Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,16

allergic to it, but she couldn’t stop eating. Everything that had happened during the day had placed a kind of spell on Lena because she had thought so much, talked so much about her body, it no longer felt like hers. It was closer to a piece of fine jewelry she was having assessed for sale: here’s the gold, here are the gems, let’s peer closely at their condition. Being alone, eating this thing that made her hyperaware of the spit rising along the ridges of her teeth and the plateau of her tongue, made Lena feel a little more herself. She rubbed her face and took another bite.

6

In the morning, Lena felt the braids she had hastily put into her hair. She had missed a clump of hair and it angled against her neck. Her calves ached from running yesterday, her voice was hoarse from talking so much. Closing her eyes, she heard the pleasing sound of heat pumped through a vent. A knock at the door.

“This is your ten-minute warning. We’ll be back to take you to Session 1.”

Lena changed quickly, spending most of her time re-braiding her hair, working out the tangle on her neck as best she could with her fingers. After being walked downstairs by a bored woman in a navy dress who responded to all attempts of chitchat with variations of “Yeah,” she was taken to Dr. Lisa’s office. She was settled back into the chair and poured a glass of water. The doctor fiddled with the settings of her fountain.

The first question: “How did you sleep?”

“Like I was dead.”

Then an awkward first date style barrage.

“Do you prefer dogs or cats?”

“Dogs.”

“What is your favorite color?”

“Neon-pink or maybe neon-blue. Neons are underrated.”

“I can turn the fountain off if the sound is too annoying. What’s your favorite thing to eat?”

“This is cheesy, but I think it’s anything that someone who really loves me has made for me.”

“What is the most unattractive thing a person can do?”

“Pick their nose in public. Or maybe be one of those people who tries too hard to be smart on social media.” Lena relaxed, slouched a little in the chair.

“What do you want to do with your life?”

“Something with art, hopefully.”

The room smelled like orange peel today.

“Do you think you could give your life for anyone?”

“Dr. Lisa, are you going to kill me?”

The doctor didn’t laugh.

Lena cleared her throat and sat up straighter, with considerably less enthusiasm. “For my mom, definitely. Maybe for someone I didn’t know if the situation was right.”

“What do you mean, the right situation?”

“Like everything you asked me earlier yesterday.”

The other woman smiled. The fountain started to whirr again as if the motor was dying.

“The questions are a little repetitive.”

“Why are they so murdery?”

The doctor shrugged. She reached into her desk and pulled out a folder.

“Let’s get more specific.”

“Okay.”

“In your school files, it says when you were in fifth grade you were suspended. You picked up your Social Studies textbook and hit a boy in the face.”

“Yes, that did happen.” Lena leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the papers.

Dr. Lisa pulled them closer to her. “Why did you do that?”

“That was around the time my mom was really sick. She needed to regularly use a wheelchair. She had a seizure in the grocery store. Some of the kids at school saw it. So, they started calling her the ‘R’ word. Or started asking me questions like ‘Why aren’t you an “R” like your mom?’ Gross shit like that.” It was more than a decade ago, but Lena’s fists tightened.

“What do you mean, the ‘R’ word?”

“Come on.”

It was the first time Lena’s voice was at its usual register, lower. Every time she had spoken so far—Lena realized only when she had stopped doing it—her voice was slightly higher than usual, a tone meant to please.

Dr. Lisa paused. “Oh. Why do you call it that?”

“Because it’s rude and hurtful.” All of Lena’s willpower went into not rolling her eyes as she spoke.

“Back to your story.”

“One day, we had a substitute teacher. We were watching a movie and that boy turned around and said, ‘My dad said if he had a kid who was “R,” he would kill them.’ And then he said something worse that I can’t remember because the first thing he said broke my brain. I just picked up my book and slapped him with it.”

“Why your textbook?”

“I don’t know. I was mad.” Lena crossed her arms. She looked down at her gray slippers. “I’m