What Brings Me to You (24 page)

*****

              That night, Kelsey and I were sitting on the floor of the dorm shoulder to shoulder with our knees bent, though hers were bent at a considerably steep angle to accommodate her height. We were giggling about something silly and Kelsey was playing with the ends of my hair.

              “This has got to be the longest hair I’ve ever seen,” she said.

              “I get that a lot.”

              “Have you ever gotten it cut?”

              “No.”

              “Wow! How do you even manage it all? I never see you brush it?”

              “I can’t brush it dry; it would yank it all out. I have to brush it in the shower.”

              “God that must take forever!”

              “It does.”

              “I wish my hair was this long.”

              “Trust me, the grass isn’t always greener. When I was younger I used to wish for straight hair like yours.”
Most days I still do
, I wanted to add thinking about the incident at Fresh Eats.

              “But I can’t do anything with it! It’s limp and lifeless, yours—“

              “Has a mind of its own!” We giggled to each other and then there was a knock on the door. Kelsey jumped up to answer it assuming, as I did, it was Colin.

              “Why does Colin bother, knocking? He has a key?” I asked.

              “He doesn’t want to walk in on you naked or anything,” she shot back over her shoulder.

              “The bathroom is down the hall! Why would I have reason to be naked in here?” She didn’t have time to respond because she opened the door. I didn’t bother looking up, just expected to hear Colin’s deep grumbly voice.

              “Oh…hi…,” Kelsey said. Since I didn't hear any smooching, it must not have been Colin. “Charley, it’s for you.” When I looked up I was a little startled at who was there.

              “Collette?”

              “I…Charley, …is this a bad time? I can come back.”

              “No, we’re just being dumb,” I said as nonchalantly as possible. I hadn’t told Kelsey I was seeing a therapist and had no intention of doing so. I needed Kelsey to believe Collette was someone from a class I was taking.

              “Okay. Umm…can we talk for a second?”

              “Sure,” I chirped. I unfolded myself and walked out into the hall, shutting the door behind me. “What’s up?”

              “Charley,” she whispered. She didn’t look at me, rather she looked at her hands lacing and unlacing together in front of her. “You’re my first patient. Did you know that?” I didn’t. I mean, she said she was interning, but it didn’t occur to me that I was the first. She didn’t let on that I was, not that I would’ve known anyway –I’d never been to therapy before.

              “No, I didn’t.”

              “I’m trying to remain professionally impartial, but…after what you told me today…everything that you’ve been through…My dad… he wasthe one who encouraged Dr. Steward to let me take you on. I guess he knew… . something. He always knows about these things –it’s like he’s got a sixth sense. Listen Charley, I don’t know why, but I feel a kinship with you, it’s very…strange.” I didn’t want to interrupt her but at the same time I had no clue where this conversation was going. “It’s not fair of me to be here like this, knowing what I know about you. Knowing that you’re in need of a mother figure. I don’t want to be that for you but it kind of feels like I am.” God, was that what it was? Is that why I wanted to please her? Damn her being a shrink and not telling me! “It’s breaking all kinds of patient-doctor protocol, Charley, but I want to be your friend. I...I want to be friends. I think we’d be good friends.” 

It wasn’t until she finished this little speech that she looked up at me. Her deep set eyes pleading with me. I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. It was flattering and probably something I needed, but there was something familiar about the request. It sounded desperate and needy, like the brutal honesty pact I made with Teddy. She knew how that turned out since I’d told her mere hours before, but I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

              “So what happens if we decide we’re going to be friends?” I asked.

              “I can’t keep treating you. I’d have to turn your case over to one of the other counselors.”

              “NO! I don’t want another counselor.”

              “I see.” She said and frowned.

              “Collette, I do want to be friends. It’s not just because you’re one of a handful of people who actually knows what I’ve been through, though. I mean, that’s part of it, but not all of it. I’d like to have a friend; you know better than anyone how bad I need it.”

              “Okay,” she seemed to sigh in relief, like it would’ve been soul crushing if I’d said no. “I have an idea. Why don’t you keep coming to the office, and keep talking to me but we don’t call it therapy.”

              “What will we call it?”

              “Girl talk?”

              “So you’ll actually give me your opinions?’

              “I suppose. That’s what friends do.”

              “And you’ll tell me about your life, too?”

              “There really isn’t that much to tell.”

              “You seriously cannot use that line on me.” Our laughter echoed down the hall.

*****

              Over the next few weeks Collette and I got to be friends. I’d still sit in the office and she across from me but we’d eat lunch, she’d turn on the radio and we’d have girl talk. I found out that underneath the crisp, white, button-down shirts and pencil skirts, Collette was kind of a bad ass rocker chick. She showed me pictures on her phone of her look when she was relaxed; ripped jeans, leather jacket, worn Ramones t-shirt, and blood-red lips. She had ink too, lots of it that she kept covered up in her work clothes. She’d go on and on about how The Clash was the greatest band of all time and how she’d die if she ever met Pete Townshend. Half the time I had no idea what she was talking about but I liked hanging with her. She was a kind of cool that I would never, ever be and I admired that about her. She took me to my first concert and that was the first time I got high, too. And the last. Our friendship was so much easier than our patient-not-doctor relationship that I wondered why we hadn’t done it sooner. She talked to me about her internship and the mountains of work she had to do to become a counselor.

              “Why do you do it all?” I asked one day over Chinese food.

              “I love helping people.”

              “Maybe a little too much” I pointed to myself with my chopsticks, “I mean, you can’t take in every stray, you know.”

              “Maybe you’re right.” We sat in silence for a moment chewing our dumplings when she asked with a little forced nonchalance: “So, are you staying in the dorm over the holiday?”

              “I don’t know yet. Markus can’t go on the road trip until the summer. Kelsey invited me to go to North Dakota with her. Her folks are all for it since Kelsey told them that I sometimes cook for the dorm. I just don’t know if I want to do that. I mean, I like her, and I wouldn’t mind going if it meant I had someplace to stay, but it would be nice to get some space, you know?”

              “Kelsey is kind of a co-dependent personality.”

              “I can’t believe you’re analyzing my roommate. You’ve only spoken to her once!”

              “I can’t help it,” she laughed. “Charley, if you want, you can stay with me.”

              “Really?” I could feel my eyes getting wider.

              “Yea, I mean, we’re friends right? I only have a one bedroom, but I’ve got a pull out couch. I’m going to stay with my parents for a few days during the break anyway, so you can come with, or you can have the apartment to yourself.”

              It took everything I had not to throw my arms around her and bear hug her. I felt the tears well up in my eyes when I thought about the depth of her kindness toward me. And all she wanted in return was my friendship.

*****

              This probably goes without saying, but I haven’t been to the gym since you. Not like I need to –I’m not eating really anything. I used to hate that you’d come home smelling like the dirty, rubber floor of that place. Like you’d been rolling around on it. I should’ve noticed when you’d come home smelling cleaner than when you left. When you came home smelling like a woman’s perfume: that certainly should’ve been a clue.

*****

              “Have you been doing the breathing exercises we discussed, Charley?”

              “Is this Dr. Collette or just Collette?”

              “Is there a difference?” she giggled as she scooped more Pad Thai into her mouth –some noodles escaping her lips and spilling into her lap. We were having one of our weekly lunch/therapy dates in her office.

              “I do them every once in a while but, I don’t know, I feel kind of silly.” I said. “I mean, I can’t break out in deep breathing in the middle of class -it’s a little conspicuous, no?”

              “You should go to the gym.” I didn’t know how to take this. Was she saying I was fat? I mean, I had gained a few pounds but I was still really thin for my frame considering.

              “Charley, you’re not fat.” she said quickly as if she could read my mind, “This isn’t about cosmetics, okay? The research shows that regular exercise is an important factor to reduce risks of a host of things, not just panic attacks. Do you do anything physical all day?”

              “I work, Collette. I’m on my feet thirty, almost forty, hours a week.”

              “It’s not the same, Charley. I worry about you. It’s wonderful that you’re with me, working on your mental health but you also have to focus on your physical health.”

              “Okay, Doc, okay,” I conceded.

              “So you’ll go?”
Oh hell no
, I thought. I’d heard the stories of the gym. Yes, it had state of the art equipment, yes it was open twenty-four hours and yes, it was free for students to use, but I knew why people went there and it wasn’t to work out and stay healthy, at least not primarily. It was principally a place to show off your goods and get hooked up. I had no goods and was in absolutely no condition to be hooked up, so for me it was simply out of the question.

              “I’ll think about it,” I said weakly.

              Collette pestered me and pestered me until I relented. I waited until November first so I could gorge myself on Halloween candy. All night while nibbling on fun sized milky ways I thought of my gym strategy. Collette told me the slowest times were the middle of the day and even then, I chose not to use the smaller gym right above Fresh Eats and ten steps from the dorm but the much larger gym in the center of campus to avoid being seen by too many people from my building. In the huge gym, I thought, I could become invisible. Still high from the sugar buzz I walked to the gym the next day. I was such a bundle of nerves that I didn’t eat anything before I left and didn’t realize I’d forgotten my water bottle until I was standing at the doors. I didn’t want to turn around and go all the way back, so I just went in.

              As soon as I opened the doors I wanted to turn around and walk out. There was the most stereotypical gym-bunny I’d ever seen. She was about my height but her, clearly fake breasts, stood like basketball sized bubbles high up on her chest and her skin was the same orange color. She was addicted to the tanning beds as the premature lines around her eyes indicated. She was clad in black and pink Lycra from head to toe; her exposed shoulders looked like stone under tanned, freckled flesh. Everything about her was hard. Hard lines on her face and on her body. She was definitely in shape, but being that fit didn’t equate to being pretty. It was then I realized that what made a woman beautiful was curves, softness, roundness. This woman looked like a femme-bot.

              Still, I knew that I’d gained some weight since working at Fresh Eats. My meals were anything but balanced even before I started working with Markus and, by the time I started going to the gym, we’d meet twice a week in the kitchen to concoct rich delicious foods loaded with butter and salt. But oh, so wonderful. Since feeling free to be myself, my appetite returned with a vengeance and I could’ve probably eaten all day every day. I figured if I put in the time on the treadmill I could stave off the advancement of my muffin top.

I hopped on a treadmill closest to the far wall right next to a door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY, and put in my ear buds. Thanks to Teddy, I could use the iPod I’d found on the beach. He’d even loaded a ton more songs onto the computer he bought me.
Stop thinking about Teddy! He’s gone
, I tried to convince myself but the wasn’t gone. Not one hundred percent, anyway, though  he was fading slowly. I didn’t need to read his letters every day; I stopped wanting to after a while. I still wore the necklace he’d given me, but I justified that it was disconnected from him. That even though it said “LOVE” on it, the pendant was not a declaration of love for me that Teddy recognized, just like Collette, that I needed to feel needed. That I was in desperate need of any kind of companionship. “LOVE” didn’t mean he loved me; it was just a statement of necessity. Like “food” or “home”.