All Things New Page 4

  I give my head a tiny shake. “Nope.”

  “Good.” The relief in her voice makes my hands shake.

  “So is it permanent?” I ask.

  “It can be. But there’s no reason to assume it will be in your case. Your brain has suffered some pretty gnarly trauma in the last forty-eight hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if this resolves on its own within a few days.” She makes a note in my chart. “Hey, how’s your vision, by the way?” she asks. “Since those few moments of blindness when you first woke up, has your sight felt normal? Because it’s common for patients with acquired aphantasia — the ones who aren’t born with it — to experience hyper-vivid sensuality while the mind’s eye is dark.”

  A silly flash of hope at the rightness of the phrase, hyper-vivid. I bob my head, yes, exactly that. “What does it mean?”

  “The mind’s eye plays a really big role in perception,” she says. “We may feel as though we’re seeing things fresh all the time, but the neurological reality is that we’re predisposed to see things the way we’ve seen them before. Without mental images, though, the brain has nothing to fall back on. It has to start paying attention again, which can feel pretty intense.” She smiles. “So in a way you’re super lucky. You’re getting to see the world anew.”

  “Hurray,” I say flatly.

  Her smile fades. “Look, I know all of this sucks,” she says gently. “But I promise you, it could be much, much worse. You’re a very lucky girl.”

  I nod, my eyes filling with tears. Some luck.

  “So what’s the second thing?” she asks.

  It hovers in the air between us for a second. The awful, ugly truth.

  Then I shove it into a drawer and slam it shut.

  “Oh,” I say lightly. “I was just wondering when I can wash my hair.”

  Dr. Voss grins. “Crucial question. I’d like to wait at least a week before you really scrub, but I’m okay with your scalp getting wet in another day or so as long as we cover your incisions with waterproof tape.” She jots another note in my file then slips it back into the plastic sleeve on the door. “Speaking of dirty hair, I need to get out of here and go wash mine before patients start complaining,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  I stare at the ceiling as she updates my parents. I hear my dad’s stillness as he listens, taking it all in. Mom is the opposite of stillness, she is noisy breathing and fidgety hands and constantly shifting weight.

  “Bear,” Dad says quietly when they come back in. “I am so sorry this happened to you.” His voice catches. “It shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, so now the accident is my fault?” Mom’s voice is shrill, like nails on a chalkboard, like nails scraping across my brain. “Because, of course, I’m somehow to blame for the fact that a stranger ran a red light and plowed into my Lexus, despite the fact that I wasn’t even in it.”

  “I’m not blaming anyone but myself,” my dad fires back.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Mom. Stop.”

  “I don’t understand why you were in the car to begin with,” she retorts. “You said you were staying at Wren’s. And then when he was here you didn’t even acknowledge him. Did something happen between you two? Are you in some sort of fight?”

  I don’t answer her. Can’t answer her, can’t tell her what happened because that would require thinking about it, which it’s taking everything I have not to do.

  She sighs heavily. “I give up.”

  and yet you’re still here

  “Lydia, go home,” Dad says wearily, rubbing his eyes, the feature we have in common. Hazel, with blond lashes, same shade as our hair, though his is mostly grey now. “You’ve been here since it happened. I appreciate that. Jessa appreciates that. But the two of us in this room together isn’t helping anything, certainly not our daughter’s recovery, so how about you go home and get some rest. I’ll stay with Jessa tonight.”

  Mom bristles but doesn’t fight him. “Fine. I’ll be back in the morning.” She bends over to kiss my forehead then thinks better of it and kisses the air above me instead.

  “So how long are you staying?” I ask my dad when my mom is gone. I am careful. There is nothing in my voice to give me away. No hint of how badly I want him to stay. My hand is already in my hair, twirling a crusty strand. Out of the corner of my eye I see him see it. Dare him to comment the way my mom always does. He doesn’t. Then again he wouldn’t, because my anxiety has never been his problem.

  “Well, that depends,” he says carefully.

  “On what?”

  “On you,” he replies. He rolls the metal stool by the sink over to my bedside and sits down on it. There is a long moment when he just looks at me, sneakers planted, palms pressed flat on his jeans. “I want you to come live with me in Colorado,” he says finally. “Finish high school out there.”

  Jessa Bear, I’d love for you to come out here, but your mom and I have decided that it’s best if you stay here in California with her and all your friends. We’ll see each other all the time, though — every Christmas, over the summer, whenever you want.

  Try every other Christmas and one summer out of four.

  “There are still a lot of details to work out,” he’s saying now. “I only just mentioned the idea to your mother, so of course we’ll have to navigate that, but technically we have joint custody and you’re seventeen, so—”

  “It’s okay,” I say, stopping him before it goes too far. Before hope sneaks its way in and I start believing that he means it. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, Jessa. I do. I should’ve put my foot down four years ago. But your mother—,” he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It is what it is.”

  but it does matter. it matters a lot.

  His voice softens. “Look, I’m not going to force this on you. You’re seventeen. If you really want to stay in L.A., you can. I know your friends are here, and your boyfriend—”

  An urge, overwhelming, to plug my ears, la la la, i can’t hear you.

  Because if I let myself hear him, let myself think about my life here and how little of it is left, my heart will explode in my chest.

  “There is nothing here,” I say, loudly. Too loud. Dad stops mid-sentence, maybe mid-word. Neither of us says anything. Above us, the fluorescent light hums.

  don’t ask me what i mean. please don’t ask me to explain.

  “So,” he says finally. “You’ll come then.”

  I hesitate. Live with my dad. In Colorado. A thousand miles away.

  My chin jerks, an emphatic nod. “Okay. I’ll come.”

  Chapter Five

  There is a new doctor standing in my doorway, his eyes sharp as scalpels on my face. Another shrink. He’s the third one who’s come by in five days. Each with their clipboards, making notes. “You’ve had a tough week,” this one says.

  Contest for most idiotic statement by a therapist, we’ve got a winner in room 203.

  I stare at the wall. “Yep.”

  “How’s your mood?” he asks.

  “It’s fine,” I say automatically.

  “Fine, huh? No anxiety symptoms?” He is calling my bluff.

  “Nope.”

  “And the aphantasia? Any progress there?”

  “Not really.” not at all

  “Can you look at me, Jessa?”

  I glance at him now, and immediately wish I hadn’t. His forehead is dry and leathery, almost grey. A horrific, disfiguring burn. My mouth goes salty, the feeling you get right before you throw up.

  it’s not real

  It’s a daily refrain now, it’s not real, i’m imagining it, i’m making it up. The janitor with the black eye, the nurse with the scabs, the plastic surgeon with scars like my dad’s. All around me, broken faces. Wounds that make my eyes sting they’re so gruesome. Wounds that disappear as soon as I look away. Out of my sightline, ghosts in my head.

  “Eye contact is difficult for you,” I h
ear him say. I’m staring at the wall behind him now, where it’s safe.

  I nod. Except it’s not his eyes I’m avoiding right now but the burn I hallucinated on his face. This truth I can’t talk about, not unless I want to keep talking about it, week after week after week, in some claustrophobic office with a fake plant and a black leather couch. thanks no thanks

  “Do you use other avoidance techniques?” he’s asking now. “Avoidance techniques are coping strategies that—”

  I cut him off. “I know what they are.”

  i use them all

  “You’ve been in therapy before.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re not a fan.”

  “I just don’t see the point,” I say neutrally. “Talking about it doesn’t help.” if i’m talking about it, i can’t pretend it doesn’t exist

  “How do you know?” he asks.

  “Because things got better after the therapy stopped.”

  “Meaning you had fewer panic attacks?”

  meaning i don’t want to be having this conversation or any conversation with you

  But not answering is not an option. Not answering will only prolong this.

  “Right,” I say.

  “Is it possible that you’ve gotten so good at avoidance that it may seem like your anxiety is better since the therapy stopped, when really you’re just doing a better job of suppressing your symptoms?”

  I shrug. Game face.

  “Here’s my concern, Jessa,” he says. “People who suffer from mood disorders — that’s what generalized anxiety is, a mood disorder — are at a greater risk of developing other psychiatric illnesses following a traumatic brain injury. New onset depression, for example, is very common.”

  what about hallucinating seared flesh?

  “In order to treat these conditions,” he goes on, “we have to first be able to diagnose them. But if you’re not talking about what you’re feeling, we can’t do that. So if there’s something—”

  “I’m hallucinating,” I blurt out.

  He blinks but doesn’t react. His game face.

  “Okay. Hallucinating what?”

  “Scars. Bruises. Scrapes. Burns.”

  “On yourself.”

  I shake my head. “Other people. I noticed it for the first time when my dad got here. He had these really awful scars on his cheeks I knew weren’t there.”

  “Do you see them on everyone?”

  “No. Just some people.”

  “What about on me?”

  “There’s a bad burn on your forehead,” I say without looking up. “And a scar on your chin.” In my peripheral vision I see him reach for my file.

  “The scar’s real,” he says. “I fell off my bike when I was eight.” He flips through my file. “Are they always on the face?”

  I hesitate. Without mental images, it’s hard to be sure. “I think so, yeah.”

  “What about your own face?”

  “What about it?”

  He shrugs. “How does it look?”

  I don’t answer him. He knows I haven’t seen it. That little tidbit is most definitely in my file.

  He tries again. “Does the thought of seeing your face make you feel anxious?”

  “No,” I say, just to be contrary. We both know it does.

  “How’s your mood?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “Right. And you didn’t tell me the truth. Because if you’re hallucinating, Jessa, and you’re aware of it, then your mood is not ‘fine.’” He sets my file down. “If we’re going to solve this, you’re going to have to be honest about what you’re feeling.”

  “Fine,” I say tightly. “I’m freaked out, okay?”

  “About what?”

  “Um. The fact that I’m hallucinating maybe?” All of a sudden I hate this man, I hate this hospital, I hate all shrinks. The incessant questions and prodding and practiced concern.

  “What about your own facial injuries? How do you feel about those?”

  “Fantastic,” I say sarcastically. “I’m totally psyched.”

  “So you’re angry,” he says.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” I snap. “I just want to know how to make the hallucinations stop.”

  “Therapy,” he says bluntly. “You have to work through what happened to you, Jessa. Avoidance isn’t an option anymore. Not if you want the hallucinations to stop.”

  “Isn’t there some drug you can give me?”

  “Anti-psychotic medication might help in the short term, but there is no quick fix. Particularly if what you’re experiencing is an extreme form of dissociation, which is what I suspect. A way for you to separate yourself from your injuries, to keep them literally at arm’s length. But, that’s a very cursory analysis based on your history and the little you’ve said. If you want to get better, you have to get down in the dirt. Dealing with psychiatric illness takes work.”

  psychiatric illness. Pins and needles erupt in my feet.

  “It’s just— a lot,” I say quietly. “All at once.”

  “I know it is. But it’s also an opportunity. To accept that your old ways of doing things aren’t working and to try something new. It’s not uncommon for people who suffer trauma to experience what we call ‘post-traumatic growth.’ A radical, positive change in the wake of adversity. A paradigm shift. Instead of setting them back, the trauma becomes a catalyst for growth.”

  He smiles a little, obviously waiting for me to say something, sounds great doc I’m in!

  “Let’s start here,” he says finally, when it’s clear that I’m not going to respond. “I’ll refer you to a great therapist here in the Valley who specializes in—”

  I cut him off. “I can’t. I’m moving to Colorado to live with my dad. Next week.”

  He gives me an encouraging smile. “They have some great therapists in Colorado. I’ll talk to your dad about—”

  he won’t want you. if he knows about the hallucinations, he’ll change his mind

  “No,” I say abruptly. “I don’t want my parents to know about the hallucinations. And you can’t tell them.”

  I have no idea if this is true, but I am desperate.

  “You’re right,” he says, and I think thank god. “You’re seventeen, so by law, I can’t disclose your medical information without your consent, unless I think your life is in danger, or you’re a risk to yourself.”

  you’re too late, I want to shout. A risk to myself, that was twelve days ago, when I couldn’t see what I should’ve seen, the truth that was so obvious to everyone else. wren doesn’t want her, why would he, she’s damaged goods. That elbow jab on the sofa, look at jessa, how pathetic, she has no idea. But of course that’s not what he means, he means a physical risk, and I’m not that, have never been that.

  “I’m not,” I say, but can tell from his face that he knows this already and that I’ve won.

  He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. They look tired all of a sudden. He has a wedding ring on and I wonder if he has kids and whether it’s made them more or less crazy, having a shrink for a dad.

  “What about the medication you mentioned?” I ask.

  He sighs. “I can prescribe Quetiapine, but it won’t resolve your symptoms on its own. You need—”

  “Therapy. Yeah, got it.” It sounds brattier than I mean it to. I immediately feel bad.

  He doesn’t look annoyed or pissed off. Just disappointed. For half a second I think I might explain it to him, why I can’t stay in L.A., why I can’t risk my dad changing his mind about me living with him, why I’m afraid that if he finds out just how damaged these goods are, he might. But I don’t, won’t, because explaining it to this doctor, to any doctor, would require talking about it, out loud, with actual words.

  “I’ll try,” I say when he hands me the prescription. As enthusiastically as I possibly can. “To think of this as an opportunity. Radical positive change. Everything you said.”

  “I hope so,” he says
wearily. “You owe yourself that.” Then his phone buzzes and I know that we are done.

  When he’s gone I slide the prescription under my pillow and climb out of bed. I’ve graduated from the gauze into a circus freak appropriate “compression garment” made out of stretchy pink fabric and Velcro in the back. Basically a sports bra for my face. Dr. Voss fitted me for it this morning, suggested that maybe I’d want to look in the mirror before she put it on.

  I told her no, my voice about twelve times louder than it needed to be and an octave too high. No one spoke after that. Ten minutes later, in walked shrink #3. Now his words are rattling in my head.

  if you want to get better, you have to get down in the dirt

  The towel is gone from the bathroom mirror now, so I see my reflection as soon as I swing open the door. The pink fabric hides everything but the eyes and nose, my eyes, blue and watery and dilated. Eyelashes so pale they disappear. The left side of my nose is tinged with purple, a creeping bruise. I grip the inside of the door frame, lightheaded with fear.

  please god don’t let it be as bad as i think

  This thought, it sparks a memory, or the edges of one. Kneeling in my bedroom in our new house the summer after eighth grade, begging God to fix me, to take the panic away. I did it for weeks, the entire summer almost, until my mom got creeped out by it and called a new shrink. After one appointment I was done. With therapy, with God, with believing in a fix. I took a shower the next morning, blow-dried my hair, and told my mom I didn’t want to talk about my panic anymore. She took me to Barney’s and bought me a new dress. My Bible went in the box for Goodwill.

  I’d never thought much about my looks before that shopping trip. But standing in that dressing room in a pretty dress and makeup from the counter downstairs, just a little honey it’ll perk you up, staring at a girl in a mirror who didn’t look panicky or anxious or the tiniest bit afraid, I felt this weird surge of power. no one can see it, I remember thinking. no one has to know.

  I wore that dress three weeks later on my first date with Wren.

  I’ve been hiding ever since.

  This is the darkest dirt. Not how repulsive I am now but how repulsive I’ve always been. The only difference is that it used to be hidden, tucked inside a pretty girl-shaped case. Now that case is cracked, literally broken in pieces, and, yeah, the doctors set the bones but the scars scream the truth.