Wait for Me Read Online Free Page A

emotion.
    â€œYou haven’t called him yet?” Miranda asked.
    I shook my head sadly, with a pang of shame and self-loathing.
    â€œYou want me to call Mark?” Fred asked. “Do you remember Mark Cameron, our old neighbor? He’s working at Mount Sinai Hospital now.”
    I shook my head again. “They’ll heal. They just take a little time.”
    â€œHave you put something on them?” Miranda asked. “I have some ointment if you like.”
    â€œCome on Sophie, let us help you, please,” my brother said, through clenched teeth.
    I silently followed Miranda to the bathroom.
    I could not look at her as I removed my shirt. I didn’t want to see her face when she recoiled.
    I sat on the edge of the bathtub as she applied the cream, gently and silently.
    I closed my eyes and found the nerve to speak. “Miranda,” I breathed, wincing with pain. “Tell him it’s just a few bruises.”
    â€œOf course,” she replied, brushing my cheek.
    When I returned to the lounge, my brother was outside on the phone, and from the rage in his voice I knew who he was talking to. Frozen, I listened to him screaming the worst obscenities. As he came back inside he barely glanced at me. “Sorry, Sophie… had to,” he said, disappearing into his room.
    Once the couch was set up, Miranda began to tidy the kitchen.
    â€œMiranda, please, allow me. You check on my brother,” I requested. “Try to calm him down.”
    Left alone, I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, before retreating under the blankets. Scrappy came to join me, to cuddle and console me.
    I slept little and badly, but enough to re-energize and reflect on what had happened. Breaking my silence had lifted a tremendous burden. In the morning I got up, fixed the blankets and left a note to my brother explaining that I had gone to the parking lot to get the documents to re-enroll at college – and I did. By nine-thirty, I was officially a student again.
    When I returned to my brother’s office, he handed me a post-it note with an appointment time to go and visit Dr Richardson. It was at two-thirty. I had no desire to see this man, nor his chaise-longue, his bookshelves, or the painting behind his armchair. Nor did I want to face the therapy itself; a painful extraction of words.
    With these images in my mind, I went back to sleep for a while. I was highly skilled at this – closing my eyes and letting it all melt away.
    At two my brother dragged me out of bed and escorted me to Dr Richardson’s office. Back again, and nothing had changed.
    Fred insisted on talking to him first and I didn’t argue. At such a moment, it was possible that his need was greater than mine. I listened to him recount the various events of my life, wondering if he had a notebook to monitor my misfortunes. Once he had finished, he asked whether I needed him to wait for me.
    â€œNo, if it’s alright with you I’ll make my own way back to the lot,” I replied, glancing towards Dr Richardson.
    And at that, he left me to my dear old psychiatrist.
    Thus began my treatment, which initially consisted of unintelligible sounds: ‘err’, ‘well’ and ‘dunno’ were the favorites. But between college lectures and therapy sessions, I gradually rediscovered the parameters of a functioning human being. Faulty, yes, but functioning.

Pre-obsession
    After a month, I was completely settled. Nevada was a distant memory and so were the bruises. My first exam was set for early December – sociology, the most expendable of the sciences.
    Studying social phenomena turned out to be pretty boring. It consisted of reducing everything to some meaningless generalization, when I had always maintained that every individual was unique; that everyone lived according to different principles, underwritten by their own distinctive backstories.
    Fred began to extend my freedom a little as well.