffled down these long halls lined with enlarged glossy photographs of the desert? “You sure?” I ask. Walking the corridor is like being dipped in a vat of desolation. Every cell in my body rejects the idea of being here. I want to run.
“I’m certain.” She points to the photographs. “You’d think they’d put up pictures of the beach or forests,” my mom comments with fake cheeriness. “We see enough of the desert as it is.”
“Pictures of the beach would just be a tease,” I answer shakily, glancing at a black-and-white of a Joshua tree posing haughtily for the sun. I suck in my breath, seeing the spirit’s face flash at me from the thick, gnarled branches in the photograph.
In the next picture?—?the sun setting behind the Sierra Nevada?—?her eyes pierce mine, her face as stony as the granite mountaintops. I force myself to keep walking.
A still photograph of a menacing, coiled, tawny rattlesnake makes every hair on my body rise. I will myself to stare at it. How can she possibly harm me? But it looks as though venom drips from her open mouth. The sound of the fast quiver of a rattler morphs into her scream. My skin rolls with fear, with the sensation of shedding, like that snake.
Do snakes feel fresh and vulnerable after they’ve discarded their old skin for new? How long does it take for the new skin to thicken so that sensations don’t feel like an assault? My spit tastes like sour, acidic venom.
Photo after photo scrolls by, and there she is, in every frame. My heart pounds as if I’ve been running an endless hallway. The girl is determined, though. She tells me in a voice like the snarl of a leopard, I will haunt you forever.
I keep my head down until I’m sitting in the waiting area. My mother asks if I’m okay. Words will betray me. They already have. I nod and sit on my bandaged hands to conceal their violent trembling. We’re ushered into the exam room. There are no mirrors, thank God.
First the doctor removes the bandages from my arms and upper thighs. I crinkle my nose at the yeasty smell of the gauze. Is it supposed to smell like illness? My stomach rolls. Something about being in this room makes me feel like my blood is pulsing thick with a spreading disease.
Then, slowly, she peels away the wide swath of cotton gauze on my cheek. The air hits it with cool breath. I feel exposed. My mother’s hand flings upward to her mouth, but Nolan seizes it and pulls it calmly to his side. She turns away from me and pretends to search for something in her purse.
“Bad, huh?” I ask my father as the doctor prods my cheek. He’ll steel himself and tell me the truth.
“You’re beautiful,” he answers without averting his eyes from the lie. That small, unexpected kindness from him is enough to choke me up.