It was the first time Lena’s voice was at its usual register, lower. Every time she had spoken so far—Lena realized only when she had stopped doing it—her voice was slightly higher than usual, a tone meant to please.
Dr. Lisa paused. “Oh. Why do you call it that?”
“Because it’s rude and hurtful.” All of Lena’s willpower went into not rolling her eyes as she spoke.
“Back to your story.”
“One day, we had a substitute teacher. We were watching a movie and that boy turned around and said, ‘My dad said if he had a kid who was “R,” he would kill them.’ And then he said something worse that I can’t remember because the first thing he said broke my brain. I just picked up my book and slapped him with it.”
“Why your textbook?”
“I don’t know. I was mad.” Lena crossed her arms. She looked down at her gray slippers. “I’m sorry that I hurt someone. I feel gross over it. But it’s complicated because I’m also glad I did it. Most of the other kids called me Psycho for the rest of the year, but they stopped talking about my mom.”
Dr. Lisa scribbled on her notepad. Lena shut her eyes.
“Is it possible for me to talk to my mom while I’m here?”
“No. We’re texting her for you.”
Lena nodded. “But you would tell me if there was an emergency?”
“Probably. Have you had other violent reactions?”
That’s a really melodramatic way of putting it, Lena thought. She adjusted her posture, sat up straight, shoulders back. “I poured a drink on a boy who grabbed my ass at a party.”
“Did you pretend it was an accident?”
“No. I turned around and poured it on his sneakers. But I was drunk. I’m sure I would’ve tried to reason it away if I had been sober.”
The doctor nodded. “What makes you angry?”
“Entitled people. That song about happiness. Whenever someone is being treated unfairly for reasons beyond their control—race, gender, sexuality. You know. Sometimes I get deeply pissed off on crowded buses for no reason. The bus can be quiet and no one is sitting next to me, but I just get mad. I think it’s like an animal instinct. When white people use the words ‘fly’ or ‘fresh.’ Sometimes when I hear the word ‘cancer.’ When people make an of-course face when they find out I’ve never met my dad.” She took a breath.
“You could probably do this for another ten minutes, huh?”
“Yeah. I haven’t touched internet hates. Or food.”
“You can stop here,” the doctor said, still writing. “One more question. When I say the word Mom, who do you automatically think of?”
“Grandma.”
Dr. Maggie started the next session by handing Lena two pills. In her hand, they were shiny and black as night. Held up to the light, they were forest green. She washed both down with a full glass of water. They tasted like nothing.
“Your mouth might feel a little curdled around an hour after taking these.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“It’s really the best word for it.”
Lena rubbed her forehead. Yawned. She could use another cup or two of coffee.
“And if you get a headache, you have to tell me immediately.”
The doctor handed her a list to memorize: golden caviar, dead lipstick, broken space station, chocolate loveseat.
“What does it mean if I have a headache?”
“Do you?” Dr. Maggie’s eyebrows raised, her mouth parted.
“No. I’m fine.”
What Lena hadn’t anticipated was how annoying it was to not know what was going on. She wanted to make this work out, to get into whatever the Lakewood Project was. It didn’t matter that Dr. Lisa’s questions were mostly about killing. They were just questions. Lena decided she would care when the doctor handed her a gun and said, “You have to shoot one of us.” Dr. Maggie made her feel unexpectedly closer to her mother. It was probably a small taste of what it was like to be her, trying to sort out her health. Here’s a doctor throwing a bunch of tests at you and telling you nothing substantial. You’re expected to trust them, but they haven’t given you a single reason to believe that they care about you. It’s like a word search to them, while to you it’s everything.
Dr. Maggie handed her a book. “We need to wait an hour now before doing anything else.”
The book was about a woman traveling the world on her 45th birthday. She wanted to understand something new about life. The main character had just got divorced, and traveling was a thing she said that people did after divorces. They did something their spouse would have hated, like a train trip across the country. They went to The Great Wall of China and thought about how it could be seen from space. And how they would never be seen from space and that was sad, but somehow life-affirming. The book was boring, but it made Lena want to get a divorce. The time afterward seemed wild and glamorous.
When the hour was up, Lena repeated the parts of the list she remembered: caviar, dead, broken space station, chocolate.
Dr. Maggie checked her blood pressure, the inside of her mouth, and asked if her eyes or vagina felt painfully dry.
“Thankfully, no,” Lena replied.
“Then we can go on to part 2.” She pulled out a large needle and injected a clear fluid into Lena’s arm. “Make a fist five times really fast.”
The doctor watched her as she did it. Lena yawned. The doctor kept staring. Lena’s left arm itched. She checked it for a rash, hives. Then, heat. Burning. A wildfire spread from the middle of her left arm to her fingers, up her shoulder. Lena’s mouth was saying a blur of “Oh my God, Help, Fuck, and What?” and sounds that in her pain she hoped she wouldn’t remember making.
She was on the floor in a ball.
The doctor was writing notes, pen moving fast. Her mouth was moving.
Lena sweated from the pain.
It was in her throat, claws out, scuttling quickly to her face. I’m going to die, she thought, and for the first time in her life she wasn’t being dramatic when she thought it.
A spasm in her lower back. Her mouth and face were wet from drool and tears. It was over. Lena’s vagina ached. She was relieved when she felt down there that she hadn’t peed.
“Now, tell me,” Dr. Maggie said, eyes still on her sheet, “which of those phrases do you remember?”
“What was that?”
“I said, ‘What do you remember?’”
“Caviar. Couch. Dead. Broken. Golden caviar.”
And then her feet were moving. She was in the hallway. If Lena could have sprinted, she would have. Her fingers were pressing against the wall, leaving sweaty prints. There was loud air coming through vents and a noise Lena realized was the sound of her breathing. A woman was standing in the middle of the hallway wearing gray workout clothes identical to Lena’s.
“Mom?” Lena asked. Her mother’s skin was gleaming as if it were freshly lotioned. Her hair in fresh braids. “I don’t feel well.”
Lena vomited. Looked up, shook her head.
It wasn’t her mother.
The woman was significantly taller, at least 10 years younger. She took another long look at Lena and sprinted away. She went to one of the doors and slammed it behind her. Lena followed, tried the door, but it was locked.