14.
Crystal
Justin left for the office before dawn, and it’s a couple hours later when my day gets started. I’m so glad he’s back, as I feel much steadier with him around. He reminds me of my purpose here. His father’s diagnosis weighs on him, but despite that, he’s focused on getting the battery issue figured out. That’s the key to everything, it seems.
I throw the blankets back and head for the bathroom. The cool tile of the floor sends a shiver up my spine as I unscrew the cap from the next amber bottle. I shake the prescribed morning mix into my palm and swallow them down, chasing the pills with a gulp of tap water straight from my cupped hand. The bottles go back into hiding in my makeup bag, nestled between a mascara wand and a compact mirror, their presence a reminder of the invisible thread tethering me to routine and stability.
I shake the bag and the few pills that remain rattle like distant thunder. Lithium, risperidone, an antidepressant I can never remember the name of—they form a chemical chorus that has become my daily hymn. Now, I need someone who can see me and grant me new scripts.
I zip up the bag and stare at my reflection for a moment too long, my mind churning with the task ahead. My doctor in Atlanta, with her stern but caring gaze, stressed the importance of continuity in my treatment before I left. “One final ninety-day script,” she had said, her voice firm when I begged for the last renewal. “You’ll need to find someone in San Francisco.” She’s renewed me once since then, after a phone consult, but I know I can’t ask a second time. So, I need to find someone who will prescribe and, hopefully, not make me sit on a couch and tell them about my feelings for my mother or Justin or anything. I don’t have time for that. But the alternative, a life unmedicated and untethered, is a risk I can’t afford to take.
I get to work an hour later, just in time to learn Dr. Shayne McKay has had a cancellation today. I seize it before it can slip away. Her office is close enough to work to be convenient, yet far enough to not be recognized or seen coming and going. The trick is that I have to leave now, but it’s really not even a choice. I have to.
So, I steal back out of the office, without saying a thing. The guys won’t even notice I’m gone. I return to the sidewalk, and after a few blocks’ walk, I push open the door to an office washed in soothing shades of green, punctuated by splashes of yellow. It seems less like a clinical space and more like a tranquil retreat. I explain who I am to the receptionist, and in just a few moments, Dr. McKay appears, her attire mirroring the room’s casual elegance. Her clothes flow with a boho chic that suggests comfort in one’s own skin—a state I envy.
“Dr. McKay?” I stand as she approaches.
“Please, call me Shayne,” she says with a smile. “And you’re Crystal?”
“Yes.” I extend a hand, then remember the bottles. With a slight fumble, I pull them from my bag and pass them over instead. I wonder if they’re all she’ll see when she looks at me—an aggregate of diagnoses and milligrams.
“Thank you,” she says. She leads me down a hall to her office, setting the bottles aside with care as we both take our seats, the ritual introduction bridging the gap between stranger and confidant.
“Where are you from, Crystal?” she asks, her voice soft in a way that encourages honesty without demanding it.
“The Miami area,” I reply, my words floating out like hesitant butterflies. It’s a simple answer, but behind it lies a mosaic of sun-drenched memories and shadowed corners I’m not ready to explore.
“Quite the change from there to here. And Atlanta, I see from your records. What took you there?”
“Georgia Tech.” The pride that should accompany those two words is muted, dulled by the circumstances of my departure.
“Ah, that’s impressive,” she says with a nod. “You must be very smart.”
A laugh, short and devoid of humor, escapes me before I can catch it. “Not really,” I mutter, feeling the familiar tug of inadequacy. The office seems to shrink, and I’m left clutching at the remnants of a self-esteem fractured long ago.
“Tell me about that,” Dr. McKay prompts, likely sensing the fault lines in my response.
“School was…challenging,” I begin, the words clumsy and insufficient. “It wasn’t just the academics. It was everything.” I draw in a breath, try to steady myself on the precipice of confession. “I was failing some of my classes, so I withdrew at the end of last year. My relationship with my parents is strained because of that. And my mom has bipolar disorder, too, so it’s complicated.”
“Complicated,” she repeats with a nod. “And does that concern you, in light of your own health?”
“More than concern,” I admit, the truth spilling out like water breaching a dam. “It terrifies me. And I’m ashamed of failing, and there’s Justin—” My throat tightens around his name, around the fear that clings to it.
“Justin?” She prompts, her pen poised but her attention fully on me.
“He’s my boyfriend. The person I came out here with. He doesn’t know about my diagnosis. I don’t want him to see how difficult I can be,” I confess, staring down at my fidgeting hands. “If he finds out I’m sick, he’ll realize what he’s gotten into, and he won’t want to be with me.”
“Crystal,” Dr. McKay says, her voice a lighthouse beam cutting through fog, “it’s brave to share these fears. Let’s work through them together.”
As I nod, the first real thread of connection and understanding blooms since I moved to San Francisco. Our time wraps up, and Dr. McKay’s pen dances across her notepad as she scribbles out prescriptions for all my medications, her movements deliberate and methodical.
“Here you go,” she says, extending the scripts to me. “This is for thirty days.”
“Only thirty?” My voice betrays a flicker of panic, a contrast to the calm I’ve been feigning. I hold the papers tight in my hands, but they’re weightless compared to the anchor of dread settling in my stomach.
Dr. McKay leans back, folding her arms. “Yes, Crystal. It’s important that we establish a proper understanding of your needs.”
“But I…” The protest dies on my lips, words collapsing under the earnestness in her gaze.
“Your health is my priority,” she explains. “And I need to know you better to ensure that we’re on the right path. That’s why I’ll be seeing you again next week.”
I nod, recognizing the wisdom in her approach even as frustration simmers beneath my skin. “I understand.”
“Good. Shall we pencil you in at the same day and time next week?”
“Sure,” I respond, still clutching the thirty-day lifeline.
When I step out of the office, the world outside hasn’t changed; it moves with the same indifference of routine. The walk back to the office is a blur, my mind preoccupied, replaying the session, dissecting every exchange for hidden meanings.
I push through the doors of the building, bracing myself for questions or curious glances about where I’ve been for the last hour and a half, but none come. The receptionist barely lifts her head from the screen, and the people from other startups I pass on the way to our office space are absorbed in their own bubbles of activity. When I reach the EnergiFusion space, the guys are still in the lab. It’s as if I never left.
Though I’m grateful to avoid their questions as I return to my desk, the reality of isolation in plain sight settles over me like dust. I boot up the computer, the screen flickering to life, demanding my focus. The project awaits. Aluminum prices won’t research themselves. Fingers poised over the keyboard, I dive into the numbers, letting the familiarity of data analysis shroud the residual unease from the session, from the limited prescription, from the fear of being truly seen.
Thirty days of meds. A required weekly confessional. Thirty days to find my footing in this new rhythm of therapy and truth. The guys will never notice that I’m out of the office, but sharing in therapy is a waste of my time. Telling some doctor why I struggle with my mother or the guys at work isn’t going to change anything about my life. Have to play the game, though, I suppose.
After a few minutes at my desk, I feel myself settle in. The graphs and figures are a welcome distraction from the worries of the rest of my life and the press of telling Justin who I really am.