The Art of Losing Touch

Chapter Six

"–al? Cal?"

My eyes fluttered open to Mam's worried face.

"Mam?" I asked. I looked at the ceiling behind her head. This wasn't the nurse's office. This was our living room. "How did I get here?"

She brushed my hair off of my forehead. "You had a fit at school. I came to pick you up. I had to give you your Haldol, and then I brought you home."

My eyes went wide, my body cold. "What?" I turned my head and flinched. Everything on the left side was muted and dull and my whole face hurt. I gently touched my left cheek. Scratches. Had I done it to myself?

"Have you been taking your medicine?" she asked. Her voice was soft, scared.

I paused, thinking back, trying to remember. "Yeah," I finally said. "Every day." I fell quiet again, looking around the living room: the TV in the corner, the washer and dryer on the opposite side, the rock-paneled fireplace, the two rocking chairs at the foot of the couch. "Who saw me?"

"I'm not sure," Mam said. "You walked out of your class, saying that you needed to move or your legs would fall off. Mrs. Scott walked you to the nurse. I picked you up there. Do you remember what happened in the office?"

I lifted my hand to my bandaged ear. "There was something..." I jerked up straight, one hand on either ear. "Is it still in there? Did I get it out?"

"Get what out?"

"There was a... a thing... that was recording..." When I tried to explain it I realized how crazy and ridiculous it sounded. But I'd been so sure back at the school. I lowered my hands, staring at my palms as Mam wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head.

"I made you an emergency appointment with Dr. Mitchell," she said. "I'm taking you to see her in a few hours. Maybe we need to adjust your medication."

My eyes were wide and wet as I stared at my palms, and finally, I dropped my face into my hands. The hot, damp pressure on the scratches hurt, but not as much as the rumors were going to when I went back to school.

The waiting room at Dr. Mitchell's office was small and cramped and quiet. The only noise was the receptionist's typing and the quiet murmuring of his voice when he answered the phone. I sat in the corner in a wooden chair with soft, blue cushions, staring at the white wall. White, white, everywhere. So sterile, so sharp, like a scalpel just before surgery.

Mam sat beside me, silent, flipping through one of the many magazines scattered over the end table in the center of the room. I picked one up, skimmed it, put it back down again when I didn't find anything interesting. The seconds on the clock ticked by even slower than the ones at school.

Finally, Dr. Mitchell poked her head out from the door and called me back. I followed her through the door, through the small hallway, around the corner to the office on the left. Her office was the only office I'd ever been to that didn't make me feel sicker; the walls were white, like everything else, but she had colorful cubist prints on the wall and bright green plants scattered about and little wooden animals painted in pretty colors. Even the books on her shelves were colorful. It was a place I could maybe want to be, rather than somewhere I had to be. I picked up the little blue rhinoceros, turning it around in my hands. They were so small for someone my age, like a child's.

"Well, Cal."

I looked up at Dr. Mitchell and put the rhinoceros back down.

"It's okay," she said. "You can play with it."

I picked it back up again. The wood was smooth and cool with sharp points and grooves in the bottom of his feet where the artist had carved his initials. My eyes stayed on the toy as she spoke.