Page 133 of Saint Céline
I looked down. They were right. The tremor was small but constant, running through my fingers like a current. I curled my hands into Miss Astoria’s fur to hide it. The cat accepted this with the solemn generosity of an animal who believed suffering existed mostly to provide her affection.
Sophia sat again, my phone still in her hand. “We can go with you.”
“I don’t want the whole campus knowing I’m having some breakdown.”
“You’re not having a breakdown,” she said. “You’re having a response. A lot has happened in the last few days, and we worry. You lost your best friend. You broke up with your boyfriend of three years… and your professor broke into your boyfriend’s house and ate you out.”
Anya leaned her head back against the sofa, ignoring the last concern. “I once had a panic attack before an economics presentation because I convinced myself my professor hated me, and my mother told me to chant mantras and stop being dramatic. A doctor would have been better.”
Sophia looked at her. “Your professor did hate you.”
“Yes, but I survived.”
Despite myself, a laugh escaped properly this time, small and weak. Miss Astoria lifted her head in offense at being disturbed.
Sophia handed me my phone.
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll book the appointment if you won’t.”
I wanted to refuse. I wanted to say I was fine, that I could manage this, that I had survived Daniel Martin as a child and could certainly survive him as an adult with a locked dorm room and two terrifying friends and Vincent Moreau sitting somewhere in Blackwater like a loaded weapon pretending to be a man. But I was so tired. Tired in my bones, in my eyes, in the space behind my teeth. Tired of holding doors shut from the inside while pretending the room was empty.
So I nodded once.
“Fine.”
Anya exhaled like she had been holding her breath.
“Good. Excellent. Love that. We are making healthy choices against our will.”
Sophia reached for her laptop.
“I’ll find the earliest slot.”
* * *
The health centre smelled like antiseptic and rain-damp coats. Sophia came with me because she did not trust me not to cancel on the way there. Anya wanted to come too, but Sophia told her three people entering a clinic for one appointment would make us look like we were staging an intervention, so Anya stayed behind with Miss Astoria and sent me seventeen messages in forty minutes.
Anya:if the doctor is condescending tell me immediately
Anya:also ask if caffeine counts as a food group
Anya:actually don’t ask that
Anya:miss astoria is judging me even while she sleeps
Anya:i think she knows i am not you
I read them in the waiting room while Sophia filled out forms with terrifying efficiency beside me.
“Do you need to know my blood type too?” I asked.
She did not look up. “If the form asks, yes.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I enjoy managing your wellbeing.”
“You and Vincent would get along.”
