Saving Meghan(26)

He thought a moment. “I think my firm did a project for her a few years back. The name is familiar. Anyway, it sounds like a good idea.”

They talked for a time about next steps and made arrangements for Dr. Nash to see Meghan in the morning. Meghan was coming home tonight, but she’d be back tomorrow. Becky wondered if Carl would have supported a second opinion if she’d been the one to suggest Dr. Nash.

She doubted it.





CHAPTER 12





MEGHAN


I wasn’t sure about this new doctor.

Her name was Amanda Nash. My first take was that she seemed powerful in that Wonder Woman kind of way. She reminded me a bit of Mrs. Banes, this hard-ass biology teacher of mine who would have failed me if my mom hadn’t intervened.

Dr. Nash had thick, dark hair that I bet was super long when not tied up in a bun. She wore tortoiseshell glasses, but they couldn’t hide the fact that her face was really pretty, annoyingly pretty, like, why should she get to be smart and beautiful? She had these gorgeous brown eyes and knew how to use makeup to her advantage. No way did she have a bad side in a photograph.

She was younger than my mom by maybe ten years or so, but I didn’t think they’d be friends even if they were closer in age. Dr. Nash was a bit too cool—not hip, but kind of aloof. If I had to put her in one of my high school cliques, I’d say she was one of the All-Around Girls—you know the type: good at sports, school, involved in a million and one activities, thinking she’s got Harvard locked. They were a bit of a rare breed, but we had enough of them to form a group, all of whom were in competition to be valedictorian at graduation.

I hated thinking about graduation because I probably wouldn’t get to be at mine. If I did get enough credits, it’d be a miracle, and if I couldn’t graduate with my class, I’d probably take my GED and just be done with it. That is, if I could even study. These days, I couldn’t remember anything I read. If this new doctor gave me a lot of instructions, she was going to have to repeat it all for my mom because I couldn’t concentrate worth shit.

My mom was in the waiting room, more nervous than me. Dad didn’t want to come, no surprise there. Honestly, I was fine with it. It was hard to look him in the eyes. Mom noticed, but I thought she figured it was a teen thing, or a sick thing, or a thing thing. I didn’t think she gave it much thought.

But I could tell my dad was over it with me—and with Mom. I mean, he pretty much came out and said I was fine, or faking it, or something, when he didn’t want to take me to the hospital. I wonder if he thought I was punishing him for what I knew—what I did. I should just get it over with, blurt it out and take the focus off me for a while. But it was one thing to hold on to a grenade, and something else entirely to pull the pin.

A nurse in pale blue scrubs took me to an exam room on the GI floor. I found out that it was short for “gastrointestinal,” which didn’t make much sense to me. I didn’t have any big stomach problems, at least not until I got super sick the other night. But now that seemed to be the big issue for me. I guess I was whatever my current symptoms said I was. So today I was a GI patient. Not sure what that had to do with my blurred vision, but what did I know? I was just a kid.

I was up on the exam table, per the nurse’s instructions, when Dr. Nash came into the room. The nurse had made me put on a stupid johnny again—yeah, my sundress. My legs were cold under the thin fabric. I was anxious but not panicked, not yet anyway.

“Do you have to use any needles on me?” I asked as Dr. Nash snapped on a pair of purple latex gloves. My voice trembled, and I hated that I sounded like a scared little girl. No matter how hard I tried, I saw needles as knives, and if anyone had a knife coming at them, I was willing to bet they’d be pretty freaked out, too.

“No needles, sweetheart,” Dr. Nash said.

I kind of liked that she called me sweetheart. It eased my worry some. My mom sometimes called me sweetheart, but it always meant the most when it came from my father. I missed him, my dad, the way we were when I was little, when I was his princess, his monkey, which was what he used to call me before I grew breasts and outgrew pet names.

“What are you going to do to me?” I asked nervously.

When Dr. Nash smiled, her nose crinkled a bit. “First, we’re going to talk,” she said. “I want to understand what happened to you.”

What did happen? One minute, I was fine, lying on my bed in my room, the violet-colored walls covered with stickers and posters, a secret hiding place in my closet where I keep something else. The next, I couldn’t read a text from my friend Stephanie.

I told Dr. Nash what had happened, and her expression was kind of a blank. She wasn’t giving me much of anything, which made me feel even more nervous.

Dr. Nash studied me. “Are you feeling okay now?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Better than I was last night.”

“Have you had anything to eat since last night?”

Even though my appetite had flown south, my stomach rumbled at the mention of food, which I figured was answer enough. I told her no, I hadn’t eaten per her instructions. I assumed they wanted nothing in my system, but usually that meant blood tests, which also meant needles. I shuddered at the thought.

“Do you ever eat anything that makes you feel sick?”

I thought about it before answering. Some hot stuff, like really hot salsa or super-spicy food—Indian food, for instance—didn’t feel great, but it didn’t make me sick like I was last night. I told all that to Dr. Nash, who made some notes on a paper latched to her clipboard. She went through a list of foods I might not have thought of that could make me feel sick, which strangely enough included broccoli, cabbage, and green peppers. Beans, milk, and cheese were on her list, too, which made sense for an upset stomach, but so was corn. I was dragging my fingers through my hair, teasing out some tangles, when we got to the question about alcohol.