Shhh...Mack's Side (11 page)

“What is your problem
, Mack? We have a competition to win. Forget it. I’ll practice myself.”

She left me. She did know. That wasn’t the first time she avoided one of my episodes. There were a few before my medication was finally
working the way it was supposed to. Gia did know. She never helped me. Not once did Gia tell me it was okay. Not once did she tell me she was there for me. She left me.

I never talked about that with Lila that day. I couldn’t. I was hurt, and I needed time to process. No other psychiatrist had ever said that to me. Of course, no other one had said a lot of things. Lila was an expert at calling me out on facts that I suppressed. Things that hurt, that would incapacitate my normal functioning. I didn’t want to think about that.

I derailed it, moved back to AJ and just started talking. Rattling on and on like the crazy person that I was. Lila let me. I didn’t look up from folding the corner of her calendar, twisting it into a tight tube, rolling it back and forth with my hand. 

“I’d just gotten home from a convention here in the city. I was only supposed to be gone for a couple days. Detroit got an ice storm that shut the city down for two days.”

“So you were high?”

I rolled my eyes and lightly shook my head, disgusted. Of course I was high. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I barely knew him. We spoke daily about work stuff, but I avoided him outside of work. He held the door for me when I finally made it home. He’d been next door doing laundry.

“Do I need to describe that
, too?”

“No, I don’t need to hear that. I get it. You were hypersexual. You use that excuse a lot.”

Snorting, I decided it was time for this story to come to end. I needed to find a new therapist.

“Excuse?”
I questioned with raised eyebrows.

“Did you ever have sex with AJ when you weren’t high?”

“You let high roll off the tongue like I am a druggy. I’m not a druggy. I’m sick.”

“Yes, McKenzie you’re sick. So am I. I’m a diabetic. Did you know that?”

What? Something was seriously wrong with Lila today. She was extremely off. She never spoke this much and I don’t know if it was me or her, but one of us was all over the place. My sessions were normally very organized. This was organized. Organized chaos. Or was that the whole point? She was up to something. She was purposely sending me all over the place. “No. Sorry, Lila. I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to know things about you. Why don’t you share?”

“Tell me about Cara.”

Lila may as well have taken a ball bat to my chest. That’s how it felt. I’d just been knocked off my feet and the shock took my breath.

“I—I have to go,” I said standing, dazed and confused. I never told her about that.

“Sit down, McKenzie.”

I sat. Still stunned.
Then I stood. Then I sat. I didn’t like her saying her name, not that she ever got that name. She died. I knew my eyes were wide with surprise. I was speechless. What was I supposed to say? I never talked about Cara, ever.

“Why did you say
the little girl you picked up from the street looked like her? On the sidewalk?” She added, just in case I forgot.

“I didn’t say that.
”

“You did. You said
she was happy. Where is Cara?”

I felt the pain in my heart
, thinking about her. I had a hole in my heart, too. “She’s dead,” I quietly explained.

“Tell me what happened to Cara.”

I didn’t want to tell her what happened to Cara. I didn’t talk about Cara. Ever. I looked up to Lila, feeling heavy, very heavy. Standing, I walked over to the chase lounge and picked up my purse.

“I’ve had enough for one day, okay, Lila?” I said, like I was asking permission to leave.

“Okay, McKenzie,” she nodded. The look on her face said she knew I would do this. “I’m proud of you. You did well today.”

“I did?” I asked, not feeling well. I didn’t feel well at all.

“You did. I’ll see you next week.” Lila smiled. I nodded and left her office feeling disordered. Like I was walking in a fog.

I wished
I could just be like everyone else and not have a therapist, medication that constantly needed changing, and the thoughts, the wind chimes, and the voices. I wanted it all to stop. I just wanted it to stop.

Things changed between Colton and I after the piano dance. He was different. I could tell. I tried to make things okay between us. I did what I do best. I pretended it didn’t happen.

“Jane wants to see you,” Colton
said, poking his head into my office. He hadn’t been coming in for no reason like he normally did.

“Com
e here,” I requested, needing something from him. I don’t know what. Just something. I didn’t want to feel alone.

Walking around my desk, I closed the door behind him. “Let’s go out. We’ll get something to eat and see a movie later,” I offered, wrapping my arms around his neck. I didn’t like the way he felt when he put his arm around my waist. He felt distant.

“We’ll order in, and rent something on Pay-Per-View. Come on. Jane wants to talk about the swimsuit issue.”

Colton didn’t want to deal with me anymore. I scared him. He didn’t want to take me out again. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to go anyway. I only did it because he insisted. I needed to keep things routine. I couldn’t be the girl that looked pretty on his arm. I needed predictable. I needed the familiar faces around the office, the chaos of putting a magazine together, and Lila. That’s all I was comfortable with. That was all I could handle.

I gave Colton the easy out. I stopped, avoiding him as much as I could. He didn’t need to feel bad over me. I had done just fine on my own for a very long time.

I knew it was time to move on. I could feel it. Things were getting too profound. I didn’t do deep. I ran from deep.
I spent time, searching for a place. I wanted something by the beach, but not a public beach. Isolated, more along the east coast maybe. I had the money to just pick up and go. Living expenses wouldn’t be a problem. I made a lot of money doing what I did, and I was very frugal with it. I had plenty to rent a small house, and survive for a few months without the help of my mother and father.

Colton felt it
, too. He knew something was up. I’d been avoiding him, canceling dates, turning the other way when I saw him at the office, and blowing him off when I answered his calls, too busy to talk. I canceled my appointment with Lila three weeks in a row. And ignored the pleas she left on my voicemail for me to call her.

“That’s it. What’s up with you?”
Colton wanted an answer.

“What do you mean?” I feig
ned ignorance, flipping through swimsuit photos.

“Talk to me, please. Don’t shut me out,” Colton begged, closing the blind over my office door. I opened it.

Shut him out? Really? He was the one running scared. Not me. I was just letting him slide off the hook.

“I’m busy. Don’t you have that fish story to chase?”

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Kentucky.”

“No.”

“Why not? What’s going on with us, McKenzie? I feel like we’re drifting apart.”

Blowing a puff of air, I brushed past him. “Drifting apart? What is it that you think we have here, Colton?” I knew I was hurting him. I could see it in his eyes. I couldn’t help it. I was suffocating. I couldn’t do this anymore. Not him, not the job, and not Lila. I needed to go. The sooner the better.
It was time for me to go.

“Is that truly how you feel, Kenzie?”

Biting my bottom lip, I refrained from telling him not to call me that again. “Yeah, Colton. I really mean that.”

“Wow. So it was all for nothing,
huh? Just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

I ignored him, flipping through the photos on my computer. I didn’t need Colton Reed in my life. I didn’t need anyone. I was fine by myself. I’d always been fine by myself.

Looking to the time on my computer, I ushered him to move along. Get out of my life, and let me get on with mine. “Come on. We have a meeting,” I coolly said, walking past him without a look.

Thing is. Colton didn’t fight for me. He let me go. He was getting an easy out and he was taking it. Walking in front of him, I felt like the rejection I’d felt when I wanted someone not to give up on me. Like when I was a child and everyone I knew made me feel like there was something wrong with me. Everyone but one person.

“Oh, McKenzie,” my assistant called, stopping me. She made me feel bad for yelling at her earlier. I shouldn’t have yelled at her. I wasn’t mad at her. I just had a lot going on, and I was on my way to a conference call. I listened while walking down the hall, her trailing behind, speaking too speedily.              

“Mike Tomlin needs your budget for the month, and
you have a message from a Gianna, she wants you to check your personal email. Should I book your flight to Chic—ago? Oh, sorry,” she said, bumping into me. It wasn’t her fault. I stopped. Dead in my tracks.

“Gianna?”

“Yes, that’s what she said.”

“Did she say anything else? Did she ask for me?”

“No. She only wanted to leave a message,” Allison, said, handing me three pink Post-it notes. I looked down at it and read,
check personal email
. That’s it. That’s all she said. What personal email? I had several. One for junk mail, one for bills, one for family that I never looked at, one for work. It had to be the one my family and friends used, I got bombarded with sympathy email on that one. I hadn’t checked that one in a few years. I wasn’t even sure it would still work.

“Thank you,” I said, continuing to my destination. A meeting that I wouldn’t attend.
I opened the email I thought Gia would have used and opened it. Third message down. Today at Nine AM.

“Hey, you okay?” Colton asked.

I wasn’t okay. I was far from okay. The Chronicle back home was retelling the story. How could they do that? They never asked my permission. They used my name. This wasn’t happening.

“McKenzie?” Colton repeated.

“I’m not feeling well. Could you tell Jane?” I looked down at the article and walked out of the conference room in a state of total shock. Brushing past Colton, I caught the look from Sherry and then Allison. Colt had it, too. Misty Nash. That look of pity. She knew. They all knew.

“Hey, where you going?” Jane asked, entering the room.

“I’m sick,” I replied, moving around her and out the door. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating. I made my way to the ladies room and deposited a stomach full of nerves.

“What’s going on, McKenzie?” Colton asked.

“You can’t come into the women’s room,” I protested, rinsing my mouth, and splashing cool water to my face. 

“I read the paper. I saw it, McKenzie. It’s okay. Everyone knows.”

“No they don’t,” I assured him, alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“We all know
what happened to you. We support you, it’s okay, McKenzie,” Colton pleaded, trying to take my hand.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Come here.”

“Stop! Don’t touch me. I’ve got to go. I have to get out of here.”

“McKenzie, you stop. Stop running, baby. Let me be here for you. I want to help you.”

“Is that really what you want? Do you really want to babysit me, keep me from leaping form tall buildings,
dancing on pianos? You want to deal with my recklessness on a daily basis, you want to hear me count down, trying to use cognitive behavior therapy when I wake up screaming, hearing the wind chimes? You ready for that, Colton?” I yelled in his face. He wasn’t ready for it. He wanted no part of it. 

“I don’t want your help. Can’t you understand that? Leave me alone,” I demanded, trying to move around him. He grabbed both my shoulders, stopping me. I’m not even sure what happened at that moment. I screamed. I screamed to the top of my lungs. I don’t know why. I was freaking out.
This wasn’t real. I wasn’t really dying. I was at work. At work with a lot of people staring at me in frozen states.

Colton placed both his hands in the air, letting me know he was backing off. The look on his face was full of pain and unknowns. He didn’t know. He knew nothing about me or what I’d gone through. I didn’t need him to. I ignored the stares from my comrades,
and the ones rushing to see what happened, who was screaming. 

Holding back the burning tears, I gathered my things and
left the office. I didn’t walk. I ran to the sidewalk. The immense city was loud. It was so loud. I held my ears and hailed a cab, trying to calm my breathing. I never expected it to be like this. I’m not sure what I thought would happen when this day came, but it wasn’t this. He was out. He was free.

Irrationally thinking, I had the driver wait for me right outside my building. I
took the elevator to the twenty-first floor and went right to my room, right to the back of my walk-in closet, to the safe behind the mirror. I took it all. Seven cd’s worth forty-seven thousand dollars, an IRA from my grandmother worth seven thousand. With the fifteen thousand in my savings and the twenty-three hundred in checking, I’d be set. For a while, anyway.

I never lived above my means, not since high school. It wouldn’t take much. I didn’t need much. I packed a bag full of plain
, every day clothes, leaving my office attire hanging in my closet. I wouldn’t need those either. Grabbing my medication, I shoved them in my purse. Shit. I needed Lila. I’d never survive this without them. I needed a supply.

Dialing her with one bag over my shoulder, I got her secretary.

“Nadine,” I huffed. “This is McKenzie. Can I talk to Lila please?”

“She’s with someone, McKenzie. Can she call you back?”

“I need her now.”

“Okay, okay, hang on.”

I waved the driver to go. “I need to go to Danner’s Pharmacy, over on Spruce.”

“McKenzie! Where are you? Are you okay?” Lila asked. My heart felt a little warm. She was sincerely concerned.

“I’m leaving, Lila, but I need you to call me in a prescription for a couple months, just till I get settled and can find a doctor.”

“Find a doctor where, McKenzie? Where are you?”

“I’m going away. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Yes you can. Yes you can, McKenzie. I know about the
parole. I know what you went through. Come into my office right now. We’ll admit you for a few days. Don’t be afraid, McKenzie. He’s not going to hurt you.”

She knew? She knew? How did everyone know the secret I tried to forget on a daily basis? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“McKenzie. I’ve spoken to your mother. I know what happened to you and your friend. I know about the rape. I’ve read everything there is to read about it. It’s okay. Come in here and let’s work this out.”

“He’s free.”

“He’s not free. I read the article. He’s going to be on supervised parole until the end of his sentencing. That’s two years, McKenzie. You have nothing to worry about.”

What? No. That’s not
what I was worried about. “Lila, please. Please help me. If I take off with no medicine, I don’t know what will happen. Just enough to get me by. I’ll find a doctor. I promise.” I would find a doctor. I had to. It was either that, or end up in some nut house again. I wasn’t about to do that.

“McKenzie. Where are you going? You can’t just run away. Don’t run. Please.”

“Are you going to help me or not?” Hearing the sigh. I waited for a response.

“Fine. On one condition.”

“You know how I feel about being conditioned.”

“And if you want my help, you’ll let me condition all I want.”

“Okay. What?”

“You don’t find another doctor and we continue our sessions over the phone, twice a week.”

“Once a week, the same time we’ve been doing it, and you have to call in my prescriptions once a month.”

“Deal. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call you when I do.”

“I don’t like this, McKenzie. I don’t like it one bit.”

“I know. Trust me, Lila. I have to do this. I have to get out of here. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Promise to call later.”

“I promise.”

I didn’t want the driver to stop. I wanted him to keep going and going until I came to the end of the earth, wishing it was flat and I could fall off.