Thursday.  Normally I could be in science lab with Mr. Peter’s AM period science class.  Most days I just ditch because I suck at science.  When I show up I usually sit in the back of the lab with the other people who came late and don’t want to be there.  The rejects of rejects.  While the others mess with the test tubes and study the table of elements I can turn up the music and drift away.  I go over the e-mails he sent me in my mind.  I hear his voice in the e-mail and can almost see the text in front of my eyes – I love you.  You’re the only one I can confide in.  The only one I want to do it with.  I am a million miles away from protons and electrons.  I read my mental e-mails and feel electric.

No e-mails today.  No Mr. Peters, no test tubes.  Psychological services.  My father is at work and my mother drives me.  We get lost on the way and have to pull over at a gas station to ask directions.  It takes a couple of minutes and I stare out the window at two men walking by.  One of them grabs the other one’s butt.  He laughs.

When we arrive she is cussing and sweaty.  I am cool and silent;  we haven’t spoken since yesterday.  I get out of the car as soon as it stops.  It’s an office building, modern and full of large glass windows and black tile floors.  It looks more like a place for bankers and lawyers than psychologists who deal with **** up crazy people, but I don’t say any of this to her as we ride the elevator up to the seventh floor.  We go through a couple more doors and then we’re in a small waiting room with no windows and a receptionist sitting behind a glass panel takes our name and hands me a sheet on a clipboard.

Usual ****.  Name, age, hospitalizations, insurance.  Does anyone in my immediate family have a history of heart disease or high blood pressure?  I look at my mother.  She is flipping through the latest Vogue magazine.  I’m not going to ask her anything.  The questions I don’t know the answers to I leave blank and hand back the clipboard to the receptionist.  She is wearing massive amounts of mascara and has a huge wart on the side of her face.  I try not to stare at it while she goes over my paperwork.  Then she nods at me.

“The therapist, Ms. Green, is expecting you.  You can go in, down the hall to your right.  Second door.”

I feel numb as I move toward the door that leads to the psychologist offices.  Out of the corner of my eye I see my mother rise, hurry over to the receptionist.  She’s asking if she can come with me.  The receptionist is saying something back.  I don’t hear, I’m already a million miles away, out of myself.  It’s like it’s somebody else’s hand that opens the door and I walk through.  Turn right.  Second door.  I stop.

I stand there for a minute, not breathing.  I think about the torn pages of my diary in the lamp, think about the e-mails I deleted.  I think about him, his glasses, his eyes.  I’m not going to betray him.  I’m not going to tell this bitch anything.  I raise my hand.  I knock.