Week 5: Fear is the Heart of Love
"Do you want to tell me why you're here?"
Of course I didn't. But I knew that's not what Dr. Ramos wanted to hear. I just shrugged and picked imaginary lint off my shirt.
"This is going to be a long hour if you don't talk, Erica."
It's going to be a long hour no matter what, I thought.
Dr. Ramos sat back in her chair studying me. I wonder if this was a tactic she learned in med school. I can see it highlighted in a Psychology text book: "If the patient isn't talking, then be silent and stare at her until she's uncomfortable enough to break the silence herself. Or until she pokes out both her eyes with a ball point pen. Whichever comes first."
The words came first for me. "What do you want to know?"
"It's not about what I want to know, it's about what you want to tell me."
I rolled my eyes and raised my hand, signaling her to not say anything else. "Doctor, don't," I said. "We both know that's not how this works. If I don't talk I'm pretty much stuck in this loony bin."
"Behavioral Health Unit," she corrected.
"Whatever. You know what I mean. Just please, tell me what you want to know."
Dr. Ramos nodded, and jotted some notes on a legal pad that was on her lap. "Okay. Why are you here?"
I held up my left arm wrapped in bandages. There was a little bit of blood still seeping through. "My parents thought this was a problem."
"And is it?"
I shrugged. "Not anymore."
Dr. Ramos paused. She was studying me again. Probably trying to decide on how to proceed. I guess when a 17-year-old girl shows up in a psych ward with self-inflicted cuts on her arm, she would usually be sympathetic. I wasn't making this easy for her. I didn't care, either.
"How did it happen?" she asked.
"Well first, I grabbed a really sharp knife."
"Why did it happen?"
"I wanted to do it." Like I said, I knew I was being difficult. And I'm usually not like that, but something about talking to Dr. Ramos was bringing this out of me. I don't know if it was her or the situation. I just didn’t feel like I belonged here.
Dr. Ramos must have been used to this behavior. "Look, Erica. I know you don't want to be here. I get it. But this talk needs to happen. You can't be released until I give the okay. I'm not going to give that okay based on some snide answers."
"I don't want to be treated like a scared ten year old," I said, folding my arms over my chest.
"Okay. Let's make a deal. I won't treat you like you're fragile, and you'll stop acting like a brat."
"You mean acting like a bitch," I corrected her, with a smile.
She shrugged. "That, too." She smiled back.
I let her believe that I would behave. And I was behaving, but I was also saying what she wanted to hear. "Yes. I've been going through a tough time." "No I won't do it again." Blah blah blah. I wasn't really opening up. She pulled off the comforter, I was still under the sheets.
After a few minutes of saying the right things, she opened up a folder. Whatever was in that
folder caused her to ask me, "Who is Grant?"
Damn. Without knowing how much Dr. Ramos knew, I didn't know how to answer that. I ran my hand through my hair. "Some guy I dated."
"According to your parents, you two were serious."
I realized my parents knew more than I thought. I shrugged. "I guess."
"Erica," Dr. Ramos began, "there is obviously something between you and Grant that you're not talking about. Something I think you need to talk about. Are you afraid of getting him in trouble?"
I laughed at that. "Fuck him. Getting in trouble is all he does."
She raised an eyebrow. "I have a feeling you're exaggerating."
I felt tears come to my eyes, but my voice was all anger. "You have a feeling I'm exaggerating? How the would you know?"
Dr. Ramos stared at me silently. Again. It drove me insane. I didn't want to look her in the eye. I didn't trust myself not to yell or cry. Ugh. It was like every feeling I had in the last year was rising to the surface, and I didn't know which one was going to come out. I didn't want any of them to. I wanted to stuff them back down deep inside where they belonged.
And it was her stockings. Her stupid stockings. When I couldn't look her in the eyes, I lowered mine. That's when I noticed the run in her nylons. Seeing that flaw on Dr. Ramos changed my whole view of her. She had come across as this strong woman with her shit together, and I saw that maybe I misjudged her. Maybe she was coming apart at the seams, too.
If this was another highlighted section in that psychology text book ("Reveal a flaw to be more relatable."), it was a good one. All those emotions that I wanted to bury came to the surface. The tears that filled my eyes were now running down my cheeks.
I stood up, startling Dr. Ramos. I wasn't leaving, but I needed to move. I paced around the little office, wringing my hands and crying. Eight steps. Wall. Turn. Eight steps. Wall. Turn. I paced back and forth for who knows how long. Even when I finally began to talk, I was still pacing.
"Grant was my boyfriend. I loved him. God, I love that asshole." I noticed Dr. Ramos writing in her legal pad. I continued.
"I've always been quiet and shy. Never the bitch that I was when I talking to you. I blended into the background. But Grant noticed me. It felt great. I didn't care that he was so much older."
"How much older?" Something about the way she asked this made me believe she already knew.
"Eleven years. When we met, I was sixteen and he was twenty-seven."
"How did you two meet?"
Suddenly, I was very tired. I stopped my pacing and sat back down. I had stopped crying, but my face was still damp. "At a bowling alley. I was there with a few of my friends, pretending to be social. I was really more interested in the book I was reading. Grant saw me there reading and started talking to me. Asking me why I was reading at a bowling alley."
"Why were you reading at a bowling alley?"
"I went with two friends. They are closer to each other than they are with me. So if they were going to gossip or share an inside joke, then I needed something to do."
"Is that what you told Grant?"
"No." I smiled a bit at the memory. "I told him because I liked to read. I was kind of being a smart ass. And he laughed."
"Did he know how old you were?"
"Not at first. But after talking for a bit, we told each other our ages."
"Did Grant seem bothered by the age difference?"
"Not really. He said I seemed mature for my age."
She wrote more notes on that pad. She continued to write as I told her everything. I told her how sweet Grant was for the first couple months. How when he called me his girl I thought I would explode with joy.
She scribbled furiously with her brows furrowed when I told her he how often we saw each other, the lies I told my parents, and how I started pulling away from friends.
When I started telling her about the comments he had begun making six month in, my eyes were so full of tears again that I couldn't see if she was still writing anything. But I assume she was.
You're lucky I love you. Who else would?
We both know you wouldn't win any beauty pageants.
It’s so cute when you’re afraid of me.
Why are you so fucking stupid? I swear to God, if I didn't love you....
By the time I told her about the hair pulling, the scratching, the pushing, the pinches, I could barely get words out between sobs.
"Erica, you know you didn't deserve the way he treated you, right?" Dr. Ramos asked gently.
I nodded. "I do now. I don't think I believed that when it was actually happening."
"Did you ever tell him that he was hurting you?"
"Yes. Sometimes he felt bad about it. Sometimes he told me that the pain is necessary for love. He liked when I was a little afraid of him. He told me that. It think that made him love me more. Or his version of love." I started scratching at my bandage.
"Where is Grant now?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. He disappeared two months ago. Just gone." That probably hurt the most. He just left without a word. Maybe that was for the best. Because even though it hurt like hell at first, eventually I became angry. I think the anger allowed me to let go. I wanted all traces of him out of my life. Off of my body.
I was lost in thought while Dr. Ramos was talking. I only realized she was speaking when she waved a hand in front of my face, to get my attention.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"It's okay. I know this can be difficult. Did you try to kill yourself because he left?"
I put my head in my hands, and rubbed my eyes. "I didn't try to kill myself."
"Then why did you try to slit your wrists?"
"I didn't."
Dr. Ramos sighed. "Erica. You really opened up. Don't stop now."
"I didn't try to slit my wrist. I didn't try to kill myself."
"Then explain this," she said, pointing to my bandaged arm.
I looked around the office. "Where's my phone?"
"It's locked up. You can't use your phone while a patient here."
"Can you get it, please? I'm not looking to make a call or text. I don't even want to check Facebook. I just need to show you something, to explain."
The doctor paused, considering my request. Finally she pulled a set of keys out of her pocket.
I started to talk. "Grant had a friend, Derrick, who learned how to tattoo in jail. Grant wanted me to get a tattoo. I was a little scared, but just wanted to make him happy. So I agreed.”
Dr. Ramos unlocked a drawer in the filing cabinet on her left. I continued to talk. "I let him choose what I was going to get. Again, anything to make him happy. God, why did I give him that power?"
She pulled my phone out of a sealed bag with my name on it. I hoped the battery wasn't dead. When she handed it to me, I pressed the power button. The screen slowly lit up.
I kept talking.
"Grant told me not to worry about the tattoo. He had quote in mind that he said reminded him of our love. I thought it was so sweet. I kept my eyes shut during the whole thing. I wanted to be surprised."
I entered my PIN to unlock my phone.
"I was surprised. I thought it was beautiful and horrible all at once. I smiled, and kissed Grant, told him I loved it."
I open my picture app, looking for the right photo.
"After Grant left, after the sadness, when I was angry, I wanted him gone completely from me. I had to get rid of it all. I threw away pictures and trinkets. I deleted texts and emails. I had to purge."
I found the photo I was looking for. "This was the last thing that had to go." I showed the picture to Dr. Ramos. It was that tattoo, on my left arm. It read, "Fear is the heart of love."