Little Pink Pills

Part Fifteen, by Michelle Wilder

I'm trying to escape
This constant pull towards ache
Why do you fight Kathryn
Why do you fight

Surely hope will arrive soon
And cure these self induced wounds
Why hurt yourself Kathryn
Why hurt yourself
Why hurt yourself

Can your heart conceal
What the mind of love reveals

(The Mind of Love, by k d lang)

(Revised and reposted)

----

"Was it because of me, because of... the girly stuff?"

"No." I turned over so we could talk face to face. Her nightie wrapped around my legs but I ignored it. I liked it so much I didn't care.

"No." I kissed her cheek and closed my eyes and smiled. No.

-

We got more comfortable and Val pulled my arm over to hug.

I hugged Strawberry and pretended I was showing her my matching nightie and making her smile.

----

On Monday morning my leg was just sore, but it was swollen almost out of the cast. It went down a lot after a cool soak with lots of ointment.

-

Mom took me to the hospital right after breakfast and they said I'd over-done it, but not too badly. The cut wasn't any worse - just - but they said my bone was irritated or inflamed or something. Or maybe the screws in it were, and I only had to take some more pills they said weren't even very serious, just super-ASA or something, and put it up more.

I went to Paul's ward but he was away in a meeting. Practically all of them were, and I didn't know the nurse who was there.

So Mom took me to go see my new counselor. We were about a half hour early, but she'd called from the hospital while they were looking at me, and she had the time open, so.

----

'Carol Fairhaven' the door said, nothing else, and her office had a waiting room with all the usual and no secretary or whatever, just a waiting area.

While I was still looking, a younger-looking lady, like in her twenties maybe, came in from another door and smiled. She was pretty and had a dress on, like over-dressed, I thought. Then I thought I was comparing her to the hospital where everyone except the doctors wore scrubs, almost....

"Hello, I'm Carol." She shook hands with us both. Mom introduced us and we all went in her office, or room or whatever. It was all pink and white, and reminded me of Valerie's bedroom, before.

She said she knew Dr. Wilkinson, and she noticed my face or something 'cause after, after Mom went out to the waiting room, she asked if I didn't like Dr. Wilkinson. I didn't want to say anything but she said she had to either trust what he said about me or not.

But when Mom was still there she said she just wanted to talk with me today about why I'd been referred to her and get to know each other, and, after a few minutes, that Mom should wait outside.

-

She told me about confidentiality and secrecy and what she had to tell Mom or Dad and all that stuff, and then asked me about Dr. Wilkinson.

I told her what he'd said about Carson. And that he'd apologized too, and that it was sort of okay, just that I didn't trust him, really.

I never even thought that maybe I shouldn't be just telling her about Carson.

-

She asked me to tell her all about everything since my accident.

She asked me questions about Carson. And she turned them all around to being about me, like the stuff that happened. About why I was there, I guess, but pretty well everything, more than I'd said.

I'd thought it was for my depression. She said it was lots of things, it sounded like.

----

"Do you want to know what Paul Kirby, your nurse, wrote about you?"

She asked it like it wasn't bad, but I was scared.... I still nodded. I was surprised she had anything from him. I thought the... that what we said was different than the other hospital... things....

"He likes you, I can tell." She looked at a paper, a form with handwriting on it. Lots.

"He said you were... delightful." She smiled at me.

"Do you think he says that about all his patients?"

I didn't know what to say. I shook my head a little.

"He also said you were a very young-acting, very feminine boy." She looked at my face, like studying me.

"Do you know what he means?"

I remembered, like I could feel it right then, like it was happening, Paul hugging me and the feel of him. Him saying "Honey," and how wonderful I felt. How I loved him. He wrote that....

I said what I was afraid of, instead.

"I cry too much, and stuff."

She watched me some more. I looked at my hands, and my leg. Baggy jeans made it seem almost normal, even stuck out straight.

I didn't know why it was so hard when it was so okay when we talked about it last night. Or when Paul made it so... all the feelings were too hard to think right then. I had to find words that didn't even come close. Didn't even make sense, for what she asked. I couldn't ever write them down. Paul did...

"Carson's a girl. I'm just gay." I sounded dull, even to myself. I must've sounded like a robot. I didn't even know why I said that.

"Why are you so sad?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't see why she even asked. I didn't know.

Paul telling her stuff he whispered to me. Feminine. Gay.

Maybe Paul.

Maybe that sometimes when I stopped for a minute I still thought about never starting again, just for a tiny second. Even when I was happy. Like a ghost of that feeling.

Feminine. Girly. A girl. It seemed so okay before. Last night.

----

We talked for more than an hour. She was nice, after a while.

After a while, I told her and she told me that Paul only wrote stuff to her after Dr. Wilkinson asked him to, and he knew her and he did it because he wanted me to get better.

----

She said I wasn't very good seeing what I looked like to other people and asked me what Carson looked like.

She asked me what I looked like. She asked me what ~she~ looked like.

Then she said I had to do it again, but without any words like beautiful, or pretty, or ugly, or our clothes or what we did. Only what we looked like.

I said Carson had big eyes and was tall and strong and a wide mouth and dark hair and so on.

I couldn't describe her. Who I saw. There was too much to even say.

Then I said I was skinny and... my leg. And I looked at my hands. My hands on ugly jeans and the bumps and scars. Where the blood was.

My arms were covered with little scabs and bigger, yellow bruises.

She must see how ugly I was.

----

"Paul, wrote that you kissed him."

She was looking at a paper again. Touching one. The same one, I guess. She looked at me.

"He said that he's never had a male patient your age kiss him before."

She nudged the paper an inch and looked at me all the time she was talking. She looked different, in her eyes.

She looked right in mine, more, then. She hadn't, as much.

"Caring professionals, nurses, doctors... even the people who cook and clean up in hospitals, they have to keep their feelings separate from the patients, but that's hard to do on a children's ward...."

She looked at her papers again for a second, and then back in my eyes.

"Do you know why ~you~ were on the children's ward?"

"Because... I'm seventeen?" I always thought.

"No.... Usually when a hospital has to place someone your age to assess them for suicide risk, they're placed in the psychiatric ward. Almost always."

She watched me, my eyes, like trying to see what I was thinking. I think I nodded. I'd thought that, too.

"Your family were with you, when you were checked in, weren't they?"

"And Carson, and her mom and dad."

"The admitting physician wrote that they were very worried about you, and a teenaged girl...?"

I remembered Carson stayed with me in the car... I remembered the man who asked me a hundred question and examined me, after, before my room, and who was there... who was allowed.

"My sister's twenty... her, I guess?"

"Well, your family, and your sister especially, wouldn't let him put you on the psychiatric ward. ~She~ said you were too young." She looked at the papers.

She looked back at me.

"Why do you think she said that?"

I shook my head, but she made me say.

"Because I cry like a baby."

I couldn't figure out why everything was so hard, so wrong. Why she kept asking.

"Do you think you would say that your sister, crying, was behaving like a baby?"

I had to think about what she meant. "No."

"Or Carson?"

"No!"

"Then why you? Why would you say that?"

I really had to think. I cried more... and they... joked....

It was what I'd thought last night. That Jerri said was wrong. That I was wrong when I thought it.

"I guess they wouldn't." It was 'cause I was a boy.

"So maybe it wasn't about you crying?"

I shook my head.

"What do you think they meant, then?"

I thought. Or just sat. She was nice, before.

"Do you remember what Paul said about you?"

"That I was a baby."

"Do you really think he'd ever say that?"

"No." I felt tired.

"He said you seemed feminine."

He said I was a joy, too.

It was the nicest thought I'd had in a while.

-

She made me tell her.

----

She really listened and asked about looking at guys, and she said it wasn't bad. That my looking wasn't.

But she would, it was her job.

It was all about that, 'cause I figured out it was the reason I was depressed. That that was the real reason I was there.

-

She asked if I ever thought Carson was a girl, before, or gay, or anything different.

I had to really think, but I didn't think so. I wondered why nobody else had asked that.

Carse was the one who was always quietest, and... not like guys, even before. She was different, but I didn't think a girl, or gay.

Never.

-

She said, did I think that girls acted different from boys?

Or gay men or boys, from other boys?

I didn't know any gay people, except me. She said I did, lots.

-

She asked me about things I did before I broke my leg, and about what people said about me back then, 'specially at school.

She said I was androgynous and it was healthy, like a balance.

She asked me about ~being~ gay, too. About sex, or thinking about it, with boys.

After she saw, I told her about the dreams, and the others, the more normal ones with Carson. And she asked me why I thought they'd stopped. The wet dreams.

She said we'd talk more about it later, another visit, and I kept trying not to die of embarrassment.

----

Somehow, I told her about Strawberry Shortcake and she told me she used to have one when she was a girl.

"Why do you like her?"

I told her about Carson, and my hair.

"But you like her too, Strawberry... don't you?"

I nodded and smiled a little bit. I did. Just thinking about her made me feel happier. I thought about Val's new nightie. That she got for me.

-

She was quiet, a long time.

"I used to like mine because she was so little." She smiled in her voice and I looked.

"I imagined she was like a little me, like I felt when I was a little girl. I remembered how I was... and it felt good to take care of her, of my little girl me."

I listened. I had to listen... more than....

-

The hardest feeling, hard to feel... ~ever~... came all over me.

Like a new feeling, with no words for it.

For the first time in a really hard hour, I started to cry. It was different, like trying to breathe.

Like I was drowning.

----

She held my hand and said if I wanted, I could bring my doll the next time.

----

She told Mom I was doing very well and all she wanted to do was give me "supportive therapy" for a while. Mom hugged my shoulders and was happy and I think Carol was happy with me too.

We never talked about suicide, really. Just the safety thing from the hospital, and my promise to Carson.

----

All afternoon, I read Mockingbird. I didn't know why, but all of a sudden I could get into it.

----

When Carson came over after school she gave me a long, hard hug and kiss and I held on to her longer than I think she expected.

"Hey, is everything okay?"

I nodded in her neck. "I just wanted to smell you."

She relaxed, and after a few more seconds she whispered. "Do I smell okay?"

I started to laugh but I didn't let go.

----

She couldn't stay long, but she made me feel good about myself.

She made me think about the new feeling, too. If she ever felt it.

I felt it, with her.

----

If she loved me, I couldn't be so bad. I even told Strawberry that. Wrinkly petticoat and all. The ruffles were better that way. They were real and were just ~her~ and didn't change and even got better from hugging.

Some of the wrinkles were from my hugs.

----

After supper, Mom and Dad had to go with Carson's parents to a meeting with Mr. Lopez. Carson and Brenda told him... well, more. About Carson. And I guess me. And they were gonna tell him about the GSA. Which I guess made it official.

Val worked on homework, or whatever you call it in university, and I read.

I finished the book, that night, the last fifty pages all in one rush. I hugged it, like Strawberry.

It hurt that it was over, and that it was so hard.

Val said, yeah, she'd really liked Mockingbird.

-

Atticus Finch and Jem and Scout, and Dill.

And Boo Radley and the trial and the town... and the scariest, hardest ending in any book I'd ever read.

-

I had all of Brenda's class notes and I really liked the way she wrote, and tried to copy her handwriting, but in some places it was like she'd read a totally different book than me.

----

Mom called that they were going to go over to the Donner's and we shouldn't wait up if we didn't want to. I was nodding off, so Val took us to bed.

----

I asked Val what she thought school would be like.

She straightened out my collar, or that ruffle, and settled her hand there, touching my neck a bit and tickling it with a finger, and said it'd be okay as long as I didn't wear silly things.

She wouldn't say what she meant, but I think she meant dresses.

As if.

She said go to sleep, too.

----

In the morning, after the physiotherapist (PAIN!), we went to see Paul.

That he'd written stuff about me to Carol made me think all sorts of thoughts, some good, some bad. I was afraid I wouldn't love him as much.

-

He looked the same, at the nurses' station, and when he stood up I still felt the same. When he hugged me, I felt even better, maybe.

He was too busy to spend more than a minute but he asked if I was okay and I even thought about it, and I was. Even good.

He gave me another hug and I gave him a kiss goodbye, and Mom took me home after we went to a restaurant for lunch. I had a salad and a few bites of a quesadilla and some smoothie, and she was pretty happy. I was stuffed.

It was my first time eating out in almost four months.

----

She sat with me all afternoon and we talked about things, like how she thought I was happier, and what the nurses and techs and physios and doctors were like (she watched, so she kinda knew) and what Carol was like (she liked her).

And the night, before, Sunday. About Jerri and all.

And Carson, and if it was the same for me now, if we were the same, since I was getting better.

-

And if I was a girl.

She hugged me from behind and breathed in my hair a while, first.

"Do you feel like a girl? Like Carson?"

I remembered how hard it'd been talking about it - feminine - with Ms Fairhaven, Carol, and stuff around it, that I was... that it was hard.

Feminine. If I was scared to say it, was it true? Jerri said sometimes the hardest stuff was the truest. It was hard. Girl.

That feeling.... It was there.

-

"Maybe?"

-

I could tell she was worried.

She didn't ask more, but she hugged me even harder, so I guess it was okay.

-

I could hardly believe I said that. I thought that everything might be over, that she'd be different forever and then Dad would be and then

She gave me a tight little squeeze more.

"I'm really scared, Mommy...." I ducked so I could put my chin on her arm. "If, if you... if you an' Dad..."

"Whoever you want to be, we love you."

She shushed me and just hugged and rocked a while.

-

"I promise that your daddy and I will ~never~ stop loving you, okay?" She rocked and I tried to listen.

"Remember I said love can change?" She rocked. And kissed my ear.

"That's the only kind of love that doesn't change... ever."

-

End if Part 15