Tantalized Read online

  You have to accept BPD as a part of yourself.

  It wasn't me with the problem, though. My parents were the ones who put me in here. I accepted that I had problems. It was either that or go completely hopping insane.

  Don't blame others, Jessica. Take some responsibility.

  “Are you listening to yourselves right now?” I asked them. “Do you hear how full of shit you sound? Accept BPD. Embrace BPD. My mental disorder does not need a fucking hug. It's not some kid on the playground getting fucking picked on. That's me.”

  Do you often feel picked on?

  “I'm feeling picked on right now,” I told them. “This is a joke. This is fucking new-age bullshit. This is malarkey. What is this? Some radical experimental new therapy you've decided to test drive on me?”

  Calm down, Jessica.

  “Go back to your daisy-chain circle-jerks you fucking college hippies. Spare me your pseudo-analyst bullshit. Because here's how life works in the real world. People find out something is wrong with your brain. They proceed to run—in the opposite direction. Because maybe, just maybe, it might be contagious. Why risk it? We don't really know how the brain works, right? Crazy could be catching. If you know how to fix me, then fix me, goddammit! Fix me right now, or else let me go back to my fucking room, because I'm sick of you! Comprendez-vous?”

  They ended my therapy session early that day. I think it's a pretty safe assumption to make that I was not one of the more popular patients. But it's true. I wouldn't have checked into Cherry Hill of my own free will; no, it was my family who thought I had the problems that needed fixing.

  As the therapies and diagnoses went on, I came to the conclusion that Borderline Personality Disorder basically just means I'm everything most teenagers are accused of anyway, just more so. Promiscuous. Impulsive. Emotional. Reckless. Sound familiar?

  I made the mistake of sharing this hypothesis with the doctors. I wouldn't do that now, but I was younger then and desperate for acceptance and approval. I can't imagine that I thought they'd pat me on the head and give me a cookie, but maybe I did. Instead, the doctors clucked and bobbed their heads, as if they were a bunch of chickens in lab coats.

  They told me, Humor is a common defense mechanism. It's natural to want to be liked. But you can't revert to humor all the time. Some catharsis is healthy.

  I wasn't joking, though. I was making a serious observation. And when they brushed me off like that, so casually, I began to get seriously pissed off.

  We frown on self-diagnoses as a general rule.

  Um, hello, what about introspection?

  Again, they thought I was joking. I got lectured about defense mechanisms, how they worked, how they were meant to repress psychic pain in the unconscious mind. “That sounds like something out of a science fiction film,” I said, “are you serious?”

  Jessica, they said, you can't always play the clown.

  I screamed at them for that. Just completely lost it. Here I was, trying to open up and find out more about this ghostly-edged disorder that haunted me, and not only were they refusing to take anything I said even remotely seriously, they were rejecting me.

  I think the staff may have threatened me with restraints. I was lashing out with my nails, screaming like a banshee, kicking and punching at anyone who came too close. I even threw a couple magazines that happened to be in the waiting room. But even though they made the threat I don't think they actually carried it out. Restraining patients is kind of a last resort deal. It's still surprising though because I definitely remember spitting on one of them. Dr. Hendricks, her name was. I spat right in her face. I never liked her. She was a cunt of the first degree, the one who told me I couldn't spend my life playing the clown, and deserved a face full of saliva for spitting on me. Figuratively. Doctors are far too dignified to spit. At least, not in public. In private, who knows?

  Here and now, remembering my incarceration at Cherry Hill is starting to get me all worked up. My heart is going like a hummingbird's wings from the espresso and I can feel my pulse throbbing in my throat, like I've just swallowed back a stutter. Those fucktards are miles away and yet my fingers are clenching as though they're right in front of me, and I'm seconds from strangling them all.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in one of the darkened windows, disheveled clothing and unkempt hair, and think, Jessica Abrahams, you are a fucking mess.

  I don't realize I'm swaying, even, until some maternal-looking woman stops me on the sidewalk and asks me if I'm okay. Then I notice belatedly that everyone else on the sidewalk is giving me a fairly wide berth, though that doesn't stop them from staring. Déjà vu. It reminds me of when we'd get to go on outings at Cherry Hill as a reward for long periods of good behavior. Like, a group of us would go for fast food or a movie. And people would stare at us, and we would stare back, and for a moment it wasn't quite clear who was crazy and who was just a dick.

  I study the woman who cared enough about me, a perfect stranger, to violate a few half-dozen social norms to approach me. She looks matronly. She looks like the mother I've always wanted, not the one I've got. The kind who sets milk and cookies out for you when you get home from school, and French braids your hair before bed while talking to you like an after school special.

  I want her to hold me, hug me, and never let me go. I want to drop to my knees, bury my face in her bosom, and sob. I want to vomit up my guts into the gutter until all the vital stuff comes out and, with it, whatever is making me feel this wretched. I want to do all these things but instead I look her square in the eye and smile the self-effacing smile I've had ample time to perfect after all these years.

  “Yeah, I'm fine,” I tell her. “I'm just recovering from an inner-ear infection. They just drained it.”

  She seems to believe me. In any case, she looks sympathetic instead of afraid. Most people, when they suspect I'm lying to them or having them on, they make excuses that will take them as far from me as possible as quickly as possible. She just tells me she's sorry, that she hopes I'm okay, and that she's glad I'm not one of those college drunks.

  I just barely manage to turn my laugh into a hiccup. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, it's awful, isn't it?”

  The woman smiles at me.

  It's the kind of smile I almost never get anymore.

  I bask in that sympathy because it's nice to have somebody who cares, even if it's the wrong person for the wrong reasons. Take your condolences when and while you can, because we're all dying, every one of us, every minute of every day.

  There might not be another chance.

  Still no message from my parents.

  What the hell? It's been over a week now.

  Are they waiting for me to break first? To call them and apologize? That's not gonna happen.

  I hope they worry. I hope it eats away at them from the inside like a cancer.

  I hope they're sick with it.

  The caffeine has run its course and I'm back to feeling like a zombie. I'm tempted to do some of that stolen pot but that won't help the zombie feeling, it'll just make me care less about it. I'd have to tamper with the fire alarm, too, and since all the fire alarms in the dorms connect, that would be unwise.

  There is a list of all the books I need in my in-box. It's a long list, and expensive. There are multiple columns, offering price comparisons for the student bookstore against various online retailers. Whatever, it's still pricey, and I hate reading.

  Whenever I try to read a book the words swim off the page and out of my mind like fish, leaving me feeling muddled and stupid. I hate feeling stupid, and looking at this reading list makes me think that I'm going to get real used to that feeling this quarter.

  It's going to suck balls.

  Today, I decide, is as good a day as any to buy my textbooks. I'm hoping to beat the freshman crowd and I know Mom and Dad are probably stalking the hell out of their bank accounts to see if I've charged them or not. Yeah, not creepy at all.

  I pull on jeans and a flannel shirt. It'
s too hot for flannel but that's how it goes. I grab my iPod and my wallet. I stop by the student convenience store to pick up a bag of chips and a bottle of soda before making my way to the campus bookstore. I buy hot cheese puffs because I like the way they make my mouth sore. The bubbles from the soda act as the perfect compliment, like a swarm of sweet bee stings.

  I have the printout of my books in hand. They've decided to get creative, compressing each item on the list into a nine-digit code. Maybe this makes it easier to look things up in the system, but it's a fucking nightmare for me. No author, no title, just numbers.

  The bookstore employees quickly get fed up with me because I keep holding up my slip of paper and demanding translations. They could just write down the actual titles and authors, or even better, retrieve the books for me, but they're doing that stupid thing parents do, that “helping you help yourself” thing. It's fucking annoying because they're obviously students, and I don't appreciate them thinking they can get all parental just because they're two or three years older than I am.

  I think we're all relieved when I get to the last class on my list, Comparative Literature. But the reading list for this class is like half the damn bookstore. I stare at the books on the shelf. There's eight fucking titles. Eight.

  Wuthering Heights is the first book that catches my eye because I'm pretty sure I had to read that in high school. I don't think I actually did read it, just looked at the Cliff Notes, but there were a lot of dippy girls in my class who swore by it, even going so far as writing shitty fanfiction about them and their stupid little friends hooking up with Heathcliff & co. Pathetic.

  I grab one of the newer looking copies, since I'll get more for it when I sell it back to the bookstore unread at the end of the quarter, and go down to the next item on the list. 323990823 turns out to be the Selected Works of George Gordon Byron.

  32399045 is Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. It's the dual language edition, which makes it twice as long and therefore twice as expensive. Probably twice as boring, too.

  Two of the books, Lolita and The Enchanter, are by the same author, Vladimir Nabokov. I'm pretty sure one of those books is a movie. It's the one about the pedophile, right? I remember thinking it was okay, but wondering what the fuck was going on.

  Venus in Furs and Story of O get tossed into my shopping basket without recognition. The authors have strange foreign names, and I'm starting to get the feeling that this is one of those annoyingly pretentious classes taught by an aging hipster who thinks his taste in literature is superior to all others.

  The last book on the list is Justine by the Marquis de Sade, and that's another name that rings a bell, because that guy is kind of infamous for being the textbook definition of a sick fuck.

  Maybe this class will be interesting, after all.

  On second thought, though, probably not. The basket of books makes a thud as loud as a gunshot when I drop them off at the checkout. I've set aside my books from the other classes, and I've got a pile the size of a small mountain when the girl at the register gathers them all together to ring me up.

  She glances at the titles impassively as she runs the beam of the laser gun over the barcodes, but when she gets to the books for my Comparative Literature course she does a double take and her face lights up.

  “Oh, you must have Professor Delacroix.”

  I blink at her. “Who?”

  “Comparative Literature Six?”

  Grudgingly, I admit that this does sound familiar.

  “I thought so.” She nods sagely. “I recognize the titles. Delacroix teaches the same ones every year.”

  How dull. “Did you keep your notes?”

  She laughs uproariously. Bitch. I wasn't kidding.

  “He teaches Sexual Deviancy and Fetishism in Literature. That's the official name, anyway, though they've started keeping it off the catalogs. It's a popular course—at least, it is among those who can actually handle the material.”

  Her tone leads little question as to which camp she thinks she's toasting marshmallows at. I roll my eyes and start jamming my books into the too-small plastic bags, hoping she'll get the hint.

  “It's not just the material that puts people off, though,” she continues. “Comparative Literature is a hard class. A lot of people drop by the end of the first week. He's got a reputation for being a hard ass.”

  “So people treat this smut like it's a legit class?”

  “His curriculum has been challenged loads of times,” she says, “but he always wins.”

  I'm already bored, and annoyed that she managed to trick me into an actual conversation, but my uninterested face doesn't deter her from shooting her yap in the slightest. She's really on a roll now, using exaggerated hand gestures like this is New York and she's shooting for various ethnic stereotypes.

  “You didn't ring that book up,” I point out.

  Not that I'm a humanitarian. Not hardly. I've shoplifted more expensive shit for far less motive. But I really, really want her to stop talking.

  “Oh, right, thanks.”

  She slides the book through the scanner.

  “Yeah, so anyway, he's dead famous and he's always getting called away to give lectures on the East Coast or even in Europe occasionally. He speaks like three languages. It's really impressive.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Europe.”

  But sarcasm, like my hints, totally flies over her head. You can practically hear the whoosh.

  “He could teach anywhere he wants, but he chooses to stay here and I don't think Fielder wants to push him too much, so they pretty much let him do whatever he wants.” Goody. Sounds like a spoiled two-year-old. “Plus, he sponsors this super reclusive publisher, whose erotic photography is considered among the best in the world. I think his name is Nathan Shivers. He's supposed to be as good as Mapplethorpe.”

  “Sounds like a pervert,” I muse.

  “What? No.” She looks affronted. “You freshmen just don't get it, do you?”

  “I get that he's paid to read and write about porn all day, and spends even more of his money financing a guy who actually publishes. That's pretty perverted. He sounds like he thinks about sex more than a thirteen-year-old nerd during puberty.”

  “You'll see,” she snaps at me. “Maybe. Assuming you don't drop the first week. I bet you're not even going to crack open those books,” she derides.

  Ooh, burn.

  Her shitty attempt to sound sophisticated and adult just makes her sound like she doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. I suspect she probably doesn't know the first thing about literature, that she's just trying to defend her she-boner for Delacroix. Whether it's justified or not remains to be seen, but I can't imagine he's all that attractive.

  Still, her attitude has me annoyed, and I feel like teaching her a lesson. Before I leave the campus bookstore I demand to speak to a manager. He's older than the students working here, maybe in his mid-thirties. When he asks me solicitously what he can do for me, I tell him there's a girl at register seven who is giving customers—namely me—a hard time about the classes that they're taking me.

  I pull my best sad girl face. “She told me I was too stupid to understand the material. She also said that I'd probably drop out within the first week, and that she didn't think I'd even read the books I'm buying. I'm…I'm so hurt. I almost cried. It was awful.”

  He tells me he's very sorry to hear that, so very sorry, and thanks me for telling him. I'll be happy to know that their attitudes don't reflect the store's attitudes at all, he says. Frowning, he adds that he'll look into the situation immediately because that is quite inappropriate, he hopes that my classes go well, and wishes me the best of luck in my studies. I walk out of there with a ten dollar gift card and the knowledge that I've just made somebody else's day even shittier than mine. That's quite an achievement.

  The moment I get home I throw all my books in the closet, where I fully intend to forget about them until the quarter ends. The g
irl at the register was right about that much, but it isn't because I'm stupid or lazy. I just don't care, and I hate her presumptions. With any luck, though, she's been fired by now.

  I plop down in the cheaply made computer chair supplied with the room and check Rate My Professor again. I'm curious about Professor Delacroix now, I want to see how badly that girl was exaggerating. His easiness rating is quite low, a striking 2.2. He is easily one of the toughest professors in the college, harder even than Bao Li, one of the Organic Chemistry Professors who, from the complaints about his accent, seems like he might even be fresh off the boat.

  Delacroix apparently has an accent, too, but if it affects comprehension, nobody says so. No, a lot of the editorial comments are from disgruntled students complaining about undeservedly low grades or skewed GPAs. There's a bigger whine list going on here than at a five-star restaurant.

  Delacroix's hotness rating, as promised, is also off the charts. At 4.8, he's one of the most attractive professors on campus, if you believe what everyone else is saying. I'm skeptical; I've never thought there was anything sexy about tweed.

  One comment reads, “ohmigod, listening to a man who looks like him talk about sex for two hours straight?? heaven!! why didn't anyone tell me reading could be so much fun?”

  Another comment, from a slightly better speller, says, “His essay exams are so hard, and I've taken P-Chem. I keep asking myself what the heck I was doing, taking this class. But then, every morning, when he comes in to lecture in those sexy button-downs and tight jeans, I remember. Thank you, God, for putting this brilliant, gorgeous man on earth.”

  The most helpful comment says, “Arrogant and full of himself. My God, such ego. Don't even try to argue with him during lectures or you'll end up with an automatic F. His tests are in-class essays and he expects you to memorize any quotes used! Crazy! Also gets hit on like all the time by female students. Totally annoying if you actually have something important to ask him after class.”