Cameron and the Girls (6 page)

“Kind of,” I say. I've never faced this before, a jealous girl.

“How can you kind of have a girlfriend? That's not possible. You either have one or you don't.”

“Then I do.”

She is quiet for a moment, then says, “I can't tell you how many times I've felt like jumping off this thing.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

She shrugs. “Sometimes I wonder, who do we have to live for? I mean, look at you, Cam. You don't look so hot. And I'm sure I must look like some bad dream. What's the use?”

The important thing is to listen. One can pick up important clues if one opens one's ears. Listening is generally the right thing to do.

“Where have you been?” I ask The Professor.

“I'm right here,” says Nina.

And listen closely.

I wave The Professor off and Nina notices.

“Are you sure you're okay?” she asks.

“Right now I am.”

She sighs and sits on one of the wet rocks. “So you really like her, huh?”

I nod. “Who told?”

“Griffin. He likes to see me suffer.”

“She's cool,” I say.

“Where does she go?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Griffin said she's cute.”

“He's never seen her. And the drawing isn't exactly right.”

“So there's a chance she could be even cuter?” Her voice is as dark as the mud.

“I said I don't want to talk about it.”

“So where is she? Why isn't she here with you?”

“Uh,” I murmur. All of a sudden, my footing isn't so sure. “She was busy.”

This seems to perk Nina up. “Well, I'm here with you.”

I look at her hair. I don't know why I didn't notice it before, but it's not quite dark enough. Her eyes are spaced a little too far apart. Her nose doesn't have the little crook in it I like. Her lips are slightly thicker than I like. And the eyebrows are scary. Then she says something that throws me.

“If you feel like kissing me, don't. I'm not in the mood.”

I'm so shocked that I start babbling and can't control it. “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah,” I keep saying.

This amuses her. She laughs so hard, she has to hold on to her stomach. “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah,” she says, mimicking me. “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. What a dork.”

And deep in my brain, I feel the buildup again, the uncontrollable urge to shout out bad things.

She's mocking you for no reason.

“Stop it,” I say.

“Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.” She bends over, as if she'll never be able to stop laughing at me.

But when she finally looks up, maybe Nina sees a change in the tone of my eyes, because she recoils, stumbles back to the rock, and says, “Sorry, I didn't mean to ride you.”

I have to steady myself because there is a rush like waves pouring over my brain. As if I'm actually standing on the ocean and one crashes into me and I have nothing to latch on to. I feel dizzy.

“Oh no,” I say. I close my eyes tightly and wait for it to end. When I open them, she is squatting in front of me.

She pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabs it in the standing water between the rocks. She brushes it against my forehead. Then she blows on the spot.

I can feel the water evaporate, and it feels cool and invigorating and temporary, like ice in the desert. But now I'm on edge, waiting for what my brain will do next.

“You should have seen your face go all white,” she says. “As if someone plugged a straw into your jugular and sucked all the red out. It was freaky.”

“I'm okay now,” I lie.

She dabs a little more at my face, and I like how sweet and gentle the motion is.

“Let's go,” she says.

“I need to do something,” I say. I remember what Dr. Simons once told me. Don't wait too long because then it might be too late. Do something when you're still feeling almost good. I lean down and pick up one of the wet rocks. My eyes burn in the dank underbridge.

Nina takes one look at me holding the big jagged rock and scrambles over the boulders and up to the road.

“No!” I cry, not understanding. But when she's out of sight, I glance down at the rock in my hand and I get it. I was just going to make it splash in the river, but she doesn't trust me. I don't trust me. I drop the rock as if it were a hot coal. Then I walk out from under the bridge.

 

My joints feel rigid and I'm walking like a robot. I've been walking and walking toward Dr. Simons's office. I don't see Nina anywhere.

I guess we showed her.

“I guess,” I say.

What are you going to the doc's office for? You know what that means, don't you?

“I just want to find something out, that's all,” I say.

Talking gets you nothing. Let's do something unforgettable.

“Like what?”

Pick up a couple of chicks maybe. Something that will make people say, “There goes the coolest guy.”

I look up and the clouds look back down at me. They briefly roil into chubby, dark, horrible faces and then quickly disappear into choking swirls of mist. I wouldn't mind being unforgettable, but right now I'd settle for just normal. But how do I do that?

I'm not one to talk, but this trip is definitely forgettable.

Something is breaking down inside my head, and I can almost see my miniature self up there, running around with timbers and a hammer, keeping the walls from caving in. I get one edge secure and hear the crumbling of another. I'm exhausted without even leaving my mind.

I reach the City Circle and put one hand up to defy cars as I walk across the main street and into the park.

“I don't know where I am,” I call.

Do it again.

“Do what?”

Pick up a rock. Make them scared. Make them run.

I do not look either way as I cross the street on the other side of the park. An angry driver never quits saluting me with his horn.

Soon he is joined by another, and another. The music of the cars swells up too loud, and I collapse on the street. I wonder if I'll ever have the strength to stand up. Then I am lifted to my feet by a pair of strong hands.

R
ight
from the beginning there is a problem. Dr. Simons's waiting room is packed, and there is no room for Nina to sit down. She stands, with her arms crossed, in the middle of the floor while I try to get in.

“Dr. Simons,” I say to the young receptionist behind the desk. “Simons, Simons,” I add for good measure.

I think I must be too insistent because her face flames as red as her dress, and I think I've set her on fire.

“Cameron, you don't have an appointment, and he's very, very busy.”

“It's incredibly necessary,” says Nina.

I glance back at Nina and then bang my head against the counter once, very hard.

The receptionist pushes herself back in her chair, her hand at her throat. “Cameron!”

“Please,” I say.

I have to wait until the doctor is done with his current patient and then another fifteen minutes while he does a med check on another. By the time he's done, it's almost lunchtime.

Dr. Simons wears a white lab coat that has three or four writing instruments sticking out of the pocket. “Dr. Simons” is embroidered in blue just below them. He comes out into the waiting room, smiles at a few people still there, pushes back his thinning blond hair, and then blows out a big, tired breath as he takes me by the arm and ushers me to a small room just behind the receptionist.

“What's the problem?” he asks me.

“Have to talk to you.”

“It's bad,” Nina says from the doorway. “I had to drag him out of the middle of the street.”

The doctor glances at her and then scratches his head. “Okay. But I have only a few minutes.”

I stand up, and my glare pushes Nina back into the waiting room.

In the doctor's room, I hurry to my favorite gray chair and plop into it. I rest my head against the scratchy fabric.

“Well?” says Dr. Simons.

“I need help.”

“Yes?”

“Is it possible to make one voice go away and keep a different one forever?”

One wonders which voices you are talking about.

The doctor has been standing, but now he gently eases himself into his soft black leather chair. “I'm not sure what you're saying,” he says.

“I have a girlfriend.”

“Okay.”

“And I want to keep her. Can you help me?” I bite my tongue so I won't repeat the last sentence. Dr. Simons does not like echolalia.

Although it would not seem erudite to say it, what am I, chopped liver?

“Be quiet,” I say.

Dr. Simons raises an eyebrow and then clasps his hands together. “Is that your girlfriend out in the waiting room?”

“No, that's Nina. Just a friend.”

“Then who is your girlfriend, Cameron?”

I hesitate to tell him, but he is my therapist. “I don't know her name. And she's out of town. Out of town.”

Now the doctor notices the repeat. He scoots his chair over to be closer to me. The squeaky wheels make my head ache. “Can you answer me one question before I help you, Cameron?”

“Okay.”

“Have you been taking your Risperdal?”

“Of course,” I say, but I can't look the doctor in the face.

“Because it seems like maybe you're not taking them. Your story is not quite right,” he goes on. “And look at you. You're wet and dirty, and is it true that the young lady out there had to pick you up off the street?”

I hang my head.

“Cameron?”

“Please don't tell my mom. Please. I don't want to lose my girlfriend.”

The doctor puts a soft hand on my shoulder. “Your mother is very devoted to you.”

“But she'll make me lose The Girl.”

When involved in a discussion such as this, it would be best to include everyone present. Voices are the product of your own thought processes. One could be thinking this through better.

“I see.” Dr. Simons heaves a sigh and scoots back over to his desk. His fingers tap the buttons on his phone. “Cameron, you and I go back a long way. I've always tried to do what's best for you. And I'd like to do that now.”

I close my eyes tightly and imagine a life without The Girl. “No. Please,” I say. But even with my eyes closed, I can hear the doctor's fingers punching the buttons on his phone.

 

I sit in the back examining room that the doctor hardly ever uses. The walls are a bare glaring white. There is a pair of orange plastic chairs facing each other, a small low table between them. I hold a paper cup of water and stare at my reflection in it. Nina came in a half hour before and said goodbye.

Now I hear voices out in the hall, but none I recognize from inside my head. Soon, the doorknob jiggles and my mom comes in. She has that look on her face, the one that tells me I will never stop being the patient in my family.

“Cam,” she says. I can hear the tears in her voice, see the red in her eyeballs.

Behind her, Dad looms in the doorway. The top of his head barely fits through. He has his work clothes on. On his shoulder, a dark stain from the machine at the mill looks like the map of Texas. “What's up, son?” he says. “Too much homework?”

But I can't answer him. Mom has mashed my face into her chest. I can barely breathe. I finally have to push her away. She takes my chin in her hands and studies me.

“I knew it,” she says. “Didn't I ask you about the meds?”

Shut up.

Dr. Simons comes through the door. “Ah, I see we're all here,” he says. “It seems we have a little problem.”

“Not one that can't be fixed,” says my dad. He walks over to me but doesn't stop. He ends up doing a circle and standing a few feet away.

“I don't understand it,” Mom says. “Things were going so well and now this.” She shakes me a little. “Weren't things going well?”

You touch me one more time . . .

I don't want to answer. I don't want to tell her that her mouth is making big ballooning motions as she talks.

“He's fourteen,” says Dad. “Fourteen-year-olds like to do things like this.”

“We could speculate until the sun goes down,” says Dr. Simons, “but that doesn't change the fact that this young man is in trouble.” He turns toward me. “Are you hallucinating, Cameron?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I don't see anything weird.”

“But what about the voices? You've had trouble with voices before.”

My dad turns away. He doesn't like to hear this kind of talk. I've seen it make his gut contract and force him to reach in his pocket for the cigarettes he quit smoking five years ago. He stares out at the parking lot.

“No voices,” I repeat.

“The Girl?” says Dr. Simons.

“Who's that?” my mom asks. Then she shakes me again. “Who's The Girl?”

You don't have to take this, you know.

“I told you already,” I say.

“Apparently he has a girlfriend,” Dr. Simons says. He waits until he has Mom's attention, then does a little head shake and a frown.

But I see it. “She
is
my girlfriend,” I insist.

“Of course she is, sweetheart,” says Mom.

Of course she is, sweetheart.

I smirk, even though it is The Other Guy. Maybe he's not so bad.

“Well, girlfriend or not, we still have a problem,” Dr. Simons says. “It looks like Cameron is in quite a bit of distress. My suggestion is we give him a shot today and find him a bed at Saint John's so he can sleep it off.”

“I don't want a shot,” I cry.

A shot will clear up the confusion.

“And end up killing you,” I say.

My.

“So, yes, in answer to your previous question, you are chopped liver,” I say.