CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was so livid and defeated when I left Doctor Freedman’s office that I couldn’t remember what happened afterward.
We must have dropped Ada off at school, we must have gone to Walgreens to fil the prescription for me. But I couldn’t recal any of that. My memory was wiped.
I was just suddenly in the passenger side of my mother’s car, my hands smel ing like vinegar salad dressing, the clock on the dashboard indicating at least two hours had passed.
We were leaving downtown going over the Burnside Bridge, the river water below reflecting the dul , colorless sky above.
I was hit with a wave of nausea, fol owed by another wave, a warning, that something extremely terrible was about to happen. A feeling of absolute dread. I looked at my mother like it might be the last time I’d see her. She was driving cautiously, her hands gripping the wheel so hard her bony knuckles protruded. She had her sunglasses on even though it was frighteningly dark for the late afternoon. She’d looked exhausted lately – I knew it was because of me. Tiny lines had a permanent home at the corners of her pinched mouth.
“Mom,” I said careful y. Scared.
She jumped a little, then covered it up with a quick smile.
“What is it, Perry?”
“I don’t feel wel .”
And it was suddenly the world’s biggest understatement.
The most revolting, violating feeling flushed my insides. I wasn’t alone in my head. Someone else was inside me with me, waiting, perched just out of the corner of my eyes.
They were in me, watching me, monitoring these very thoughts.
Then my world stretched forward in a horrific display of tunnel vision. I was thrown back, back into oblivion, but only my mind, not my body.