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M
orning arrives, dragging me from
what I like to call ‘outer darkness’. The term is one of endearment. I sleep deeply. I don’t dream. At least, if I do have dreams I never remember them when I wake up, which is a good thing since I’ve got so many other people’s dreams to worry about.

At night my mind somehow files away all the other psyches I may have uploaded during day. Not that I forget. I never forget. But my brain sorts itself out, I guess, archiving memories, emotions and everything else, so that when I wake up all that’s left are vague impressions. Kind of like waking from a dream that evaporates before you can grab hold of it. It is the one thing about my condition that is bearable.

My
condition. 

That’s what Mama calls it—like I’m pregnant or mentally ill. I know she’s just trying to be sensitive, but it irritates the heck out of me.

After a quick shower I throw on my jeans and tank top, with the familiar hoodie over that. Papa says I dress like a bum, but it’s become my ritual garb; my ultimate defense against the outside world.

I head down the hall to Mama’s room and find her sitting on the side of her bed with her blood sugar monitor in hand. From a distance, it kind of looks like a cell phone. It’s the same size and shape, with a large LED screen and some little white buttons. Mama groans as she tries to slip the tiny plastic testing strip into the reader and misses.

“Mama, your hands are shaking. Let me do that.”

I pull a pair of silicon surgical gloves from the box on the nightstand and tug them on. Then I take the strip from her and slide it into the monitor. Retrieving a clean lancet from the black plastic container, I prick the tip of her finger and hold the bead of blood to the protruding end of the test strip.

“You shouldn’t have to do this for me,” Mama says, running her shaking fingers through her disheveled hair.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “It’s all good.” The red LED numbers blink on the tiny screen. “72. Pretty low.”

“No wonder I woke up. I always feel like crud when it gets that low. Hand me some juice, will you?”

Mama keeps a case of juice boxes on the bookshelf beside her bed. She likes apple best, so I grab one, insert the straw, and hand it to her.

“I may need two this morning,” she sighs. Finishing them both off, she sets the empty boxes on her nightstand before lying back down and pulling her comforter up to her chin. “I could sure go for a Double-Double right about now.”

“You want a hamburger at—” I glance at her digital clock, “seven-fifteen in the
morning
? I’m pretty sure In-N-Out doesn’t open until ten.”

“Oh. Well, Mickey D’s has been open since five.”

“You really want a burger?” I roll my eyes at the pout Mama offers. “Okay…I’ll send Jordan to pick one up for you.”

“Jordan is Papa’s campaign manager, Mira, not my personal gofer.”

“You know he doesn’t mind,” I tell her. “He’d get you a burger if I asked him to.”

Her shoulders slump in an intentional effort to look disappointed. “I think he left with your father already.”

“Then I’ll have Helen make one in the kitchen.”

“It’s not the same.
I’m craving something greasy and salty.
And
I want French fries.”

Mama grins. I don’t have to touch her to know what she’s thinking. She’s trying to make me want a burger, too—and it’s working. After spending three days in the hospital, a burger and fries sound like heaven. When I close my eyes and draw in a slow, deep breath, both she and I know she’s got me hooked.

“How much time do you need to get ready?” I ask, surrendering to my now growling stomach.

“Half an hour to get my blood sugar stable, and a few minutes to shower. We’ll go at eight?”

“My appointment with Dr. Walsh is at nine.”

“Perfect,” says Mama. “We’ll grab some burgers on the way.”

At twenty after eight, Mama
and I climb into the front seat of her little aqua VW Bug with a giant daisy painted on the front hood. She’s promised it to me once I get my driver’s license.

“It’s a classic,” she says, touching two fingers to her lips and then the dashboard. She follows the same ritual every time she drives and claims that it is her best disguise from the paparazzi. “They haven’t caught me yet,” she adds, pulling into traffic.

After a quick jaunt through the nearest drive-thru, we head for Santa Monica, gleefully stuffing our faces with hot, crispy fries. Just as we pull into the parking lot of Mercy Medical Plaza adjacent to the hospital, Mama’s cell phone rings. She swipes a stray smear of ketchup from the corner of her mouth and then answers.

“Can’t this wait?” She pauses for a minute before saying, “No, it’s fine. I can be there in twenty.”

She snaps the phone shut. “That was your father. There’s a problem at the convention center. Something to do with the seating arrangements for Sunday night’s fundraiser.” She sighs loudly. “Politicians! They all act like twelve-year-old girls. This one refuses to be seated next to that one . . .” She rolls her eyes and huffs. “Anyway, your father wants me to talk to the event coordinator and smooth things out.”

“Papa knows about my appointment, right?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

She throws an apologetic glance my way. “I’m sorry, Mira. This fundraiser comes at a very precarious time for your father. He’s counting on this event to fund the last leg of his campaign. With all the bad press about the investigation—well…everything has to be perfect.”

She pauses, carefully studying my face.

“You know what? It can wait.” She starts to dial. “I’ll tell him I’ll swing by in an hour or two.”

“No, Mama. I’m good. I can go on my own.” I open the car door and step out onto the sidewalk to prove it.

Mama leans over the emergency brake to smile up at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” I’m really not, but I smile anyway.

“I’ll call Jordan, all right? He’ll come by in an hour to pick you up.” Mama reaches for my sleeve. She pinches the fabric between her fingers and rubs her thumb back and forth a little. “Everything will be all right. Okay?”

She says this to reassure herself rather than me. I can read it in her face:
You’re wearing a black sweatshirt in the middle of summer. You just got out of the hospital after trying to kill yourself. Of course you’re not okay.
And she’s right. But instead of answering her, I simply nod and close the car door. My stomach clenches as I watch her drive away. Then I reach for the office door and step inside.

“So, Mira, how are you
feeling today?”

Dr. Walsh sits on an avocado green loveseat with her legs crossed at the knee. She’s wearing blue slacks and a nautical-style blouse. Perched on her lap is the familiar clipboard.

“Better, I guess.” I take a seat on the matching sofa. My hands, still sheathed in the surgical gloves from Mama’s room, are tucked in my pockets. On the wall above Dr. Walsh’s head hangs a large canvas smothered in brown and yellow brush strokes. It looks like an overripe banana.

“Were you able to sleep last night?”

“Yes.”

“How’s your wrist?”

“Fine.”

We stare at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds before she speaks again. She leans forward and searches my eyes. “Are you ready to talk about what happened?”

“Not really.”

Trying unsuccessfully to mask her sigh, she leans back in her chair. “All right.” She offers me a nod, pressing her pen into the metal clip at the top of her clipboard. “It’s your nickel, she adds with a little laugh. “What I mean is, it’s your hour. I’d like to discuss why you ended up in the hospital, but that’s really up to you.”

I gaze at the banana painting, the clock on the wall, the trophy on the bookshelf—all of it is unsettlingly familiar.

“It’s for bowling,” says Dr. Walsh, proudly.

“What?”

She nods at the shelf. “The trophy. My team won first place last Saturday.”

It’s a gaudy, cheap looking thing with a gold-toned bowling ball cradled by a pair of angel’s wings. The whole thing is mounted on a thick, dark green marble slab. Hideous.

“Nice,” I tell her.  This is going to be a very long hour. If I don’t say something soon, she just might tell me more about it, so I speak up. “You really want to know why I tried to kill myself?”

Do I
really
want to do this? I mean, she
is
paid to listen to other people’s problems and all, but this is well beyond the normal stretch of the human imagination. Then again, what have I got to lose? I’m already here in a shrink’s office. How much worse could it get?

“In the ER you mentioned your boyfriend,” says Dr. Walsh. “Why don’t you start by telling me about him?”

How much worse? I could get locked away in some institution for the mentally insane. And this time they might not let me out.

“It started a couple of months ago, around the first week of May,” I begin. “I had spent a week home in bed—sick. I’d been back for a few days, but was trying to stay away from everyone. Keeping to myself. Craig got mad. Accused me of avoiding him, and I guess in a way I was. He tried to kiss me, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t mean to embarrass him or make him angry. But he grabbed me, saying he was going to kiss me whether I wanted him to or not. And then he did.”

My voice sounds so thin and weak. I try to keep the memories of that day—mine and his—pushed down deep, but they force themselves to the surface, elbowing for room in my already overcrowded brain.

I continue.

“When Craig kissed me, I
saw
him.”

I look at Dr. Walsh hoping for some hint of comprehension. Instead her eyebrows press together, forming tight lines above the bridge of her nose. “I don’t understand.”

“I mean, I saw how he really feels about me,” I try my best to explain. “He never really loved me. It was—I don’t know—horrible? But that was just a sliver of everything, one moment out of millions. He wanted to dump me. I took some pills to save him the trouble. When that didn’t work, I tried something more drastic.”

When I stop talking, Dr. Walsh just looks at me. Her eyes are narrowed and intense, like she’s studying something written on my face. After a few moments, she clears her throat.

“Let me see if I understand what you’re telling me,” she begins slowly. “You didn’t want your boyfriend to kiss you, and that’s why you attempted suicide. Seems a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

“It wasn’t just because of that,” I tell her, my frustration mounting. “It was
how
I knew…what I saw. You see, when people touch me—”

I stop talking. This is all too crazy. If I can hardly believe it, how can I expect Dr. Walsh to? But what choice do I have?

“When people touch me,” I start again, “I know things about them.”

“You know things about them.” The sound of Dr. Walsh’s pen scratching across the clipboard tears at my brain. “Like what?”

“Everything.”

The scratching stops. “You know, Mira, unrealistic perceptions of one’s abilities can be a sign of a chemical imbalance in the brain, a symptom of one of several types of disorders.”

“I don’t have a disorder.” The clipped words come out more harsh than I intended, but I need her to understand. “It started the week after my birthday—some vague impressions popped into my head when people touched me. I thought it was just some bizarre déjà vu thing, but it got stronger as the weeks passed. I saw—I
knew
what people were thinking and feeling, though it was kind of muddled…unclear. Then the memory thing hit just before summer break.”

“Memory thing?”

“Yeah. The first time it happened it freaked me out. I was in Trigonometry and my friend, Krista, leaned over my desk to tell me something. I didn’t hear a word she said because her lip brushed against my ear, and suddenly it was like her entire life got dumped into my brain, a million fragments of memory all jumbled up. Throwing snowballs at her brother when she was three; her dad calling her stupid because she couldn’t remember seven times nine; her first kiss. And what was especially weird was that they weren’t
her
memories. They were
my
memories, as if all of those experiences had happened to me. I left school that day, went home and curled up in my bed. I stayed there for a week before Mama finally coaxed me into coming out.

“Then the thing with Craig happened. It’s impossible to explain, but it’s horrible. I do everything I can to stay away from other people, to avoid contact. I can’t stand it, Dr. Walsh. Sometimes I’d rather be dead.”

Then, just like that, I’m done. I hadn’t realized how revved up I was getting. It is the first time I’ve actually articulated any of this to anyone. I mean, I tried to explain it to Mama, but how can you really put something like this into words?

“I know you think I’m crazy,” I add quickly, shifting uneasily in my seat. “Dr. Jansen didn’t believe me either. You both think I’m nuts. But if I were, that would make things a lot simpler, wouldn’t it? All the Gaudium I’ve been given would have made this go away. But it hasn’t.”

What have I done? I’ve just proven myself to be a certifiable loon.

“I gotta go.” I jump up from the couch and make a beeline for the door.

“You’re not crazy, Mira.”

My hand pauses on the door knob. Her calm, sure words send a flitter of excitement through my body. I glance up at the banana painting and back to Dr. Walsh. She’s watching me intently.

“You believe me?”

“Why shouldn’t I believe you?” Picking up the clipboard, she flips over the first page. “I admit it all sounds a little…far-fetched. But from what your mother told me about you, you’re a model student. You’ve never been in any trouble, nor have you given your parents any cause for concern—until recently. Taking everything into consideration, and the fact that you knew about my mother’s perfume,” she adds, with a half grin, “I don’t see any reason why I should doubt you. Now, why don’t you come sit back down, and let’s talk about it.”

To have someone, anyone, believe me is like having a stack of bricks lifted off my chest. For the rest of the hour I tell her as much about my life as I can. I tell her how I was adopted at birth because my parents couldn’t have any kids of their own, and how even though they’re great, being the daughter of someone famous sucks sometimes.

I talk about Mama and all the plays we’ve been to, and our secret burger runs. I tell her about how Krista finally stopped texting me altogether after days of my ignoring her, how quickly she managed to find a new best friend, and how much that hurt. And I tell her about Papa, how so far he’s the only person I can’t see when I touch him, but I wouldn’t want to anyway.

When my hour is over, we schedule a follow-up appointment for next week. Leaving Dr. Walsh’s office I feel lighter somehow, actually relaxed. Maybe she can help me. Maybe there
is
hope for me after all.