CHAPTER 4
1621 Words
CHAPTER 4
Kennedy opened her mouth for the middle-aged doctor in his white lab coat. She stared at his little flashlight and performed all the other tests he doled out. She didn’t have to overact to make her movements slow and lazy. As soon as she got out from the wind and sat down in the clinic, exhaustion clung to each individual ligament like hoarfrost.
“You said your throat’s been hurting?” He frowned, and Kennedy felt about as nervous as she had been during her phone interview with Harvard Medical School’s early admissions application committee.
“It’s a little better now, I guess. It was just during the test. I kept coughing, so I went into the hall to get a drink, and it got worse.”
He nodded his head slowly and studied Kennedy over his glasses.
“Then I went back to my room.” Why had she told him that? He didn’t react, and she didn’t have any choice now but to go on. “And, well, it got a little better then.”
“And then you came here?” he asked. “For what? A prescription?”
“I started to worry I might have strep,” Kennedy recited the little white lie she had formed on the way over. “I’m supposed to fly to my aunt’s tomorrow, down to Baltimore, and, well, I thought maybe I should get checked out before I went on a plane.” She squirmed, wondering how many germs were on the table bed where she sat.
He kept his pen poised over his clipboard but didn’t write anything. “And how did your test go? Did your coughing interfere with your final?”
Kennedy tried to meet his eyes, but her gaze settled somewhere near his salt and pepper mustache. “Well, I started coughing right in the middle. It was hard to breathe, and I didn’t want to disrupt anyone, and, well, I just left my paper there.”
“So you’re looking for a medical excuse?” His voice was steady and somewhat bored, but Kennedy felt her palms clam up.
“I told the professor I’d be willing to retake it.”
He frowned. “I see ...” He glanced down at his clipboard. “Kennedy.” He paused, and she knew from his furrowed brow what was coming next. “Kennedy Stern. Where have I heard that name before?”
She stared at her lap, wondering if he’d come to the realization on his own or if she’d have to jog his memory.
“Kennedy Stern,” he repeated. “Aren’t you the girl who was ...”
He paused, leaving Kennedy to finish on his behalf. “Kidnapped.”
He nodded. “Well, I’m glad you’re back safe and unharmed.”
There was that tickle again. Was she going to have another coughing attack here?
“You say you had a hard time breathing. Has that happened to you before?”
“No, not that I can ...” Kennedy stopped.
Guilt must have been etched on her face, because the doctor leaned toward her. “Yes?”
She sighed. “Well, there was one time. A few weeks after I was ... after I got back to campus.” She glanced up to make sure he understood. He nodded, so she continued. “I thought I saw someone in the student union. Turns out it was nothing, at least I think it was. But I started running, and I was coughing then, too. Had a hard time catching my breath again.”
She didn’t mention the tears. The sobbing that convinced her she was on the verge of hyperventilating. She didn’t mention barging into her dorm room in the middle of Willow’s make-out session with a student from the theater department. Kennedy’s mortification snapped her out of her panic, but thankfully her roommate wasn’t upset. “He was really sweaty and gross, anyway,” she insisted. A little while later, once Kennedy stopped trembling, Willow suggested, “Maybe you should see a shrink or something.”
Kennedy had shoved the suggestion aside. After all, she was a Christian. She needed to pray more, that’s what she needed to do, not talk out her trauma with a therapist who would stretch her out on a couch and make her relive those twenty-four hours all over again. She forced herself to focus once more on her schoolwork, carried her pepper spray wherever she went for the next week, and did a decent job of forgetting about the whole cafeteria episode. Still, she didn’t eat any hot meals for a while and subsisted on dry Cheerios, Craisins, and microwave popcorn until she could enter the student union without shaking.
None of that had anything to do with getting a medical excuse to Professor Adell, though, so she shrugged. “That’s all.”
The doctor didn’t look convinced, but he mercifully didn’t press the issue. “So you had a hard time breathing this afternoon. And coughing?”
She nodded. Hadn’t she just told him that?
“Wheezing?” he asked.
“No.” She didn’t mention the gasping. That was easily enough explained because of how fast she had been running.
“Any other changes?” he asked, finally looking up at her. “Heart rate? Chills? Drop or increase in body temperature?”
“I don’t know.” More frustration crept into Kennedy’s voice than she had intended. It’s not like she had stopped sprinting to check her vitals.
He pursed his lips and squinted while he scribbled on his pad. “I’ll email your professor a medical excuse. When did you say you fly out?”
“Tomorrow.” Kennedy wondered why it felt like she was back in high school and he was writing her a detention slip.
“Well, then, within your first week on campus next semester, I want you to make an appointment with one of our therapists. I’m writing you a prescription for counseling right now.”
“Counseling?” Couldn’t he have handed her a bag of cough drops, given her a note for Adell, and wished her happy holidays?
He ripped the page noisily off its pad and handed her the slip. His handwriting was large and scrawling, nearly as sloppy as Professor Adell’s, but the largest words right in the middle of the page were as clear as a beaker.
Post-traumatic stress disorder.
“That’s not an official diagnosis,” he explained. “But after what you’ve been through, it’s worth ruling out.”
Kennedy’s throat constricted.
“You’ve had a rough semester.” He glanced at her meaningfully. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ...” Kennedy began but stopped. If she tried defending herself, she’d look even guiltier. She forced a smile. “Thank you.”
He answered with a half-smile of his own, and she walked out the room, conscious of his eyes on her. How did normal people walk, those without PTSD? Could he tell if she was infected just by her gait? She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t stressed. Well, no more stressed than usual. And besides, it was finals week. Who wasn’t anxious, at least just a little?
The sun wasn’t setting yet, but the sky was that shade of grayish pink only seen in winter as Kennedy trudged back to her dorm. She would rather have made up the final first thing in the morning. Counseling? Was he serious? Give a quack a white coat, and he thinks he can read souls all of a sudden. Kennedy was a Christian. She didn’t get traumatized. Worried, maybe. Stressed, for sure. But full-scale trauma? That was for POWs and war veterans and all those firemen who saw thousands die the day the Twin Towers fell. Not girls like her. No, Kennedy had the Bible, and she had prayer. Maybe she just hadn’t been trying hard enough. She gripped the prescription slip, braced herself against the biting wind, and hurried to her dorm.
She stomped up the stairs, certain all she needed was a night of solitude. A night without Willow and the ridiculously dramatized shouts and cursing from those silly shooter video games her roommate always played. A night without worrying about homework or lab papers or due dates. A night just to herself, just her books, her fuzzy pink bathrobe, some hot chocolate, and ...
“So there you are!”
She recognized Reuben’s voice and took a moment to collect herself before turning around on the staircase.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.” He held up her backpack. “You forgot this.”
She was glad he didn’t ask specifically about the test. She didn’t want to think about it. “I, um, I went to see the doctor about my cough.” She crumpled the paper even more tightly in her fist.
“What did he say?”
They were at Kennedy’s door by now, and Reuben stopped while Kennedy fidgeted with the lock. He followed her in without invitation and plopped down in Willow’s beanbag chair.
“Well?”
Kennedy had already lost the progression of the conversation. “Well, what?”
“What did the doctor say? About the cough?”
She tossed the wad onto her desk. “Wants me to go to counseling. He thinks I have PTSD or something.” She half expected to feel a warm surge of relief when the words were out, but all she could feel was the quivering in her abdomen and the hot sting of embarrassment.
Reuben didn’t smile and didn’t frown. He looked right into Kennedy’s eyes far too long for comfort. “That’s an interesting suggestion,” he finally stated without emotion.
“Interesting?”
He c****d his head to the side. “Well, do you have any objections?”
The question caught her off guard. She had been prepared to defend herself if he said it was a good idea. Instead, she had to rethink her arguments and failed to come up with anything coherent.
“It sounds to me like you’re in need of some serious holiday cheer.” He grabbed her scarf and held it out.
“What are you doing?”
“You and I are going off campus. We need to celebrate the end of the semester, the start of the Christmas season. With this.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out two tickets.
“The Nutcracker?”
“It’s an American holiday tradition. And since this is my first Christmas in America, I decided we should go.”
She wanted to smile. Wanted to laugh. Wanted to give him a hug to thank him for being that thoughtful. But she was so tired.
“Don’t you like ballet?”
She couldn’t bear to disappoint him. She wrapped the scarf around her neck and grabbed her book bag.
“The show doesn’t start until seven.” He grinned. “Which gives us just enough time to stop by Common Treasures and get you a few more books. What do you say?”
She was tired. Far more tired than she wanted to admit. But she wasn’t traumatized. Forgetting what is behind, straining toward what is ahead. Forcing a smile, she followed Reuben out the door and checked the lock behind them. There was a lightness in her step she hadn’t known in months. Maybe a night out was just what she needed.
- Writer
