Page 16 of Total Exposure

Lucinda raises her head and meets my gaze. I fumble with my sunglasses, paranoid that she might get a glimpse of my eyes, then almost have a panic attack when I realize I’m not wearing gloves and she can see my hands. I tuck them into my hoodie pockets and swallow hard, praying I don’t have a heart attack, because it feels like I’m gonna have a heart attack. Then hoping I do, because if I die, all this anxiety will just… go away.

“I have one last option for you.”

I laugh as I turn my back to her. She can still see me, but it’s better when I can’t see her seeing me. “I can’t be fixed,” I say. “It doesn’t matter what your option is, I cannot be fixed. I’m gonna disappoint all those people who bought tickets and I’m gonna go bankrupt and end up living in a shack in the bayou with only a canoe to my name.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lucinda says. “If you sell this house you’ll make at least seven million dollars. Just sell the house.”

I shake my head. “No. It’s mine. It’s all I’ve got left. If I sell the house then… then everything about me has failed.”

“Then do the show. Make more money. And go back to being the girl you are underneath all those clothes.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Lucinda grunts. “No shit, it’s not simple. Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I don’t know what you’re going through?”

“You don’t,” I say. But I’m whimpering like a sad puppy right now and that makes everything worse. Then I get angry and turn to her. “Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to feel exposed and afraid all the time? Do you think I don’t miss playing my violin? Do you think I like living vicariously through the substandard vinyl recordings of other child prodigies? I mean, what the fuck, Lucinda? I’m not doing any of this on purpose. I just…” I deflate and sink onto the couch, folding like a woman who’s lost everything. Because I have. “I had it all at one time, but now it’s gone. Even my music. It’s gone.”

Lucinda is quiet as she walks over to the couch, sits down next to me—so close our legs are touching—and takes my hand out of my pocket to stroke it as she talks. “I have one last-ditch option for you, Evangeline. If you truly want all those things the way you say you do—”

“I do!” I yell. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“Then listen to me. Just take deep breaths and listen to me. I know a man,” she says. “He deals with… special cases for me and I think you qualify. Not because your phobia is so out of the ordinary, because it isn’t. Lots of people have the same fear as you. Not as severely, I admit. But it’s very common. What isn’t common is needing to conquer it in two and a half weeks. So… because you need results and you need them quick, I want you to consider this next option. And just hear me out before you say no, OK?”

I nod—“Fine”—and do as I’m told. Just sit quietly and listen as she tells me more about her partner. About her plan. About the house, and the cameras, and the stranger who’ll be watching me. She says she’s set it all up and I can move in on Friday.

And when she’s done she waits.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I say.

“It’s called flooding, Evangeline. It’s a tried-and-true technique. A respected technique. Another term for it is exposure therapy, whereby a patient with certain phobic conditions is continuously exposed to their irrational fears over a period of time, forcing them to confront them and make changes.” She says all of that in a single breath, like she needs to talk fast, get her idea out into the real world where it can’t be dismissed. Must be taken seriously. Considered.

So I don’t dismiss her idea. I take it seriously and consider it. Picture what she just said, trying to imagine it and what it might mean. “How long will it take?”

I feel Lucinda’s shrug. “It varies by person. By your commitment to see it through, of course. We can’t hold you prisoner, that’s illegal. So this has to be one hundred percent consensual.”

I wave a hand at her. “Right. But if I did all that, if I committed to it, then how long?”

“A few weeks?”

“I don’t have a few weeks. I have two and a half. And if I move in to this house on Friday, that’s two weeks, almost to the day. Can it work in two weeks?”

I hold my breath waiting for her answer.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I can’t say, Evangeline. It’s really all up to you. I’m not a part of this treatment. You have to take responsibility and see it through. But if you do that, the chances of a quick success are extremely high.”

“Define quick and high,” I say, letting myself feel a little whisper of hope building.

“A week?” she says, not very confidently. “It’s fairly fast because of the in-your-face nature of the treatment. You can’t run away. You can’t ask for help. You just have to learn to deal.”

The word week echoes in my head. “I could perform my show?” I murmur.

“Possibly,” Lucinda says. “If it works.”

I lower my sunglasses, take them off and hold them in the hand she’s not still stroking, and look at her. “Will it work?”

“It’s up to you,” she says, lowering her gaze so she’s not meeting mine. “None of your fears are rational, Evangeline. People look at you. People look at everyone. They can’t hurt you by looking.”

She’s wrong. They do hurt me. A gaze—a direct stare into my eyes—it’s painful for me. Not like a bee sting or stubbing your toe. But like… agonizing anxiety that cripples me. Makes me irrational. And how can I possibly stand up on stage with my heart beating so fast I make myself pass out from hyperventilating?