Dear Edward(22)

Edward can see that an answer is expected of him. “Right.”

“Voldemort killed Harry’s parents but couldn’t kill him, even though he was a baby. Nobody understood how it was possible. And the fact that he survived scared a lot of people—it freaked them out.” She blinks behind her glasses. “I heard a doctor on TV say that there was a zero percent chance of survival from your plane crash.”

Edward swallows. Like a dutiful student, he follows her train of thought. Voldemort equals plane crash. Dead parents equal dead parents. Harry equals him.

“My uncle said they think I survived because of where my seat was in relation to the fuselage and because it ejected out of the wreckage.…”

Shay shakes her head.

Edward stares at the girl: her glasses, her one dimple, her determined expression.

“Do you have any scars from your injuries?”

He does. He has a horrible one extending down the middle of his left shin. He pulls up his pant leg. The line is jagged, pink, and raised.

“That’s disgusting,” Shay says, sounding delighted. “So you have a scar like Harry Potter too. And you were taken in by your aunt and uncle. Also, remember how Aunt Petunia was jealous of her sister being a witch? Lacey was totally jealous of your mom. My mom made me go and sit with Lacey when she was on bed rest last year, and she used to brag about your mom’s achievements, but in a sad voice.”

There is a dark window behind Edward’s head, and he can feel the silence on the lawn and streets. When cars pass, they creep by, as if afraid they might hit a child or a deer. He feels faintly nauseous, considering her words. Or maybe it’s her excitement that’s making him seasick, as if he’s stepped onto a rocking boat. Either way, he knows he won’t be able to eat in the morning.

“You probably have special powers. You must be magic, to survive that crash.”

“No,” Edward says, without hesitation.

“Harry didn’t know he had special powers either,” Shay says. “He lived in a cupboard under the stairs at the Dursleys’ house for eleven years before he found out.” She looks at the clock on her nightstand. “I have to go to sleep in three minutes in order to get eight hours’ sleep. And I need eight hours. Are you going to sleep here or go home?”

“Here,” Edward says. “If that’s okay.”

The light is off before he finishes the sentence.

Edward’s therapist is a skinny man named Dr. Mike. Dr. Mike wears a baseball cap and has an ornate clock on his desk, which is decorated with gold and silver flowers. Edward studies the clock hands when there’s a lull in the conversation. The timepiece seems to operate by its own system of measurement. This is his fifth visit to this office, and the clock freezes for entire moments, then leaps forward to catch up with the surrounding world.

“Anything new?” Dr. Mike says.

“No,” Edward says. “Well. My aunt and uncle are upset because I’m losing weight.”

“Are you upset about it?”

Edward shrugs. “No?” He doesn’t like these sessions. The doctor seems like a nice enough man, but his job is to excavate Edward’s brain, and Edward’s job is to fend him off, because his brain is too sore and tender to withstand even the lightest touch. The job is exhausting.

When the silence has gone on too long, he says, “I know I need to eat.”

Dr. Mike moves a pen from one side of his desk to the other. “My wife is pregnant, and her physician told her that physiologically and medically speaking, there are three different kinds of humans: men, women, and pregnant women. I think the same idea applies to you, Edward. There are grown-ups, children, and then you. You don’t feel like a kid anymore, right?”

Edward nods.

“But you won’t be an adult for years. You’re something else, and we need to figure out what you are, so we can figure out how to help you. My wife needs extra folic acid, more sleep, and has a higher volume of blood in her body than she did before she was pregnant. Your head clicks, you don’t like food, and you’ve found a way to dull your brain to protect yourself.”

“My next-door neighbor thinks I’m magic. She thinks I’m like Harry Potter.”

Dr. Mike touches the brim of his hat, a gesture Edward remembers as being a signal in baseball to slide, or run to another base, or tag a player out. He can’t remember what the sign means, and for a second he panics, as if he’s about to let his entire team down.

“That’s interesting.”

Right away, Edward regrets sharing what Shay said. His new friend—he guesses Shay is a friend; he sleeps in her room every night, what else can he call her?—would not approve. The idea sounded ridiculous in the air, and Shay is not ridiculous.

He uses what energy he has left to try to change the subject. “Why does your wife have extra blood?”

Dr. Mike regards him from beneath the brim of the cap. “Why can’t you bear the texture of bananas, even though you loved them before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly.”

Edward wonders if Dr. Mike has some kind of unusual baldness on the top of his head—there is hair around the side of his head, below the cap—or perhaps a terrible scar that requires the hat. He wonders if it would be rude of him to ask.