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It sounds accurate based on the shy girl I’ve always been. It sounds like a nightmare to the girl trying to find her feet now. I’ve suffered two broken noses and four black eyes for this man. It makes me wonder if I didn’t give myself my current injuries after all.
He tells me that it took him a while to find out who I was because when we did meet I gave him my drag name. That makes me laugh. Of course I told him I was Uma Cookie.
I tell him about how my dad used to take me to Adira’s shows. And how he and the drag queens gave me my alter ego to help me overcome my shyness issue. It doesn’t surprise me at all that I needed that barrier between us in the beginning. How long did it take me to drop my guard around him?
We part ways at the front desk. He wanders off to find his mom. I head to Dr. Keller’s office for my session.
A girl with pink hair is reading a magazine in one of the seats against the window wall when I enter the waiting area. My high tops sink into the plush carpet as I stride across the room. A man stands in front of one of the paintings with his hands clasped behind his back. He doesn’t look at all comfortable, whereas the girl seems at ease as she flips through the glossy sheets.
She glances up at my presence. Her gaze widens and follows me to the desk where Dr. Keller’s secretary is working. “Ivy?”
“I have an appointment,” I tell the woman at the desk while pretending not to hear the girl. It’s not that I outright want to avoid responding to her, but I don’t know who she is. Or how she knows my name. I feel tongue-tied and awkward enough without having to explain to her why I have no clue who she is.
“Ivy Love?” The girl calls my name again before she taps me on the shoulder. “It’s me. Dizzy.”
“I’m sorry.” I turn around and study the girl who clearly knows me. She has bright and friendly blue eyes and her dress is so cute. But she isn’t familiar in any way. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Dizzy Sunshine.” Her brows draw together. “You don’t remember?”
“I lost part of my memory,” I explain.
“Oh.” She reaches for my hands. “Oh, I didn’t realize. I heard that you were hurt. Then you weren’t answering your phone and I had no way of contacting you. I tried the hospital.”
“You’re Dizzy Sunshine?” I forgot all about the drag queen who had called the hospital while I was institutionalized for days. “You’re not a drag queen.”
“Um.” She plays with one of those pink tresses. “No. We’re friends actually.”
“I’m sorry.” The receptionist grabs my attention. “Dr. Keller is away and it doesn’t seem that your appointment was transferred over to either Doctors Truman or West.”
“Oh.”
“I can see in Dr. Keller’s notes that you’ve met Dr. West. Would you like me to schedule an appointment with him for later in the week?”
“That’s okay.” I don’t like the idea of dealing with a therapist that I don’t know. It took a long time to build a comfortable relationship with Dr. Keller and I have no recollection of ever meeting this other doctor. It would be weird starting from scratch. “Can you book me in for when Dr. Keller gets back?”
“Sure.” She finds me a timeslot in a few weeks and I ask her to send the reminder to my new number.
“Okay. I guess I better go,” I tell the girl with the drag name and bright hair. I should probably find Rogue and tell him that I don’t have therapy after all.
“Do you know what we should do?” Bouncing in her pink Keds, she grabs both of my hands. “Now that you have nothing to do for the next hour we should catch up. We can go to the cafeteria and get matcha or milkshakes or coffee. Doesn’t that sound like a brilliant idea?”
Perhaps she can fill me in on more of the things that I don’t know. Like how we became friends. And why Rogue hasn’t told me that we are. “Don’t you have a session?”
She laughs as she threads her arm through mine. “I came to talk to my brother. He’s one of the therapists. But hanging out with you sounds like much more fun.”
The cafeteria is quiet and it doesn’t take long to order our drinks. We take them to a table and sit down. The sun shines in through the big glass windows. It’s one of the things that I loved about the place. As much as we were confined it never felt like we were. Sunny is so airy and green. And that sky reminds me of Rogue’s baby blues. Have I always thought that? How many times have I drawn the same comparison?
“So your brother is a therapist?” I suck the chocolate milkshake up through the straw. “And we’re friends?”
“My adopted brother is an asshole and a therapist.” She smiles at me. “And you and I met via Ben, but I’m guessing you don’t remember him, do you?”
“No.”
“Hand over your phone.” She puts her hand out for it. “I’ll add his number and mine to your contacts. And I’ll send him a text to tell him what happened to you. He’s been worried.”
I unlock the screen and hand it to her. Her fingernails tap on the glass.
“Where did we meet?” I ask.
