Page 32 of Reaching Hearts

Chapter Nineteen

Annie

Staring at something that is not supposed to enter my body. Muscles: tense Teeth: gritting

As Maria slides the thick needle back into the crook of my arm, I wince and watch. Necessary or no, the saline water enters my bloodstream, feeling foreign to me, unwanted. Behind Maria, the door opens and in walks a stone-faced, older male doctor I’ve never seen before. But then again, I haven’t seen a doctor yet. I was unconscious. This guy could have been taking care of me all night for all I know. So I smile at him, until I see who walks in to join him – a woman, also in a lab coat, with cropped brown hair and a plastic smile of fake, nurturing-care that I’m not buying.

Sometimes I’ll meet a person and instantly dislike them. She’s just joined this elite group. I don’t like how she looks at me. I don’t like her smile, because it’s not in her eyes. I don’t like her whole uptight energy. She’s gotta be a shrink. I used to go to a lot of them when I was a teenager, an effort to get me to conform to the masses.

“How’re you feeling,” the male doctor asks.

“I feel fine. I guess I just needed the sleep.”

“This is Doctor Wineapple. She’s here to talk to you about the trauma.”

My eyes land flatly on her. “Oh. So you are a shrink.”

She smiles like I’m a wounded child. I fucking hate that. I’m not wounded. I’ve never been wounded. I just don’t always agree with society and its bullshit. Especially shrinks. The craziest people I knew in college, were studying to be shrinks. They were searching to heal their own demons, thinking they were aching to heal other’s. If you don’t know that about yourself, how are you going to know it about other people?

“I understand you’ve been through something very intense, that you fainted under the stress and were brought here by ambulance.”

“Now we’re all caught up,” I mumble, glancing to Maria who’s watching from the corner, expressionless.

“Would you like to talk to me about that for a moment in private?”

I roll my eyes without rolling my eyes; that you’ve got to be kidding me face. “I don’t need to be evaluated. I’m a grown-up. I know how I feel and what’s going on with my body and my head. I’m fine. Really.”

She nods to them and they go out, but not before Maria throws me a look that this is a necessary evil and not to fight it. That’s the problem with necessary evils, sometimes they should be fought, but so few people do it. So I say, “They don’t have to leave. I really don’t want to be shrunk.”

The doctor exits after Maria and holds his hand on the door handle for an extra second as he looks in, before leaving us alone.

“I’m fine. I really am.”

“Ms. O’Brien.”

“Ms. Wineapple.”

With her hands clasped in front of her, she smiles with the patience of one who deals with ‘my type’ all the time. “Have you ever been in an event such as the one you experienced, before?”

“Having a shrink quiz me while I’m in a hospital gown? No. Never.”

Her eyes are like a dead fish’s, but her smile remains on her lips. “Humor is a common way to handle stress.”

“Tell me when you start being funny.”

We stare at each other. Her hands slide into her pockets. Her thin lips purse and she crosses to my chart, pulling out the slow sound of paper against plastic as she un-sheaths it and flips through papers and jargon I’ve not yet seen.

I pull my legs up to my chest, leaning against the drawn up bed, my pillow fallen uncomfortably against the middle of my back. I could fix it, but I don’t.

“What do you need from me to make you feel better about letting me go home?”

Her eyes flicker up from the chart. “It’s you who we want to feel better. This is a hospital, Ms. O’Brien…”

“It’s not Disneyland?” I lay my chin on my knees and look at her from underneath my raised eyebrows.

She stares at me. I stare back. She sucks on her lips, the color smudging. After a charged beat, she turns on the heel of her comfortable shoes and leaves me alone in the room.

My heart starts pounding as I wait. A voice from the past drifts in; my mother’s. Annie, really! Why can’t you just be nicer? You’re going to get yourself in trouble by rocking the boat like you do. People don’t like it. You’ll see. Take my advice because it will save you a lot of hassle. And stop dying your hair – your real hair color is so pretty! (big sigh) Why do you have to be so difficult?

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