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This isn’t my first rodeo. She’s insane.
I am rewarded with another small smile. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:19.”
I make my way over, carefully sitting on the edge of my bed. I don’t feel righteous. I feel numb. I feel weak. I feel like sleeping forever. I feel like getting the hell out of here.
“I don’t understand.” I look over at my roommate. She raises her brow like she expects me to say something. I rub at my eyes with the palms of my hands, willing myself to wake from this nightmare.
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16”
A small laugh escapes my lips. Pray. It makes me want to play in traffic. Prayer can’t help me now.
“Okay, fine.” I relent. “I get it. This is a mental institution.”
“It’s no such thing,” she says, contradicting me. Her tone is pleasant. Sweet even. “This is The New Hope Center for Rejuvenation.”
“Really.” My eyes narrow. “What kind of rejuvenation are you in for?”
“Whoa, you really are new.” She sets her book aside. “Like brand new.”
She is legitimately crazy. I pinch the bridge of my nose. I don’t know what’s worse, being in here alone or being in here with someone who is of no use to me.
“Anyway,” she continues, trying to change my mind. “We’re not supposed to tell.” I feel like I could be good with this. It’s not like I’m getting anywhere anyway. Eventually, her face breaks into a full grin. “But tell you what…if you show me yours…I’ll show you mine.”
Her offer feels like a test and only alcohol makes me swing that way so I tell her thanks but no thanks.
She nods at my waist. “Your surgery—”
I know then to lie. It always helps in situations where one is unsure. Call it a power play. “I lost the baby.”
“I heard that.” She looks away, exhaling deeply. I watch as her breath comes slow and heavy. This could get me somewhere, I can see. “I’m sorry.”
My mouth folds in. “It’s for the best.” Her sympathy feeds me. Like one of those gel packs marathoners use. A quick hit. It’s something. But it’s not enough.
Her face turns serious. “I didn’t mean…”
I stare at the door. I pretend my mind is somewhere else, on something outside of this room. She needs space to give me what I want. I give it to her.
“My breast enhancement is tomorrow,” she offers finally. “But I had vaginal rejuvenation last month, so if it’s any consolation, I know what you’re going through.”
I feel it then. I’m not sore from the exam that confirmed my uterus is empty. It’s more than that. When I look at her, I see it in her eyes. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
Vanessa offers a sympathetic look before nodding to the puke bucket at the foot of my bed.
I can’t help myself. I hurl into the container, white-knuckling the sides. My stomach is empty. I hardly manage any bile, so mostly, I just dry-heave.
It feels like it takes forever for the waves to stop but when they finally subside, I breathe deeply. In and out. In and out.
“Don’t worry,” she says quietly. There is hope in her voice. “Your recovery won’t be so bad. It’s your head you’ll have to work to get right.”
I want to tell her she is wrong. There’s nothing that can help me there. I bite the inside of my cheek instead.
A windowless room. So there are no distractions, I would later learn. White walls, for purity of thought. Ten chairs in a circle, to face one another. We all wear hospital gowns like patients.
“Gather round, ladies,” an old woman announces. “It’s circle time.”
She softly claps her hands as we file into the open room, taking our seats one by one in perfect synchronization.
