Lost In Me (Here and Now 1)

Dr. Perkins, MD, Psychiatry

A psychiatrist?

I scroll through my calendar, moving back through the past three months, but I only see one appointment with the doctor listed and it was a week ago. Was I going to start regular appointments? Why? For pointers on keeping brides calm? Or maybe the doctor is the silent partner Liz told me about?

Right. The relationship is a business one and you just happen to have a script for antidepressant in your apartment.

This doctor must have some answers to the endless questions that have taken up residence in my brain. I highlight the address in my browser and send it to my phone’s navigation system.

I’ve already grabbed my keys when I pause. I’m not supposed to drive. But I’m not sure I want anyone to know I’m seeing a psychiatrist, and how can I have someone drive me without spilling the beans?

“Liz,” I call to the front, pocketing my keys, “I need to leave for a few hours.”

I wait for her to ask where I’m going, but she just shrugs. Her disinterest is another reminder of the distance between us. I’m not used to this, but I don’t have time to think about it much. I’m too busy planning to break doctor’s orders and drive to Indianapolis.

By the time I get to Dr. Perkins’s office, I’m fifteen minutes late to my appointment. The receptionist’s eyes go big when he sees my face. “What happened to you?”

“I got in a fight with a flight of stairs. I lost.”

“Yikes.” He stands and ushers me through a heavy walnut door.

On the other side, a woman is sitting behind a desk, tapping at her computer. Her face lights up then shrinks in rapid succession when she sees me. “Hanna! What happened?”

“I’ll leave you,” the receptionist says.

As the heavy door closes, the doctor motions to an overstuffed chair and steeples her fingers as I sit. “Tell me what’s going on, Hanna.”

“You’re Dr. Perkins?”

Her tiny face draws into a tight frown. “Of course I am.”

“And I’m…one of your patients?”

Her frown turns to skepticism.

“I took a fall.” I motion to my face. I explain as briefly as I can about my amnesia, telling her I’m here because of the reminder on my phone.

“Oh, dear. I wish I would have known. I would have come to the hospital and consulted with your doctor.”

I’m glad she didn’t. I don’t think I want my friends and family to know I’ve sought out therapy. “I don’t understand.” I don’t want to offend this woman. She seems very nice. “It shows in my calendar that I’ve been here before, and I found a prescription for antidepressants in my apartment, but…” I’m not sure how to say it.

“Go on,” she prods.

“My life seems perfect. I have my own business that seems to be going great, and I’m engaged to marry an amazing man. I feel okay about my body for the first time in my life. Why would I need to see a psychiatrist? Why would I need antidepressants?” Why would I cheat on my loving fiancé?

She folds her arms and studies me, her face a series of hard and soft lines I can neither read nor recognize. “Do you think only people who have something ‘wrong’ with their lives need to seek help for their mental health?”

“Of course not. I just—” I cut myself off at her raised eyebrows. Apparently she’s a no-nonsense woman. “I wouldn’t put it that way. I thought that if I was seeing you and you’d prescribed antidepressants, there had to be a reason.”

She’s silent for a long moment that catapults me back in time to just after my father’s death. I was a teenager, and Daddy was my world. Back then, I never measured up with Mom. She was always trying to fix me—shrink me, tone me, dress me, make me an acceptable representation of her family. Something she wouldn’t find so shameful. But Daddy was happy to let me be. Then he died, and after the funeral, the school therapist called us down one at a time. “Why do you think you’re here?” he asked me, his voice sounding more bored than empathetic, and he let the silence grow bigger and stranger between us until I answered.

But I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not the fat teenager languishing in her gorgeous sisters’ shadows. I’m not the ignored child striving for perfection in all things to make up for her appearance.

Sure, I’m overweight, but look at my grades!

Sure, I can’t fit into the pants in your average store, but I’m always happy.

Sure, I can’t get a date to save my life, but I’m the best friend a girl could ever have.