The Program Page 0,47
of silence before Shep moves next to me. “One jack,” he says. Derek goes after him and the game continues, but I stare at my ten.
There’s no one to call me on my bullshit anymore.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT’S MONDAY MORNING, A WEEK AND A HALF INTO The Program, and Dr. Warren is sitting behind her desk, smiling kindly. Before the appointment I tried to eat as much food as possible, hoping it would weaken the effect of the drugs. But my body has already begun to feel heavy, making me sag into the chair.
“Did you and James have a physical relationship?” the doctor asks.
I laugh. “They don’t have sports at my school.”
“That’s not what I mean, Sloane.”
Obviously I know what she meant, but it isn’t any of her business. I don’t trust Dr. Warren. “What’s in the pills?” I ask.
She sighs. “We go over this every time. And the answer is always the same. They’re just something to relax you.”
I shake my head slowly. “No,” I say. “It’s more than that. It makes me talk to you, even if I don’t want to.”
Dr. Warren watches me for a long moment, her eyes scanning me as if weighing out her answer. “Let’s get back to James,” she says. “Isn’t that what you really want to talk about?”
I wince at his name, reminded again of how much I miss him. The room is becoming transparent, my memories clearer than the world around me. I’d do anything to get back to him. “Yes,” I say, giving up on my question. “James and I had a physical relationship. He’s the physical type.”
“I can gather that much.”
I don’t like the way she says it, as if without James I’d still be a virgin and at home with my parents right now, baking cookies. “I’m the one who wanted him, if you must know. He would have been fine with waiting”—I pause at this—“well, he would have been fine with waiting a little longer at least.”
“Were you careful?”
I curl my lip. “Yes, Mom. We always used a condom because we would never want to bring a kid into this messed-up world.”
“Condoms aren’t always—”
“Look,” I say, “I know the statistics, but I hardly have to worry about it now, do I?” My voice takes on a hard edge, and Dr. Warren glances away. I’m angry at the way she’s portraying James, and I want to set her straight. I want to tell her that she could only dream of having someone like him in her life.
“Perhaps we can talk about your first kiss.”
Scoffing, I curl up in the chair. The drugs are loosening my clenched muscles, taking away my inhibitions.
“Did you kiss him first?” Dr. Warren asks, like she’s my best friend.
“No,” I say, my heartbeat loud in my ears. “I would’ve been too scared. Too shy. James was so hot-and-cold then. I didn’t know what to think.”
Dr. Warren leans back in her chair, her arms folding over her chest as she starts to smile. “Tell me about it, Sloane. Tell me everything.”
I realize that she’s right; I do want to talk about James. And the minute I start, I’m ready to stay with him forever. Even if only in my mind.
“He would send me notes,” I say. “After he admitted his feelings, he would leave notes under my pillow. Letters that he was writing to me. At first it seemed more like he was yelling at me. He’d comment on how much he hated liking me, but then in the next line explain it was because he spent all of his time missing me. I was never so confused in my whole life. I never wrote back, but his letters kept coming, as if he was arguing with himself. Soon they became less angry. Sweeter. He’d compliment something I wore to school, say how he thought about kissing me.” I laugh. “He talked a lot about kissing me. Said that maybe we could sneak off and see a movie, just the two of us.”
Dr. Warren writes in the file. “James sounds complicated.”
“He’s the opposite, actually. He wants things simple, and me and him dating . . . that complicated everything.”
“How long did the letters go on?”
“Almost every day for about a month. But after a few weeks of them, I started to stay in the same room with him. We would joke and actually make eye contact again. Brady said he was glad that I was done acting weird, and I felt like he knew. That he had