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like health. It always smells like death.
    It’s Thursday and I am sitting in one of the plastic chairs, waiting for the counselor to call me. I don’t know who is going to counsel me. I made the appointment yesterday after classes, a whole day after Dr. Arthursen told me to seek help. It took me that long to work up the courage to pick up the phone. My hands shook the entire time.
    They’re shaking now. My body is full of adrenaline, fight or flight, and my stomach twists and turns inside me. I haven’t had anything to drink since Tuesday morning, and I am uncomfortably sober.
    I wish, idly, that I’d slugged a couple of shots of Nyquil before coming. It wouldn’t be the same, but it would be something. Something to wrap me up and cushion me. Swaddle me in cotton, protect me from the sharp edges I just can’t avoid this time.
    I hate counseling. I hate therapy. I’ve been to a dozen therapists at least, and none of them could help me, and right now I know, before I even go in the door, that this time will be no different. My whole body is curling up, curling in on itself. My feet are blocks of ice in my shoes and my heavy hoodie is doing nothing to keep me warm in the chilly waiting room. My teeth are starting to chatter, and I would kill for a glass of wine, a bottle of beer, a fifth of Jack. Anything.
    Anything.
    But of course I can’t. I can’t risk it. The only thing that I hate more than therapy is the thought of getting kicked out of school and having to go back home.
    I can’t. I just can’t.
    I stare down at the blue Berber carpet under my feet. I’ve always hated Berber carpet. It’s ugly and institutional. Just seeing it reminds me of my middle school. It had the exact same shade of blue Berber coating the classrooms.
    My hands are fists and I’m chewing on my tongue.
    “Bianca Ray?”
    The sound of my name snapping through the air makes me jump, and I look up to see a young woman standing in the doorway, giving me a smile.
    My own automatic smile answers her back. I hate how programmed I am. Smile. Be nice. Be pleasant to the person who is going to dissect you while you’re still alive.
    I swallow and stand, shouldering my backpack.
    “I’m Debbie Chandler,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you.” She keeps smiling as we shake hands, then she turns and I follow her into the place beyond the door.
    I’ve been to the Student Health Center once before, to get a pap smear. The place is surprisingly small, but it still smells like a doctor’s office, clean and clinical and almost unused, and it’s probably the only building on campus besides the new state-of-the-art athletic center that was built in this century.
    Debbie leads me down the white halls. We pass a couple of examining rooms and then turn a corner to another, shorter hallway. There are only two rooms here—a unisex bathroom, and a dark wooden door.
    It’s so out of place in the white, sterile building that I almost pinch myself. The strange feeling that swept over me when I walked into my Holocaust class and saw Daniel McGuire standing there instead of Father O’Reilly comes crashing back. I’ve slipped sideways in the universe, and haven’t even noticed it. I’ve accidentally walked into a parallel world, and I don’t know the rules.
    Then Debbie opens the door and I see that inside it is painted a dark green. There are two couches, a desk, some bookshelves, soft lighting, and, most egregiously, more of the fake plastic trees the administration likes to install in the academic buildings.
    Every effort has been put into making this place like a room where you would talk to a friend. Homey. Comfortable.
    I stiffen immediately.
    Debbie goes inside, and I realize she’s wearing faintly professional clothes, slacks and a sweater set. Her ash-blond hair is swept up into a bun, little strands brushing against her lean, angular face. She’s thin, so thin I can see the bones of her shoulders jutting through her skin. She didn’t