Victoria Williams: 0052

My doctor – and I only have the one now – has put me back on my pills, albeit at a smaller dosage than before, and I’m hoping that soon all my ex-friends will start speaking to me again. As it is, I only have my doctor to talk to, and he just says things like, “For Christ’s sake Vickie – I gave you the Samaritans’ number! I’m hanging up!”*

Whenever I see him, a couple of things happen. One such thing is that I’m immediately compelled to confess everything to him the second he enters the room. The other thing is that I sometimes cover my wrists in bandages and tell him I’ve cut them myself, since this is one of the best ways I know to keep someone’s attention. And I can sort of tell by the way he tears off my handiwork, and yells at my totally unscarred skin that this is the kind of prank he’s pulled himself many years ago. I mean he just never falls for it, and I think when he looks at me, he can see all his faux suicide notes and his weary ex-girlfriends listening to the answer phone messages and all the times when eventually they just stopped calling back. And I just want to tell him not to worry, because in my opinion that was not a misspent youth.

* He also says things like, “When you were born did they announce ‘It’s a girl!’ immediately, or did it take them a few days to decide?”