How It Feels to Fly(25)

“Can you tell me what triggered the panic attack?”

“If I could tell you, I wouldn’t have to be here!”

“You seem angry.”

I jump to my feet. “Yes! I’m angry! I’m angry at you for not realizing that I might not want to wear a freaking swimsuit when I hate how I look. When all I can think about 95 percent of the time is how people are staring at me and judging me.”

“Who else are you angry at?”

I start to pace the room. “I’m angry at everyone who saw what just happened. Nobody should get to see me like that. Nobody. And I’m angry at my dance teacher for convincing me to talk to her about how I was feeling and advising my mom to send me here.” I infuse that last word with as much contempt as possible.

“Anyone else?”

“The costume designer who made my new tutu too tight, on purpose, so that I’d have a reason to lose weight. Like I wasn’t trying to do that already. And all the girls at ballet who gave me diet tips with these fake-helpful smiles, like they were doing me a favor. And the choreographer who wouldn’t cast me in his piece because of how I might look in a costume. Like he couldn’t possibly pick a different costume direction. Like his vision was more important than the dancing.” I pause. “I would’ve kicked butt in that piece.”

“I’m sure you—”

“And I’m angry at George freaking Balanchine!”

“Because?”

“Because it’s his fault the ballet world is obsessed with who can be the skinniest. It’s his aesthetic. He’s the reason girls like me can’t—of course, he was a genius, but this is all his fault. If I could time-travel, I’d make it so ballet was always about the best dancer, no matter what she looked like.”

Dr. Lancaster is nodding. “Who else?”

Marcus. His name floats into my mind, taunting me. I shake it away.

Bianca. No, that doesn’t make sense. She’s my closest friend.

I’m not angry with either of them. They’ve actually been there for me through most of this—at least, until Marcus dumped me. So maybe I am mad at him. But not Bianca. And anyway, I don’t want to tell Dr. Lancaster about my breakup.

“I’m angry at my brain for not being able to handle, like, life,” I finally spit out. “For screwing up everything I care about. I am so, so mad at myself.” Saying it out loud makes me shake with emotion.

“All of this is good,” Dr. Lancaster says.

“Good?” I turn on her. “Nothing about this is good.”

“Expressing your anger is good.”

“How does it help me?” I answer my own question. “It doesn’t. At all.”

“It will. I promise.”

“I don’t want promises. I want results.” Now I sound like my mom. And thinking about how she’d feel, seeing me like this, makes my voice crack. “You’re supposed to fix me. Not make me even more of a wreck! Two panic attacks in three days—at therapy camp!”

“So what can you learn from those two panic attacks?”

“Not to trust you! Or this place. To keep doing what I was doing, because that works better than anything you can tell me.”

“Do you really believe that?”

I nod fiercely. But the anger is dying down. I drop back onto the couch, hugging the nearest pillow to my stomach.

“I’ll tell you one thing I think you can take away from what just happened.”

She waits for me to respond. I don’t.

“You need to tell someone when you feel overwhelmed, rather than bottling it all up. If you’d mentioned to me, or Yasmin, or Andrew, or even one of your peers that you were having anxiety about swimming, we could have done something to prevent that anxiety from becoming a full-blown panic attack.”

I grunt at her.

“Also, now that your panic is out in the open with your peers, I think you’ll find it easier to talk to them and rely on them going forward. You don’t have to be a brick wall. You’re allowed to be vulnerable.”

“Being vulnerable won’t help me become a professional ballerina.”

“What about Juliet?” she counters. “What about Giselle? What about Ophelia?”

“Ophelia?”

“From Hamlet.”

“Oh.”

“Or Odette,” she goes on.

“I wasn’t talking about that kind of vulnerability,” I argue. “I can be strong in real life and still dance a sad role.”

“Yes. Exactly. I agree.”

“So why do I have to let everyone see how I’m feeling all the time? What if I want to keep my anxiety to myself?”

“There’s a difference between being a private person and being so bottled up that it’s harmful to you.” Dr. Lancaster leans forward in her seat. “Picture yourself as a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke that is tightly sealed, and someone starts shaking it. And shaking. And shaking. The minute you open the bottle, even if you turn the lid oh so slowly, it’s going to explode, right?”

I nod.

“You don’t have to share everything with everyone. But you have to know when to let some of that fizz out.”

“Fizz. Right.” I yawn, suddenly incredibly tired.