Saving Meghan(35)

I had all sorts of questions swimming about my head, but those would have to wait because a man entered the room. He smiled at me, said his name was Dr. Peter Levine, and told me that he’d be the one giving me my exam. I must have looked nervous, because he assured me it would be nothing more than a simple conversation. He motioned for me to sit in one of the chairs, and then he sat in the other. Time to talk.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Meghan,” Dr. Nash said. Her voice sounded sweet, but her smile didn’t comfort me. “You’ll be fine here with Dr. Levine. Just answer his questions and then we’ll take it from there, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Why don’t you let me hold your phone so that you won’t become distracted?”

I pulled my cell phone from my front pants pocket and gave it to her without thinking. She was the doctor, and unless it involved a needle, I simply did what doctors told me to do. But as soon as Dr. Nash had my phone, I wanted it back. It felt wrong not having it pressed up against my leg. That phone was my lifeline. How was I going to call my mother after the exam?

As Dr. Nash slipped my phone into the pocket of her lab coat, a terrible fear overcame me. My earlier premonitions that something was off came back but even stronger. I imagined myself bolting from my chair, pushing past Nash, grabbing my phone back as I knocked her down.

The fantasy didn’t end there. In my mind, I sprinted down the hall, kicking security guards right where it hurt if any of them dared get in my way. And I kept on running, legs churning fast, my arms pumping with purpose, getting back to my parents. But I didn’t stop for them, or for anybody. I was out the door and I just kept on running. At that moment, if only in my mind, I was the unstoppable one on the soccer field again. I was the fighter my dad had always told me he admired.

“Don’t worry, Meghan. This will be fine.”

The sound of Dr. Levine’s high-pitched nasal voice pulled me cruelly back to reality. Dr. Nash left, shutting the door, taking my cell phone with her. Dr. Levine crossed his legs and fixed me with a curious look. I felt two feet tall. I wanted to sink into my chair and disappear. At that moment, I thought I’d rather have needles pushed into my arms.

Dr. Levine was a lot younger than the other doctors I’d seen. He looked so young that if we’d been out together, people would’ve thought it was an awkward date. A thin neck barely filled out his shirt collar, while his sport coat hung like a bedsheet across his narrow shoulders. His wire-rimmed glasses magnified a pair of dull blue eyes. He wore his sandy brown hair in a short, convenient style so that he wouldn’t have to think about it. A prominent Adam’s apple fit his equally prominent nose. In high school terms, Dr. Levine, most certainly, no doubt about it, would have hung with the nerds.

He started talking quickly, like he was nervous or something, but I wasn’t paying much attention. I was still wondering why Dr. Nash had brought me to see a psychiatrist when I thought I was getting an emergency exam. “Emergency” to me meant in the ER, and “exam” meant something involving medical instruments. I’m pretty sure that’s what it meant to my mother as well, but who’d ever heard of having an emergency conversation?

“So tell me, how are you feeling? Meghan?”

“Huh?” I sounded like I was zoning out in math class when the teacher asked me a question.

“How are you feeling?” he repeated.

I looked at my lap because it was easier than looking at him. “Fine,” I said.

“Well, you haven’t been that fine. Dr. Nash tells me you’re not going to school anymore.”

“I’m too sick to go,” I said.

I figured he was going to ask me all sorts of questions about what kind of sick, but he didn’t.

“Do you like school?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Better than being home all the time.”

“Do you want to go back to school?”

I nodded, but still wasn’t looking at him.

“How come you don’t go back to school?”

I shrugged my shoulders. How do I answer that? Give him the truth, I guessed.

“My mom doesn’t think I’m well enough to attend.”

“It must be hard when your mom tells you that.”

I nodded. Of course it’s hard, I thought. What a dumb thing to say.

“What do you think about her decision?”

I shrugged again, thinking about what he’d want me to say. I mean, maybe my mom was a little too overprotective. Maybe I could go and just not do as well in my classes. Maybe I could be a below-average student and just get by. But that would have required me to paint a picture that was less black-and-white and more shades of gray. I felt so tired and defeated. I just wanted to give him an answer that would put an end to this conversation.

“I guess I’m too sick to go,” I said.

“Because your mom says so, or because you say so?”

What does it matter? I wanted to say, but I told him, “Because my mom says so.” I don’t really have an opinion anymore. I do what the doctors say. I do what my mother says because I’m the daughter. I’m the child here. I’m the one who still needs protecting.

“Does your mom give you medicine?”

I nodded. “Right now, I take a drink called a mito cocktail,” I explained. I expected Dr. Levine to ask me what that was all about, but he didn’t.