Page 48 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
Manuel grinned. “I know. You like to pretend not to care about competition, but you’re secretly a killer.”
I scoffed. “I don’t pretend anything. I’m open about my murderous side.”
“You should be.” He lifted a hand and brushed the back of his fingers down my cheek. “Your darkness is my favorite part of you.”
Everything in my body went still at once. Manuel didn’t withdraw his hand. He left it there, his eyes burning deep into mine. He said nothing more, and neither did I. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. The heat, the vertigo, the lack of food, his words, his fingers on the side of my face…it was too much. A windstorm of sensation, of emptiness, of desire.
I want him.
The words erupted into my consciousness like storm shutters flying open.
I still want him.
I pushed myself off the bench so abruptly my sweat-slick feet slipped on the floor. I nearly tipped backward.
“Eliot?” Manuel said, alarmed. “Eliot, are you—”
But before he could reachokay, I was out the door and sprinting for the lake.
16
SIXTH GRADE
MANUEL SAYS I SHOULD TELLmy parents. I say no. “They’ll be able to help,” he says. I shudder to think of admitting to my parents that I have voices in my head that tell me things I know—or at least I think I know, or at least I’msort ofcertain I know—aren’t real. “Don’t tell them the specifics, then. Just say you need to talk to somebody.”
To say my parents are surprised when I tell them I want to see a therapist would be a massive understatement. The way they look at each other…you’d think I said I want to move to Switzerland.Eliot?their eyes say.Quiet, steady, uncrying Eliot?“If you really think you need it,” Mom says doubtfully.
Dr.Drier works out of a strip mall in Northfield. Speedy drives me to my appointment in our new car, a Ford that has been retrofitted for disabled drivers. He pulls up outside a sterile building with the wordschild psychologyon the window. Thick white blinds block my view into the office.
What follows is the longest conversation my father and I will ever have about my mental health.
“Well, are you going in?” he asks.
I shrug. Don’t unbuckle my seat belt.
“What’s up?”
I shrug again.
“Are you nervous?”
Nod.
“Listen,” Dad says, swiveling in his seat. I ready myself for a speech, but a few moments pass and I hear nothing. I look up. Dad’s head is turned away, staring out the windshield. He hesitates. Then he turns back to me. “You’re going to spend a helluva lot of time up there,” he says, reaching up one finger to tap my forehead. “Your entire life, in fact. You better get used to the shit cluttering up the floor.”
—
I TALK FOR FORTY-FIVE MINUTESstraight. I don’t know what not to say, so I decide to play it safe and tell him everything. He isn’t silent like the therapists on TV. He speaks, just not much. Mostly he blinks. And not just regular blinks—long, hefty ones. The kind that linger so long at the bottom it seems he may never open his eyes again. I wonder if I’m boring him.
“You made a very wise decision in bringing her in to see me,” Dr.Droopy Eyes says to Dad after the appointment. They’re speaking inside the room where my session took place. The door is closed. I’m supposed to wait in the lobby. Instead, I squat in the hallway with my ear to the smooth acrylic paint on the door. “I tend not to diagnose after just one session, but your daughter exhibits many, many of the symptoms of anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. If I had to guess, I’d say there are things she’s still holding back, which is natural. But based solely on the things she shared—”
“What exactly is that, the Obsessive-Whatsit?” interrupts Speedy’s voice. “That’s the handwashing disease, right? The one inMonk, where he’s scared of germs and needs everything to be organized in groups of five, or whatever?”
“That’s one form of OCD, yes. But the disorder manifests itself in many different ways. It’s less about being afraid of germs and more about the way the patient reasons and rationalizes.”
“You’re saying my daughter isn’t rational?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” The shrink’s voice never dips or wavers. Just chugs forward with the same patience it used when asking me questions during our session. “Let me explain it a different way. Thoughts are disposable, yes? The brain spits out garbage all day long. Strange impulses. Bizarre fantasies. Gross images you don’t go looking for but pop into your mind anyway. Yes?”
