[Rynn]

Thanks for all the nice comments. :) I think this part might be a bit boring… kind of really detail-y…

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The waiting room that one normally checks in at is closed for some reason; it has been for a month now. So I check in at the desk in the dark orange room with the little children sitting in the small plastic chairs to my right. I can remember green crayons and off-white coloring pages on that short table years ago when I was still in primary school and would come here with my mom and my sister. Innocent things happen with family it seems. Only Bad things and Secret things happen on my own. This is a Secret visit. I told Mom I was going to Mia's house to study math (Mia hasn't really spoken to me since August). The woman at the desk is brisk and I am nothing to her. She hands back the cards and I slip away to the left - she wouldn't recognize me if I got back in line and stood before her again in three minutes.

I walk down the hall. I go through the waiting room for the blood work lab first. I don't like that because the man and the two women in the white coats are sitting at the desks and are just feet from me. The desks are tall and have light wooden fronts that touch the ground in front. I walk by and don't meet their eyes. But, I am acting Normal so I pretend I am looking at other things, like the fake greenery that is on the end-tables covered in ancient magazines. That's a bit tricky because I don't want to meet the eyes of anyone sitting by those pots of greenery either. I make it though and arrive steps later, sweaty palmed, in the big, blue waiting room that Mental Health is supposed to check into. There are four people in the whole big, open space. One woman, a little hunched figure with Asian black haircut to her shoulders and a flat face looking down at a magazine, sits against the wall that divides this room from the last waiting room. She is in the shadows - I guess they don't bother with all the lights when the waiting room isn't being used to check people in.

The center of the room is well lit. A skylight lets in the fading sunlight. A man is sitting in a chair in the middle facing the TV. He has two daughters with him but I only see one at first. She is a big girl, heavy. She has dark hair and is ruffling her father’s hair as she leans against him as if the two chairs were a couch. I walk past, trying not to look like I am purposely avoiding them but also not like I am staring. I have no clue if I managed that. I go to my normal seat, sitting self-consciously in the second seat. There are three to choose from. One right next to the Door - mere inches from the door handle, and two more after a little table. I choose the first of those two because the third is in the corner - directly in the corner with the two walls fitting perfectly against the back corner of the chair. I am nervous, yes. I want to be hidden, yes. But I don't need to be in the corner where everyone can look and know that I am terrified. I am stronger than that. I am Normal. I sit in the second chair and pull the paper from my pocket.

I see the second daughter then. She is lying on the floor beneath the man and the first daughter. She is also big and dark haired. She looks like she might be in fifth grade. The other one might be in seventh. I watch them for a long time. They are disgusting. (I shouldn't judge so much, but it is all in my head. Really, it should be a bit okay, I tell myself, because I won’t tell anyone). They hold themselves in a way that screams Not-Popular. It is hard to pin point. They cling to the father, petting him, touching him, goofing off the whole time. At one point the father gets up to look at something on the wall and the two daughters follow. One stands behind and the other in front and they hug the father on a count of three and seem to be trying to lift him off the ground. Or just squeeze him. I can't tell. The father says to stop. The girls do not listen. The father has a quiet voice. A kind of sad, resigned voice. I can't help but wonder why they are here, in the waiting room by Mental Health. I feel embarrassed for the father.

The girls glance at me, long glances. Too long. Most people would make them shorter and more secret and more polite. The girls don't understand that yet. I don't know if the looks are curiosity as to why I am sitting alone in a chair beneath the mental health sign (it is big and bold and dark blue. It feels like it is neon green and flashing) or because they are goofing off in response to my older, 'cooler' presence. I would not call myself cool. But I have done that - been stupid with distracted thoughts of older, cooler people being near by. They are not clear thoughts. They are kind of wild, disconnected thoughts. I hate them. Looking back I always regret it. Regret it so badly…

I look at the paper in my hands. It is a tan note card. On one side is a list of Distractions: look at the sky, Breathe, journal, draw, etc. It is the other side I read now. "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?". I found the quote when looking for Theory of Knowledge quotes. I love that quote -

A man walks up. He is big. Very tall. He is built with large bones and he has short brown hair and a square jaw. He says "Hello." is a big voice. It is uncomfortable. It is far too loud for that whisper-silent waiting room made of lots of space and air particles. The man fills the space. All I can see is him in his heavy brown coat with snap pockets and slacks and brown leather shoes. He doesn't feel business-formal though. He feels like a bear. "Yeah, it's Thompson." he says, and I realize he is talking on a phone. The phone is one of the machines in his ear. He speaks in a booming voice about being somewhere and doing something. I wish he'd leave. I feel… open. I feel… like he is upsetting something. Like the room is different now that he is there - it is split into the waiting room, and my tiny rectangle of hallway. I wish he'd walk by. But he is pacing in a strange, decision-changing pattern in front of the Door.

The Door opens. A woman walks out, leaving. She is heavy in a good way. She feels like an old, Russian mother from the fairy tales - minus the headscarf and peasant dress, of course. A small woman's head pokes around the doorframe after her. The woman is a Doctor and has curly dark hair that is thin and also short. The booming-voice man moves toward her and she pauses and stops shutting the door. I don't understand what he is doing. She says, "Do you have an appointment with Dr. Skye?" and he says: "With Doctor Minsky" and she holds open the door so that it is perpendicular with the frame and lets him in. She has painted fingernails. They are baby blue. I hear the man say: "I have a doctors appointment - yeah, right now" as he walks in. The door closes with a huge CLACK and he hangs up his phone and it is silent.

I breathe. And breathe again. I look back down at the card and my hands are shaking. I do not like that loud man.

The quote is nice though. It is distracting because it doesn't apply to the big man with an earphone who paces too close to me. It applies to past things. To how I worry about things not counting. Sometimes I get so angry at myself… because I am really stupid. I don't have some Event I can point to and say 'Here, this is why I feel so bad I cut'. I just have… me. Just me. But the quote… I like to read it with my name instead of Harry's. I read it like Dumbledore is sitting in a big purple chair - a comfortable one that has gold stars and is purple - and he is saying 'It's okay, Rynn. It is just your thoughts… but why one earth should that mean it's not Real? Why should the fact that it is your thoughts mean it is invalid?' And it is a rhetorical question so I know he is really saying that thoughts count. And that is a very good thing to think of…

I fiddle with the paper. I crease it in half. And then in half the other way. In quarters and quarters and the corners fold down onto the mid lines and those fold down again… I fold and fold and try to memorize the quote and try not to think about Adam. Because I have been sitting out here for a very long time. And I am getting very, very nervous. I am wondering if folks are supposed to walk in like the loud man - but I have never heard of such a thing and I most certainly am not about to try it. I am wondering if Mr. Adam doesn't want to see me. I know I can be annoying. I --

I push that thought away. But more are there to fill the space. Is it the right day? Am I at the right place? Hush, I tell myself. The woman at the desk let you in. Just wait. Be patient. And I wait.

The table beside me has a pile of blank clipboards and one can of pens and one magazine. I take a black pen. The can clanks loudly. I feel as if every eye jerks towards me and I shrink into myself. I turn over my note card and try to add: "Give someone a compliment" to my list of distractions. But the pen doesn't really work. Well, it works on my skin, which I keep squiggling on to try and make it work on the paper. I get 'Give a comp' written down before the Door finally opens again.

A boy walks out. He is Hispanic and slightly chubby but mostly big boned. He wears a large white tee shirt and jeans and his black hair is shaved down close and he slouches. Adam is holding open the door. The boy goes over to the father and the two girls and they begin to walk away. I suppose the boy must be under 16 if his parents are bringing him here, but he definitely looks like a high schooler. Adam is looking at me.

I stand. It's kind of an awkward pause as I look at him and don't move - my note card is already safe in my bag. Then I catch on and step forward and step inside first because he was holding the door open for me and waiting for me to step in first. I cross the threshold to stand off to the side and let Adam walk first. He does, the door closing with a CLACK behind us. He leads with strong strides. I hadn't noticed that before. He steps with brisk, long strides. The type that make me imagine a ridged head bent down wards and long, straight arms swinging dramatically back and forth with each step. He doesn't do that though (which is good). He just steps big and brisk and decidedly.

Instead of following the hall down and going left, we stop for a door on the right.

It is a new room.

I don't like it.

I guess I have forgotten how Adam had said that he did not have a consistent room, how he had always said that 'today' he is in a room, and not simply that he has the room. This office is just Wrong.

It is empty. That's how it feels. Spartan bare. And it is brown. Overwhelmingly tan. On the wall to the right are life-size pictures of Cherry Tree branches. Adam says, "The cherry tree is a bit much, huh." but he says it in a polite way though. A joking, light-hearted way and he follows right up with a compliment to the woman who really owns the office. He gestures for me to sit, and I do. He sits. Between us is a board game.

"Since I have this out still, how about we play some?" he says like it is a question. As if I could say no, but I obviously can't. That would be unimaginably rude and just can't be done in that sort of context. I would say it, and he would blink in shock, maybe even move his head or something minor, but he would still be good and would not speak like I had to do it, but he would probably explain his reasons for wanting to do the game and then ask again. I don't mind playing a game though. I kind of shrug and nod.

I don't like the seating. I am not facing him. I am to the side of him. I am facing the cherry branches. They are parallel to each other, straight lines of computer-printed wood with pink blossoms. And they are all diagonal, going down the wall from right to left. They emphasize the fact that there are no other decorations on the walls.

He asks me what color I want to be. I shrug. I still have no voice. I haven't said anything for more than an hour. He pushes on though. He makes me speak in the nicest of ways. Never directly. Just by the questions he asks. This time it is not a yes or no one he offers. Adam pulls a bag from a game box behind him and says: "Which color?" The pieces look like tiny pawns. In the bag is a grey one, a purple one, a yellow one, and a green one. I don't want him to have to keep asking. I say, quickly, "Blue" but is comes out choked in my silent voice and he asks what I said. I say "Orange" this time, the other color that was already out on the board, and the irony doesn't escape me. I wonder if it crosses his mind. Maybe it's just another self-harmer thing. Another side effect of having cutting on my mind, all of the time, every day. Orange is the color for self-harm.

Adam has me go first. He offers me the dice. I say, "I don't know what to do." He is setting out the last of four piles of cards in the center of the board. He says "Just roll the dice" and he says it without sounding at all like ‘Come on, idiot, just go with it. What are you stalling for? Just play, for pete's sake. It's not exactly complicated!' which would, actually, not be an unusual thing to hear if I was with anyone but him. Adam is different. I don't know how he manages to be Good all the time - even in the little comments.