She puts a hand to her chest. “That’s sweet,” she says. “Real sweet.”
I slip Wayne Gretzky into my pocket and go back to my room.
“Where would you like to start today?” you say.
“I don’t care.”
You cross your legs.
“You decide,” I say.
“OK,” you say. “How are you getting along with the other girls in your group?”
I shrug. “Fine.”
You wait.
“Sydney, my roommate, she’s nice,” I say. “So is this other girl, Tara.” You look pleased.
“And Debbie, she’s this very heavy girl who’s kind of a know-it-all, but she’s OK. She tries to take care of this other girl, Becca.”
“Hmm,” is all you say.
“I’m not sure about Becca. She got so sick from not eating she had a heart attack. She acts like she wants to get better, but—”
“But…”
“Never mind.”
I wait for you to bug me to go on. You don’t.
“You won’t tell anyone, right?” I say.
“Everything you say in here is confidential.”
“Well, she… I… she’s still throwing up her food.”
Your expression doesn’t change.
“And hiding food, too. She pretends to eat it, but she’s really throwing it away.”
You uncross your legs. “How do you know?”
“I watch.”
You nod.
“It makes me feel sort of weird that I know what she’s doing. It also makes me feel really bad for Debbie, since Debbie does nice things for her like covering her up with a sweater when she’s sleeping.”
Talking about Debbie and Becca and Sydney and Tara is surprisingly easy. I realize I know a lot about them; I guess I even sort of like them. I check the clock to see how long it is till lunch.
Your chair groans. “But I understand from the staff here that you’re not talking in Group yet.”
Yet. You say this like it’s simple, inevitable. My lips are chapped; I pull the corner of my lower lip into my mouth, then bite down a little.
“Can you tell me why?”
I shrug, for the millionth time.
You tap your lip.
“There’s this other girl,” I say. “She’s new.”
“Oh?”
“This new girl, Amanda, she wears shorts and flip-flops…”
You lift an eyebrow, ever so slightly.
“… like it’s the middle of summer.”
There’s a long, long hush. Far off, I can hear a plane boring through the sky.
“She does what I do.”
I watch for your expression to change, for there to be some slight shift from neutral to… to what? Disgusted? Disapproving? You wait calmly.
“She showed everybody her scars.”
I bite my lip some more. That’s it. I’m finished. I listen for the plane, but it’s gone.
“You think she should have kept them to herself?”
“Huh?”
“Do you think this new girl should have kept her scars hidden?”
“I don’t care.” Then, right away, “They’re gross.”
I pull on my sleeve, pinch the fabric tight, wrap it safely around my thumb.
“What’s wrong with letting people know what you’re doing, or how you’re feeling?”
“It’s not fair,” I say.
“Not fair?”
“It might upset them.”
You look puzzled.
“Can we change the subject?” I say.
“Of course.”
But I can’t think of what to talk about.
“My mom sent me this name thing,” I say at last. “I told you she does crafts, right?”
You nod.
“She made this thing for my door. It’s my name. In fabric. It’s quilted.”
The name thing seems silly, impossible to describe.
“It’s a decoration?”you say.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“My mom has to take it easy,” I explain.
“Yes,” you say. “You mentioned that before. That she needs a lot of rest.”
All at once, though, I’m the one who feels tired. Exhausted, actually.
“Is it OK if we stop now?” I say.
“Yes, of course,” you say, smiling a little. “Our time is just about up anyway.”
It’s almost the end of Study Hall. Debbie’s writing in her journal. Sydney’s listening to her Walkman. Everyone else is asleep. I’m memorizing chemistry terms: osmosis, reverse osmosis.
Sydney leans across the space between our desks, waving a folded note. She points to Tara. I know right away she wants me to pass the note to Tara; I take it without thinking. Then I see the problem. Tara is sound asleep, her head on her arms, turned away from me.
I watch Tara breathing for a minute, try to decide what to do, then lean across the row and slide the note under her elbow. She doesn’t move. I look over at Sydney, who’s giggling silently, her hand over her mouth. The corners of my mouth turn up; I bite down on the insides of my cheeks and turn back toward Tara.
I reach over and slip the note out from under Tara’s elbow. She still doesn’t move. Sydney is practically having a convulsion trying not to laugh; her face is beet red. My chest feels like it’s about to explode. I swallow, then burst out with a noise that sounds like air escaping from a balloon.
Tara jumps. Sydney laughs out loud, like this is the funniest thing she’s ever seen. All I know is that my hand is shaking as I pass Tara the note.
“Thanks,” Sydney whispers.
“Sure,” I say. Sure. It’s the kind of thing that comes out automatically. The kind of thing a person can say without really saying anything.
I close the door to your office; before you can ask me what I want to talk about, I show you the Wayne Gretzky card.
“It’s Sam’s favorite,” I say.
You smile. “You told me how much he loves those cards,”you say.
I sit back on the couch; my feet stick out. I sit forward; my back gets tight. “Yeah, but he doesn’t actually play. He just looks at the cards.”
You nod.
“He has this tabletop hockey game. I set it up for him. It has plastic players that you control with sticks, you know?”
I can’t tell if you understand what I’m talking about, but the words keep coming anyhow.
“He got it the Christmas before last. It had about ten pages of directions. Stuff like ‘Put bracket X in slot Z,
