“Well, Felipe, about drinking …” she starts.
“I’ve already gotten the lecture. I’ve learned my lesson. I swear,” I say, holding up both hands so she’ll see I’m not crossing my fingers. This is probably the silliest thing I’ve ever done in her office.
“Okay, moving on, then. Confronting the two guys from school. Can you repeat to me exactly what you did when you felt threatened?”
“Exactly?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Including the curse word?”
“Felipe, trust me, I’ve heard much worse in this room,” she says with a soft smile, and I feel more at ease.
“Okay. I stood up, looked straight at them, and said, ‘Bruno, Jorge. Go fuck yourselves.’ And they left.” To be honest, I don’t know where she’s going with this.
“You got up from the table, and …”
“Told them to go fuck themselves?”
“No, no. Before that.”
“Looked straight at them?”
And then she gives a little tap on the table, as if she’s just uncovered a mystery.
“Can you see how important that is, Felipe? You looked straight at them. Not down. You faced them.”
I give her a small smile because, yeah, I did. I might not remember everything in detail, but I do remember looking at them. I suddenly feel like a superhero.
“Yeah. I did look at them,” I say, still a little astounded.
I find it amazing how therapy always makes the most obvious things seem like the discovery of the century.
“Can you tell me what motivated you to react differently this time?” Olivia asks.
“The beer?” I answer, hoping I’m wrong.
“I wonder. This might be your challenge for the week. Replay Saturday night in your head and try to figure out where that sudden bravery came from. Next week, we’ll talk more about that.”
I make a face. This is the first time that my challenge of the week doesn’t consist of anything concrete. The challenge is basically to rethink stuff that I did and try to understand what was going through my mind at the time. I do that pretty often as it is. My entire life. I deserve a truckload of yogurt candy for that.
And then Olivia stands, and I notice that our time is up.
“No, no! Wait! I’m not done!” I say, a little too hastily.
“Felipe, unfortunately I have another patient in ten minutes. I’d be more than happy to listen to you for a bit longer, but—”
“Caio and I slept together!” I say, trying to snatch her attention. Her eyes go wide, and I go on to give her the quickest summary of the story I can muster, without forgetting the important details. “Actually, we didn’t sleep-sleep together. We just slept in my bed. The two of us, together, in the same bed. And we fell asleep like that. And the next day—oh, god—it was a never-ending embarrassment, because I had no idea what that meant. Then we talked and apparently it didn’t mean anything. But then I freaked out and realized that I might be in love. And it’s not like what we feel for hot guys in movies. This is real, and it might amount to something in the end. And then Becky called, and she thinks I have to make it clear that I’m into him. And I have no idea how to do that. Because I’m afraid he’ll say no. Because I’m afraid of a lot of stuff, actually. Because, you know … I’m fat.” When I’m done saying all of this, my voice sounds weak.
Olivia takes a couple of notes on her notepad, then checks the clock, and her phone starts ringing. It’s the receptionist. The next patient is already here.
“Felipe. We’ve talked about this during so many sessions, and I am very proud to see how much you are growing. It’s normal to be afraid. It’s normal to want people’s approval,” she says as she walks me to the door. “And being in love is great. Don’t think of it as a curse. Use this opportunity to get to know yourself better. Think about this week’s challenge.”
“Any last-minute advice?” I ask, desperate, half my body already out of the room.
“There’s no need for fear,” she says with a smile.
And I walk out with the feeling that I’ve heard that before.
I’m in the town library. Olivia’s final bit of advice brought me here.
I don’t really know how to explain the way my brain works, but when I walked out of the office, I immediately started walking toward the library. It was here that my grandmother Thereza worked her whole life. It was here that I spent most of my childhood, when my grandma used to pick me up from school and bring me along with her because my mom was too busy at work.
I know every corner of this library, and as soon as I push open the heavy glass door, I can smell the books. The smell brings a lot of memories, and I smile because most of them are good.
“Felipe?” I hear a voice call out, and find a lady sitting behind the counter at the reception desk. It’s Marta. She’s always worked here at the library. She and my grandma were really close. When Marta greets me with a warm smile on her face, I realize how much I’ve missed her and didn’t even know it.
“Hi, Marta! How great to see you here,” I say, leaning against the counter.
“Oh, my boy. I’m always here. My children want to push me into retirement, but I can’t leave the books behind. What about you? How are you doing? You never come to visit anymore.” She says it jokingly, but I feel a sting of guilt.
I realize that I haven’t been back since my grandma died.
“It’s true. I’ve just been so busy. With school and everything. But now I’m on vacation. I came to catch up and to look for an important book. One that I’m sure I’ll find here.”
Marta starts rolling up her sleeves right away, ready to help me with my search.
“All right, which book do you need? Is it for school? It must be for history, no? Boys your age will only show up if they’re looking for some historical thing. It seems as if they haven’t been able to put all of history online yet.”
“No, no. It’s not for school. I think I can find it myself. That is, if everything is still in the same place.”
“Everything here is still the same; nothing has changed.” Then she takes one look at me, and I think she remembers that my grandma isn’t here anymore. “Well, almost nothing.”
Marta pats my shoulder, and that’s my cue to start my search. I walk down the main hall (so empty it’s almost scary) and stop at the end, to the left, at the children’s books section.
I run my fingers down the book spines on the top shelf, searching one by one. It doesn’t take me long to find the old, yellowed edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and when I take it off the shelf, I feel the memories coming back little by little.
I was ten or eleven that day. Right when being fat started becoming a reason for the boys in my class to make fun of me. My grandma came to pick me up early from school. I don’t remember if it was Indigenous Peoples’ Day or Easter, but I remember I wasn’t wearing my normal clothes. So, accordingly, it was either an offensive headpiece made of paper or not-so-offensive bunny ears. You can pick your favorite to imagine the story from here on.
Anyway, we were walking down the square on our way to the library when we saw a group of kids from school on the playground. I remember it had just been renovated and there was a line of kids waiting to use the new metal slide that would burn our butts on hot, sunny days.