Paging Doctor S to Room 4, Please

It’s funny how you can grow up seeing something without ever taking notice of it. I’ve seen this fish tank at least once a year for the last 24 years, and just now I’m noticing that it has a clown fish. It’s orange, and loud, and frankly hard to miss. If I’m honest, I don’t recognize any of these fish. Surely not all of them have survived for as long as I have, they must have been replaced at some point. I don’t even know how long fish live. Maybe they’ve watched me grow from behind the glass— recognized me as I’ve walked in with pigtails or piercings. Do fish even have long-term memory? Isn’t the whole joke something to do with memory and a goldfish? It doesn’t matter. I hope they don’t know who I am either way; I haven’t noticed them at all.

I’m looking at my distorted portions in the glass’ reflection when the receptionist calls my name. I wonder how long she’s worked here, too. My doctor sees a lot of patients in a year, surely, she wouldn’t recognize just me, either. However, the likelihood of me recognizing her when I come in is significantly higher than her recognizing me, and I still can’t do that. I wonder how many people I’ve come across in my life that if I had paid more attention, I would have recognized. How many missed connections I must have subjected myself to. How depressing.

My shoulders are hunched when I meet the receptionist at the walkway. She smiles at me and its warm. I wonder what her name is. She gestures to the door closest to the waiting room, as if I haven’t been going to the same room for as long as I’ve been alive. I smile and thank her while she tells me the doctor will be in soon. I know this. I have known this. I also know that I have about 10 minutes to kill before she gets here.

The room is small. Patient bed in the corner, desk in the other. There are pamphlets about teen pregnancy, addiction, depression— all information I’ve exhausted in these 10-minute increments since birth. When I was a kid, I used to collect them like Pokémon cards. I was anxious, and I liked learning, so from the ages of 10-14 I would take as many as I could home with me. To an anxious, overachieving middle-schooler there was nothing better than being prepared, and surely if there were so many pamphlets about these things then they’d come up in my life. What I didn’t consider was that in the height of depression, or addiction, you’re not actually thinking about your pamphlet collection from when you were in puberty.

I smile at the thought. The idea of finding the answers in a 4x4 folded piece of paper, how romantic.

I strip and put the grown laid out for me on, hiding my underwear under my pants. This woman delivered me into the world, but God forbid she see my printed-flower thong.

The gown sits weird on me, always has, but it’s familiar anyways. Maybe it’s the frequency in which I wore them in high school. Maybe it’s because the pattern hasn’t changed. Either way, I perch up on the bed like I own it and entertain myself by kicking my socked feet out in-front of me.

At roughly 9 minutes and 30 seconds from when I got to the room, the door across from me opens.

Doctor Shelby looks the same as she has since I’ve been old enough to recognize faces, the only difference being the years beside her eyes, and her pronounced smile lines. Her hair is still blonde, her eyes are still blue, and her hands are still steady.

“Hi Trinity.” She says with a smile. She always smiles when she says my name. Even when she’d seen more of me in a year than I’d seen my own teachers, it was always the same greeting. My chest fills with warmth at the familiarity. How nice it is to be known. I think of the clownfish and my smile is strained.

“Hey Doctor.” I’m a beat too late in my response, but she seems unbothered as she glides into the room. She leans on the counter across from me and tucks her hands into her pockets. Her posture is relaxed, but I can see the concern in her face. This is what I like about Shelby, she takes whatever I’m about to give her with grace. Every problem I’ve ever handed to her, she’s met with the same ease and determination I’m seeing now. I’m never scared to tell her what’s hurting me, because I know she’s right there with me.

“What’s up? Nothings been added to your file, and you aren’t due for a check up until—” She glances at the calendar on the wall, “August, at least.”

My feet have stopped their kicking, and instead my fidgeting has moved to picking at the skin around my nails. My eyes strain to pay attention so I don’t rip the skin too far, not because I can feel Shelby’s eyes boring into me. Absolutely not.

“I have this bruise, right here,” I point to my chest, “that won’t go away. It’s been almost four weeks.” She waits a beat. I meet her gaze. She tilts her head.

“Or closer to three weeks. I don’t know.” I rectify.

She makes a humming noise, but I’m embarrassed now. I guess it really hasn’t been that long. At least not long enough to seek medical attention for it. But it’s not like I went to A&E or anything! I’m just looking to see if there’s something I should be doing for it to heal faster. This is my first time.

I perch myself closer to the edge of the table as she pushes off the counter. My hands are flexing beside me.

She asks me to move my gown off my shoulder, and when I do, she raises her eyebrows. From an outsider’s perspective it doesn’t look like a lot. It’s a small, oval shaped bruise right in the middle of my chest, maybe two inches under my collarbones. It can’t be any bigger than my thumb. She looks at me, but I’m looking over her shoulder.

“This is quite a small bruise to be sticking around for so long. How sensitive is it?” She asks. The clock is ticking on the wall beside us, and I’m disgustingly aware of her time I’m wasting. I look at her reluctantly, and where I think I’m going to see annoyance, I only see curiosity. I feel my hands start to unclench, and my shoulders drop. Right. She’s here to help me. Always has been.

“It hurts so bad. Every time I move, every time I touch it, every time I think about it. Honestly, it feels like an arrow, or something, is just stuck in me.” I can feel tears well in my eyes, both at the pain of its reminder and the frustration of its presence. “I don’t know what to do.” I continue aimlessly.

She hums again and moves her hands to press around it. I flinch before she makes contact, and she pulls her hand away.

“Sorry.” I mumble uselessly. She shrugs.

“It looks irritated. I can see some redness around the border of the bruise, where usually it wouldn’t. How did it happen?” She questions. My heart jumps to my throat, and a tear escapes my eye. I’m quick to wipe it away.

Suddenly, and irrationally, I don’t want to be here anymore. Like a child begging for something for dinner, and when it’s presented, they refuse to eat it. An internal tantrum. An overreaction.

I can feel my body tense up again. I don’t want it to be obvious, but the shift is so violent I hear the crinkling of the paper under me. Shelby hears it too, if her furrowing of eyebrows is anything to go by.

“I only ask,” she continues, “because this kind of irritation is usually conducive with external influence. That means that it’s probably sticking around so long because someone keeps prodding it. So, what I’m really asking is if someone is hurting you, or if you’re hurting yourself.”

Her voice is calm and steady when she says this. I see nothing in her but the kindness that she’s always offered me freely. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m sitting here like a wounded dog, trying not to snap at the familiar hand offering me medicine. It’s not her fault that I’m in pain, but I wish it wasn’t mine either.

If I was a smarter, more emotionally mature person, I’d tell her exactly what happened— how I got the bruise, what I’ve been doing to it, why I’ve been doing it. She would probably ask me more questions, get more clarification, maybe get me a gel, or a cream, that can help bring down the irritation. It would be quick too, a maximum time of five minutes. She would write in her chart and be on to the next patient. I would drive to the pharmacy in silence, fill my prescription, and use whatever remedy she trusts. In not even a month, the bruise would be unnoticeable. Another three, and I’d start to forget I had it in the first place. I would move on because who wants to remember something that hurt you.

But I was just swinging my legs like a child. I was ruminating on my pamphlet collection. I’m looking at the jar of lollipops on the shelf across from me and wondering if I can get away with stealing a red one on my way out. I’m the same kid who’s been coming here her whole life. The same kid who cried about her stomach aches, her changing body, her will to live.

I’m here, sat on this bed, like I have been dozens of times before, hoping someone will witness my pain.

“I only keep touchi— “I hiccup. “—touching it because I want to see if it still hurts.”

I wish she wouldn’t look at me with her sad eyes. Like a mother to a child. Like a pastor at a funeral. Like someone who has no remedy to offer but sympathy.

Her hand is on my shoulder, but I’m only thinking about how heavy my heart is. Does she know that the bruise goes all the way down? Does she know that it’s connected to my heart, and to my lungs? Does she know that no matter how I move, or feel, or breathe, that I can still feel it?

Can she know this without me telling her? I hope she can see it in my teary eyes. I hope she can feel it in my shaking shoulders, too. My desperation for her to understand is making me unreasonable.

“It’s staying, Trinity, because you keep bothering it. You’re the one not letting it heal.” I wish I didn’t come. “No matter how deep it is, and how much you can feel it, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re giving it this power to hurt you by keeping it around.” She says this as kindly as possible, and I hate her for it.

Her hand is steady on me, and I fall apart around her.

We don’t speak for a long time.

“I’m sorry for crying everywhere.” I whisper, after an inconceivable amount of time. She gives me a squeeze.

“It’s okay,” she replies, “I’m the point of contact for when people are hurting, I’m used to it.”

I guess that’s true. I bet after so long it’s comforting knowing that you’re who people go to when they’re hurting. It would make me feel special, I think.

She gives me room to breathe, and cry, and feel, and it’s making me honest.

“I keep touching— poking— this bruise because I’m scared that if it goes away, I’ll still be in pain.” I wonder what she’d say if she’d seen how hard I press it, how violently I rip at it hoping it’ll stay. “But I think, on a deeper level, I’m scared of the pain going away if I stop holding onto it.” My voice is an echo.

And that’s it, isn’t it? I’m not scared of the pain always being there. You can find pain anywhere, anytime, in any corner of the world. Some kind of humanitarian crisis, man-made injustices, the mourning of your youth. All of it is within reach both in and outside of you. What’s truly harrowing, and unknown, and terrifying, is who you’ll be without it. Will I remember your hands on me? Will I remember mine on you? Will I remember the fleeting, overwhelming happiness I felt? Will it all fade from me like a healing bruise?

I wouldn’t call the look Doctor Shelby is giving me one of pity, but more like a deep understanding. The generational understanding; the mother understanding. The kind of look that has my bottom lip quivering, and fresh tears falling from my eyes. She moves her steady hands to my shaking ones.

“It’ll heal either way,” she speaks softly, “It’s just a matter of if you want to help it or hurt it.”

The clock is echoing throughout the room.

My chest is heavy.

We stay there for a minute. Two minutes.

I break the silence.

“Can I have a lollipop?” I ask wetly, and she laughs. I rub my eyes like a tired toddler.

“Of course, you can. The red one, I’m guessing?” She questions, but she’s already holding it out to me. I nod my head uselessly as I unwrap the candy. It tastes like artificial cherry. The skin around my eyes relaxes.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here; it feels like hours and minutes simultaneously. Distantly, I’m worried about the other patients who have more pressing matters that need attending. Expecting mothers, newborns with cradle cap, teenagers who collect pamphlets. All people who need a doctor’s attention more than someone with a self-inflicted bruise. But the gown is familiar, and the cherry is comforting, and I’m working up the courage to look my doctor in the eyes.

Ask anybody who knows me, and they’d tell you I’m not a brave person. I like to run, I like to avoid, I like to dress my emotional distance as wisdom. I don’t take risks, and when I do I almost always back out of things at the first sign of turbulence. I make up scenarios in my head instead of dealing with what’s in front of me. I am not brave, and I won’t pretend to be.

But I look up anyways, and I see Shelby already looking at me.

“Wiuh yu—” I mumble and take the lollipop out of my mouth, “—will you prescribe me some anti-inflammatory cream?” I ask. The smile she gives me is radiant. She says of course she can.

I hope one day I can start making decisions for myself with grace, instead of gripping at my pain until there’s nothing but swelling and claw marks. I hope it gets easier to stomach, too.

While she’s filling out the paperwork, my eyes travel back over to the pamphlet wall. They catch onto one I’ve never seen before, one with significantly less dust on it than the rest. It reads ‘Loss and Heartbreak: understanding all forms of grief and how to move on’.

A snort escapes me before I can stop it. How preposterous, the idea of a 4x4 piece of paper having those kinds of answers.

I put the lollipop back in my mouth and turn my attention back to Shelby. My feet kick while I wait.