Part 1 (1/2)
Ex-Purgatory.
A Novel.
Peter Clines.
PROLOGUE.
SYLVESTER TAPPED HIS pencil on his knee. He did it like a drumroll, so the sound was sharp against his jeans. He always had a pencil, even though she couldn't remember him ever using a notepad. Three months now, a dozen sessions, and he'd never taken one note.
He was bald, but she was pretty sure he shaved his head. It made it tough to figure out how old he was. His tight goatee came to a perfect point under his chin. He had dark brown eyes, and his eyelids hung low. It gave him a relaxed, thoughtful appearance.
Sylvester stopped tapping the pencil, leaned back in his chair, and gave her a look. ”How are you sleeping?”
She shrugged. ”Same as always.”
”Which means?”
Her fingers danced on the arm of her wheelchair. ”I don't like the mask. If I try to do anything except sleep on my back it pulls at my head or leaves marks on my face. And it doesn't fit right. Air leaks out and blows over my eyes, so they're always dry when I wake up.”
”Has it always been like that?”
She shook her head. ”No. I mean, the whole thing only started a while ago. Near the end of senior year.”
”Have you tried different masks?”
”Yeah. Dad tried altering them, too. It doesn't make any difference.” Her lips twisted into a weak smile. ”I think I've got a funny-shaped head.”
”It looks fine to me,” he a.s.sured her.
She blushed. Just a little. ”Thanks.”
”You understand why you have to wear it, right?”
She nodded. ”Yeah.”
”Do you resent it?”
”Didn't we go over all this ages ago?”
”We did,” said Sylvester, ”but I want to see if your answers have changed any.”
She shrugged again. ”It's keeping me alive. The doctors-the other doctors-they say I stop breathing as soon as I fall asleep. The first couple times it happened they were pretty sure I'd died in my sleep. Severe sleep apnea.”
”One of the worst cases on record,” he said.
”Yup. Mom gets worried whenever I stay up late because she's worried I'll nod off in cla.s.s and asphyxiate.”
”Big word.”
”I've heard it a lot.”
”So do you resent it? The mask?”
”It's keeping me alive.”
”That's not really an answer.”
She sighed. ”I don't like it, but that's just the way it is, right? I wish I didn't need it, but I also wish I didn't need to use a wheelchair most of the time. And I wish I had red hair, too.”
”Why red hair?”
”Because black hair and pale skin make everybody think you're some kind of Goth. Red hair and pale skin mean you're a s.e.xy Irish girl.”
”Are you Irish?”
”No, but n.o.body knows that.”
He tapped the pencil three times on his knee, then a fourth. ”Are you worried how the mask's going over at college?”
Sylvester had covered one side of his office with black-bordered motivational posters. She still wasn't sure if it was serious or a joke to make people lighten up. ”A little bit,” she admitted after a minute of poster-studying.
”Why?”
”Honestly?”
”That's the whole point of this.” The pencil tapped twice for emphasis.
”I always wonder if everyone thinks I'm some kind of freak,” she said. ”Every study session, every party, every late night hanging out, I'm always the girl who has to get back to her room and strap this thing to her head before she falls asleep. And how's that-” She looked back at the wall of posters and stared at one marked Desire.
”And how's that ... what?” he asked.
She glanced at the office door, toward her mother in the waiting room. ”What if I meet a guy?” she asked. ”What if I meet someone and things are going great? The chair's bad enough, how do I tell him, 'Oh, we've got to do it in my room because I've got to make sure I strap on my Darth Vader mask before I fall asleep or I'll probably die'? What guy wants to hear that?”
Sylvester smiled. ”That's your big worry?”
Her mouth twitched into a smile for a moment. ”It's one of them.”
He took a long, deliberate look of his own at the door, at her mother in the waiting room. ”I probably shouldn't tell you this,” he said, turning his gaze back to her, ”but I don't think you need to worry about guys in college not wanting to have s.e.x. Even if you have to strap on an oxygen mask afterward.”
She blushed again. ”I just think it's going to be weird.”
”Trust me. They won't care.”
She turned back to the wall of posters.
He let the silence stretch out between them for a minute. Then he rapped the pencil on his knee once. ”You're still having the dreams?”