5. Jael
All the Good Girls Go to Hell - Billie Eilish
W hen I was six, I told my mother I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. She glanced down at me, her top lip curling, and told me not to be silly.
I had to be realistic.
I wasn’t smart enough to be a doctor.
“You think you’re going to be some surgeon?” she sneered. “You can barely remember your ABCs.”
I was playing with a doctor’s kit and my Barbies as we waited out my sister’s piano lesson. The Barbie I was operating on had broken her arm and leg falling down the stairs. If she didn’t receive medical attention in time, she would die. I would have to bury her outside under the dirt like the others and that was the last thing I wanted.
My face fell. I looked down at the syringe in my stubby fingers and the sticker Band-Aids I had spread out on the carpet. They had little red hearts on them.
I didn’t have the words to describe the crushing sensation pressing down on my chest. Just that it hurt a lot.
Sighing as if irritated by my reaction, my mother stroked my curly hair. She waited ’til I met her eyes again and put on a smile that somehow still left me hollow. “Jael, baby, you’re playing pretend. That doctor’s kit is a toy. It’s not real. You hear that?”
How could I not? It was coming from down the hall, loud enough to fill up the huge house we were in. My sister was on hour three of piano practice, playing the same song over and over again until she was perfect. Our mother and her piano instructor wouldn’t have it any other way.
“That’s talent,” she told me after a second passed. “Your sister’s a prodigy. Be quiet and behave yourself. Androski will have your sister on the world stage.”
I barely understood who Androski was.
…or why we were always at his home.
Our mother had used all our savings to buy a secondhand piano for my sister. Couldn’t she just practice on that so we could stay home and I’d be able to run and play?
When he appeared, the man named Androski would give a fleeting peck to my mother, and then his gaze would settle on me.
I would shyly try looking away until he’d step closer, towering over me until I was forced to tip my head up and acknowledge him.
Something dark swirled in his otherwise blue eyes; something that made my belly churn like I was going to be sick.
“Do you like playing hide and go seek?”
The memory fades for the clipped sound of Doctor Wolford’s voice. I’m seated in a scoop-backed accent chair with my journal in my lap, inundated by the stench of paper and pine. Two of Dr. Wolford’s favorite scents. He has diffusers perched among rows and rows of books on his bookshelves that spritz the air every few seconds.
He claims it’s supposed to be calming. All it does for me is tickle my nose and make me distracted.
My chest is tight, my breath’s shallow. I’ve filled the silence between us with the twitchy tapping of my foot. He’s indulged me long enough, his stare expectant from behind his spectacles.
“Well?” he says. “Jael, you insisted on seeing me on short notice. You said it was an emergency.”
“Yes… I… you said if I needed to see you,” I stammer, my leg bouncing uncontrollably. My gaze scans the sterile space that’s his office as if checking each of the four corners for anything hiding in plain sight, and I lower my voice to a whisper. “He’s back.”
He raises a silver brow in question. “Who’s back? Remember what we’ve discussed, Jael. Use your words. Speak clearly and concisely.”
“The shadow man,” I blurt out. My hands tremble opening my journal and flipping to the pages upon pages I’ve scrawled over the last few days. They’re filled with frantic notes and sketches. “He’s watching me again. I’ve seen him three times this week, Dr. Wolford. Three.”
“Jael, calm down?—”
“I have the dates and times and the places too,” I cut him off. I hold up the journal to show him, jabbing at the lined piece of paper with my index finger. “He was in my closet again. He was watching me sleep?—”
“Jael, enough.” Dr. Wolford lets his authoritative command linger for a second or two. Enough time for him to confirm I’ve shut up and won’t interrupt again. He folds a leg over his other, his right ankle resting on his left knee. He sits relaxed compared to me, his clipboard resting in his lap and his patchwork blazer hanging open. He’s paired it with a turtleneck as always.
Today’s color is an emerald green that matches his eyes.
“Okay,” he says some seconds later. “Take a long, deep breath and tell me what you saw.”
My foot taps faster. I press my hands together, trying to steady them. “He was following me down the street and he was looking through my window. He… he was in my closet. I heard him breathing.”
The doctor sighs and quickly jots something down on his clipboard. “Jael, do you remember when you claimed he was under your bed at the hospital? You wouldn’t stop screaming and Nurse Hinkley had to sedate you.”
“But he was there. If you’d just looked under the bed…”
“We did look. Every nurse that responded to the emergency said there was nothing there. Do you remember what we’ve discussed regarding your environment? What tends to happen when you’re bored and get lost in your head?”
“I make things up,” I mutter.
“Which is why it’s crucial you recognize it’s your mind playing tricks on you. These are symptoms of your condition, not reality. The shadow man, as you’ve called him, isn’t real.”
I hold up the battered notebook, shaking it for emphasis. “You don’t know that! I wrote it down. I’ve kept a log. He’s following me. He’s never going to stop.”
His lips tighten, the rest of his face lined with exasperation. “Jael, I want you to focus on what’s within your control. The fear you’re feeling is very real, but the shadow man is not.”
“But it feels…” I rack my brain to sort out my thoughts. “It feels real…”
“Let’s recenter ourselves,” he says, adjusting his glasses. “Let’s go over the tools we have in your toolbox to keep on track. What is the first thing you do during situations that feel outside of your control? When you feel a freeze up coming?”
“I… I ground myself.”
“That’s right. You take a moment to recollect, correct? How do you do that?”
“Count to ten.”
He nods along. “You practice your breathing exercises that I taught you. Why don’t you go ahead and show me?”
I hesitate a second and then do as I’m told. Closing my eyes and relaxing my shoulders, I breathe in through my nose. My exhale comes out slower, slipping past my pursed lips. I repeat myself several more times ’til it feels like I’ve emptied the toxic air and breathed in newer, fresher air.
But as I’ve breathed and counted, trying to center myself as Dr. Wolford calls it, something else has happened.
There’s a crinkling noise. The sound of leather shifting from across the room, followed by the quiet pad of footsteps coming closer.
It’s Dr. Wolford getting up out of his chair.
He crosses the room, where a wavy-shaped coffee table sits between us, and steps behind the armchair I’m perched in.
All of a sudden, his register is lower, gravely but gentler.
“That’s right, Jael,” he says. “Breathe in. Then breathe out.”
Uncertainty clenches in my belly. I forget the number I’m on which causes my next breath to come out as a sputter.
Dr. Wolford’s hands fall onto the balls of my shoulders. “You can do better than that, Jael. Focus.”
I bite down on my bottom lip and try harder.
Recollect. Recenter. Refocus.
Stay grounded.
But instead of finding my ground, any footing I did have slips out from under me. My stomach jerks despite the fact that my body remains in the chair. It’s like I’m falling down a hole, plunging further and further into a deep black pit.
Deeper into the dark closet where I hide from the monster seeking me out. My legs quake as I try my best to keep quiet, clutching my Barbie doll to my chest, the trilling music everywhere.
He’s going to find me. He always comes and finds me…
More air sputters out of me. Sharp and desperate gasps.
Dr. Wolford hushes me. “Shhh, it’s okay, Jael. Just stay calm. Just breathe.”
His left hand leaves my shoulder. It snakes down the front of my chest, warm and heavy until he’s reaching the first button on my blouse.
I go still.
Except my fingernails which dig into my thighs.
But if Dr. Wolford picks up on my discomfort, he doesn’t signal he does. His fingers make quick work of the first few buttons. His hand slides inside, warm flesh on warm flesh.
My breast cupped in his palm like he’s groping fruit at a farmers’ market.
I’m not even wearing a bra…
Tears prick my eyes. They slip out from under my closed eyelids.
The closet door flies open and there he is, his silhouette menacing as he stares me down and then starts toward me.
I try to bury myself between the rack of coats, but it’s no use. His hand clamps down on my wrist and he drags me away. He presses a finger to his lips and tells me to be quiet or he’ll make it worse.
If I behave myself, if I’m a good girl, it might even feel good…
The panic returns, a dark, pitch-black canopy that surrounds me. That closes in on all sides as the rest of me feels bottomless. I’m still falling, slipping further away from the ground I was supposed to be standing on.
“That’s it,” he says, crouching closer. His lips hover near my ear. “Good girl. Breathe.”
Breathe.
brEATHE.
I inhale and inhale and inhale until I can’t stand another second. I’m clawing from the inside, desperate for an escape. Desperate to break free from this suffocating black hole and the panic that consumes me.
His hands feel so wrong on me. But he won’t stop. He never stops until he’s done.
And my sister’s music plays on and on and on.
I hurt from the inside, frozen in place as I’m poked and prodded in ways I don’t even understand.
My scream sounds foreign even to my ears.
The moment changes like the click of a camera capturing a second in time that’ll never happen again.
Up on my feet, I’m hyperventilating. I’m shaking, clutching the ball point pen I use for my journal in a clenched fist. My eyes pop open in time to watch a bead of blood drop from the tip of the pen and splatter on the ground.
“Wha…” I mumble and then I jerk back.
Dr. Wolford’s on the floor, his glasses askew, his hands coned over his thigh… which is bleeding. The blood seeps through the dark fabric of his pants, spreading fast like an ink blot.
I’ve stabbed him.
The look on his face—shock, horror, disbelief—hits me like a punch to the gut. What have I done?
I glance down my front.
My blouse is completely buttoned.
“Oh no…” I whisper, tears blurring my vision. “I… I didn’t mean to…”
“HELP!” he screams. “CODE RED!”
Panic floods my veins. I shake my head profusely, opening my mouth to explain, but then I hear the pounding footsteps in the hall.
I have to get out of here.
I bolt toward the window, struggling with the latch. Only as the door flies open am I able to figure it out. I crawl through like a creature that’s far from human, leaping from the ledge and landing in the bushes down below.
The bush’s sharp brambles slice me up but I have no time to think about the burning pain. I break out into a run, sprinting down the street, not daring to even glance back.
But I flee certain of one thing. The truth that Dr. Wolford and the rest of the world refuse to see. He’s been with me the whole time. He’s never even left my side.