through the park and he was talking about how Steve Allison has been talking shit about Lauren to anyone who will listen since she dumped him while apparently texting her about a hundred times a day asking her to take him back. I didn’t really say much, even though I knew more about it than he did. He knows that we’re friends – or at least, that we used to be – but he doesn’t know we text all the time, because I’ve never told him. Like I said, it’s nice to have at least one secret.
Like most of the boys at Riley, Jamie is at least a little bit in love with Lauren. I sometimes think I’m the only person who could put their hand on their heart and honestly say that they’re not. It’s not like I blame them – she’s pretty and funny and smart and popular – but that’s just not how I see her. I think I’ve known her too long for that. And it’s hard to crush on someone who sends you videos of people walking across railway crossings and getting splattered by trains.
Anyway.
She’s not the hottest girl at school. Last year there was a senior at Riley called Erin whose older sister is a Victoria’s Secret Angel, and she was just about the best-looking person I’ve ever seen in real life. It sort of hurt to look at her, if that makes any sense. The school email server almost burned down two Septembers ago when she “accidentally” sent a folder of photos of herself in about a dozen different bikinis on the beach at Cabo San Lucas to everyone in the cheerleading squad and the athletics programs. I don’t think there’s ever been a link that was forwarded and downloaded more quickly in the history of the internet.
Lauren isn’t as pretty as Erin was. But Lauren would also never send a folder of photos of herself in swimwear to half the senior class and claim it was an accident, so she’s got that going for her.
Lauren’s mom doesn’t work, because her dad is this insanely sought-after gynecologist. He’s clearly an asshole – he’s tall and handsome and loud and is one of those guys who really pride themselves on being CHARMING – but he’s funny, if nothing else. I was talking to him once at a parent–teacher event at Riley and he told me he’s the only man in the world who has seen more supermodel vaginas than Leonardo DiCaprio. Lauren looked like she was going to die from embarrassment, but I just about fell over laughing.
I actually ran into her on Central Park West this morning and we walked to school through the park together. That happens maybe once or twice a week, and it’s a good start to the day. We talked and we walked and we got coffee at one of the little carts in the park and about ten minutes later we got to Riley and told each to have a good day.
It was nice, like it always is.
In all honesty, I was glad to see her this morning because I was in a shitty mood by the time I left our apartment. I told my mom over breakfast that I wanted to stop seeing Dr. Casemiro, that it was making me feel awkward and that I clearly wasn’t getting anything out of it because I’d had a nightmare two nights before, but she wasn’t having any of it. She loves to really lean into that parental hypocrisy of telling me I’m an adult when she wants me to take more responsibility or stop doing something she doesn’t like but refuses to actually let me make anything resembling an important decision for myself. She said the same stuff she always says: that when I’m eighteen – a legal, court-authorized adult, which is an unbelievably stupid concept if you take even a second to think about it – I can do whatever I want, including refusing to see Dr. Casemiro anymore.
Until then, I basically have to eat shit and smile about it. My words, not hers.
I told her thanks very much, but I don’t think I managed to fill it with as much sarcasm as I intended, because she just nodded her head and told me to have a good day.
In fairness, it actually was a pretty good day, but there was no way I was going to tell her that when I got home. She got the noncommittal grunt she deserved before I came in here to my room and slammed the door. Because two can play at being unreasonable, if that’s the game she wants.
No problem at all.
AP Math was painfully boring, but English was OK. We’re studying Tender Is the Night and today we were talking about the treatment of Nicole’s mental illness, about how Fitzgerald lets the reader know via flashback what’s actually happening although Dick Diver keeps it a secret from the other characters for as long as he can. It carries a lot more weight when you know that Nicole is really Zelda Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald is basically telling the real story of their life together in the novel. It’s clever, in a sort of meta way. I hated The Great Gatsby, but I’m quite enjoying this one.
We had a free period after lunch, and I got a little bit of work done on the story I’ve been writing. It’s still not working quite how I want it to, and I’m still not totally sure how to fix it, but I wrote a few paragraphs that I’m pretty pleased with, and I think I can make them better tomorrow if I get time. I would work on them tonight, but I’m about an hour’s grind from levelling up my new Warlock and I think that’s about all I’ve got the energy for right now.
I’m really tired. Not the kind of tired where you’re going to feel great if you give yourself an extra hour’s sleep: that kind of deep tiredness that makes it feel like your bones are made of lead, like someone has turned all your dials down to zero and locked them.
This is what Dr. Casemiro is supposed to be helping me with. She’s clearly doing an awesome job, although I’ll admit that actually going to sleep before one in the morning would probably not be the worst idea in the world.
But fuck it.
I know I’m my own worst enemy :)
— — — —
From the desk of
DR. JENNIFER CASEMIRO, M.D.
596 WEST 72ND STREET, NY 10021
March 15, 2018
Dear Paul and Kimberley,
Further to our call yesterday, please find below my assessment of my first month working with Matthew. Please be assured that I understand your concerns about what you perceive to be a lack of visible progress – I can only attempt to reassure you that such progress rarely occurs at the speed you are (understandably) hoping for and, in my experience, its absence does not signify anything more significant than the issues of trust-building and boundary-testing that are common to the early stages of a professional relationship of this type.
Matthew possesses high levels of intelligence and awareness, and has made it clear that he is unwilling to work with me on the issues for which he was referred. Despite that, I believe significant progress has in fact been made.
His initial statements were that he did not want to talk to me, and that he considered my attempts to induce him to do so to be a violation of his human rights. This grand language is not unusual, especially in teenagers of Matthew’s intelligence. It is a common form of diversion, in which he avoids the issue of why he doesn’t want to talk to me by expanding our conversation to a point of general absurdity, in this case the issue of human rights.
In the last week or so, Matthew’s objections to working with me have changed. He no longer states that he does not want to – he has now repeatedly stated that he does not see any point in doing so. This marks a significant shift, in my experience. He has moved past a dogmatic refusal to talk to me, and has moved onto a more personal objection, i.e. that he does not
