Every Ugly Word
By Aimee L. Salter
Chapter 1.
He indicates for me to
take a seat, then sinks into a worn leather chair, looking just like a doctor
should: graying hair, well-trimmed beard, and wire-rimmed glasses I suspect he
doesn’t actually need.
We face each other over
a glossy, mahogany coffee table. While he flips through my file, I scan the
room. Shelves of creased paperbacks line the walls. The single window is framed
by subtle drapes. There are doilies under the table lamps and two doors on
opposing walls. This office resembles a living room—if I ignore the bars over
the shatterproof windows.
Kind of kills the good-time vibe.
Doc clears his throat.
I take a deep breath and turn back to him.
“How are you, Ashley?” His
voice is too loud for the muted tones of the room—all earthy browns and soft
corners. The quietly ticking clock in the corner tells me it’s 9:34 a.m. That
gives me about five hours to prove I’m normal and get out of this place once
and for all. Five hours until her life
goes to hell, if I don’t make it home in time. I focus on him, try to smile.
It’s already been a rough morning, but I can’t tell him that, not yet.
“I’m okay.” I shrug, then
freeze. My stitches are only memory now, but searing pain lights up along the
hard, pink lines spiderwebbing across most of my upper body. I breathe and wait
for the jagged bolts to fade. My surgeon says I’m healing. But he forgot
to mention that to the layers of mangled nerve endings beneath my fractured
skin.
“Pain?” Doc’s eyes snap
to mine. The benign disinterest was an act. He is measuring me.
“It’s fine. I just
moved wrong,” I say breezily.
My physical scars aren’t
the reason I’m here. He can’t fix those. But he can help me by letting me out.
As head of this facility, no one leaves without his approval.
I mentally shake
myself. He will let me out today. He must.
If I can get home in time, I can fix . . . everything.
Doc’s lips press
together under his perfectly trimmed mustache. After a second he smiles again.
“I see you brought your
bag.”
The duffel bag my
mother packed before dumping me here six months ago sits on the floor like a
well-trained dog, as ready to go as I am.
“Yes.”
“So you’re confident
about today?”
“I’m confident that I’m
not crazy.”
Doc’s smile twists up
on one side. “You know we don’t use that word in here, Ashley.”
There are a lot of
words they don’t use in here. See you
later, for example.
I take another breath.
Cold. Calm. Sane. “Sorry.”
He returns my stare,
face blank. “I’m glad you feel confident. However, I do have concerns.”
“Concerns?”
He smiles in a way I’m
sure is meant to be reassuring. But when he sits that way, with the overbright
anticipation in his gaze, it kind of makes him look like a pedophile.
“Ashley . . . you’ve
changed therapists three times during your stay. Do you know what I think when
I hear that?”
I think the question is
rhetorical, but he waits, expectant.
“Um . . . no?”
He hasn’t looked away. “I
think as soon as anyone gets close to the truth, you flee.”
I can’t break my gaze
without confirming his suspicions. So I swallow and wait.
His calm is maddening.
When he speaks next,
it’s in the cool tone of a professional shrink. “I’ve read your file, spoken to
your nurses, and been briefed by your therapists. Now I want to talk to you.
About this.”
He makes his way to a
closet in the corner, then pulls out a massive full-length mirror. It stands
taller than I am, with a wrought-iron frame that is hinged in the middle,
allowing it to pivot. He rolls it in front of the shelves in the corner of the
room, far enough behind me that I can’t see into it without turning my head.
A kindness? Or a
challenge?
Doc returns to his
chair and I force myself to follow him, to keep my eyes away from the glinting
surface.
“I have a hunch if we
examine whatever it is you see in the mirror, we’ll find the truth about the
rest, Ashley,” he says. “I’d like you to stand before it and tell me what you
see.”
Panic lights up my
veins. “What? Now?”
Doc raises a brow. “Unless
you have a better idea?”
I
don’t. I’d expected this session to be like all the others—a glib exploration
of my past, patronizing questions about my psyche, along with
self-congratulatory compliments when I make a “breakthrough.” I was prepared to
do whatever it took to get out of here by 2:30, but I can’t look in that
mirror—not now.
What
if she’s there? She won’t understand why I’m ignoring her. She’s been through
enough today already. We both have. And breaking her heart is breaking mine.
“The mirror won’t make
any sense without the rest of the story,” I say, trying to buy time. If I can
get him talking, show him how normal I am otherwise, maybe he’ll decide I don’t
need to look.
His face remains
impassive, but his head tilts to the side just a hair. He’s onto me. “I know
the story you’ve fed your previous therapists. If there’s more, I’m willing to
put the mirror aside for a time—”
I slump with relief.
But he raises a single
finger. “—if you tell me everything. There’s
only one route to getting my signature on your release forms, Ashley. And
that’s it.”
His patience is a
marble rolling along a slim edge, precariously balanced between hearing me out and
sending me back to that cell they call a bedroom.
Swallowing again, I try
to make myself pitiful. I drop my head into my hands. “Okay,” I breathe into my
palms.
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll tell you the
truth.” As much of it as I can, anyway. I’ll let him think he’s gotten through
where others failed. Hell, I’ll even consider what he has to say if it means he
won’t make me look in that mirror.
“Excellent.”
“So . . . where do you
want me to begin?”
He crosses his leg over
his knee, pulling up his pant leg slightly. “Nothing too dramatic. Start with
the night you planned to give Matt the letter.”
I feel the grin slide
off my face. Nothing too dramatic. Right.
I can’t help glancing sideways at the mirror. Doc follows my gaze, and when he
sees where I’m looking, he frowns. For a moment the magnitude of what I’m
trying to achieve is overwhelming. I cannot breathe. But I force my muscles to
loosen. I swallow my fear—and begin to speak.
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