Almost Perfect (31 page)

“Mom, could you wait in the car?”

She shook her head. “I’m going in with you. But I’ll wait in the lobby, and you can take as long as you need.”

I didn’t have to take Mom with me. I could have borrowed Jack’s car or had Laura bring me. But I don’t think I could have handled it. Visiting a friend in a mental facility … it was too
adult
. It’s not something you did in high school. I
wanted my mom to be with me, for moral support, if nothing else.

The lobby was tiny and almost completely undecorated. I’d half expected to see guys in white coats dragging googly-eyed men in straitjackets through the door, but this was as bland as my dentist’s office. I leaned through the receptionist’s window.

“I’d like to visit”—I couldn’t bring myself to say
a patient
—“someone.”

She smiled. “Who would you like to see?”

“Sage Hendricks.”

I had to fill out several forms. Mom flipped through a magazine and tried not to ask any questions. I’d never signed a
no hostage
waiver before; I wondered just what I was getting into.

“Mr. Witherspoon?” A tall, skinny guy with an enormous Adam’s apple was standing in the doorway. He was dressed in scrubs. I shot a thin smile at Mom.

“Take as long as you need,” she reminded me. I followed the aide.

In a tiny antechamber, he waved a metal detector over me and made me empty my pockets. He then lectured me that I was not to give anything to the patient, that I would be under observation during my entire visit, and that I could be asked to leave at any time.

I felt depressed. What sort of rules was Sage living under?

The aide gave me a visitor name tag. He punched in some numbers on a keypad, and we passed into the main
building. It resembled a generic hospital. I couldn’t see any of the patients, which is probably just as well. I would have stared.

This wasn’t right. This was an asylum for insane people. I wanted to shout that Sage wasn’t crazy, that her family had stuck her here, that all she needed was for people to be understanding. I kept my mouth shut. The time for me to be understanding had come and gone.

I was led to a door labeled
CONFERENCE ROOM A
, a bare room with a table, chairs, and a whiteboard. Inside, a plain woman of about fifty sat at a table reading a file. As I entered, she smiled and removed her reading glasses.

“Please, leave us.” The aide shut the door behind him.

“I’m Dr. McGregor,” she said, gesturing to an empty seat. “You can call me Sally, if you like.”

I nodded and sat down. “Doctor.”

She looked at me with such a friendly smile, I almost forgot she was holding Sage prisoner. I had to remind myself not to let my guard down.

“Logan—may I call you Logan?—I’m Sage’s therapist. I’ve been working with her for the past few months.”

“Months?”

“Yes. I’m helping her work through her gender identity issues. I’m not affiliated with this hospital.”

I felt a little less hostile. Mr. Hendricks had said Sage’s therapist was understanding.

“Sage doesn’t belong here, Doctor.” Someone had to say it.

Dr. McGregor frowned. “They’re not planning on keeping her here. But she said she wanted to kill herself.
We can’t ignore that. When people say something like that, especially at Sage’s age, they usually mean it.”

I thought back to my freshman year when some burnout senior had hanged himself in an abandoned barn. I wondered if he’d tried to warn anyone.

“Can I see her?”

“In a moment. I just wanted to talk with you for a few minutes.”

My defenses went up again. Was she going to try to get me to talk about Sage? Reveal things she’d told me in private? Or … talk about what Sage and I had done?

“So talk.”

The doctor toyed with her glasses. “Sage has told me a lot about you. She talks about you at every therapy session.”

“What does she say?” I asked, eager for information and a little flattered that Sage discussed me with her therapist.

The doctor flipped through a file on the table. “I’m afraid that’s confidential. Though she thinks highly of you. She still does. And that may be a problem.”

I suddenly felt trapped. I’d heard how these psychiatrists can twist your words, make you say things you didn’t mean, reveal things you didn’t want to admit. She continued.

“Logan, when people visit here, they usually feel guilty. They think of a thousand things they did wrong, ways they feel they might have hurt the patient. They’re often desperate to make things right.”

I remembered telling Sage I couldn’t see her again, then later driving her to the hospital, her face a bloody mess. I would have done a lot to undo that.

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, please be careful what you say. When you see her, you’ll be ready to promise the world, to say anything to make her happy. But don’t. This”—she gestured to the empty walls—“isn’t the real world. Things that happen in here aren’t the same as on the outside. I guess what I’m trying to say is, be careful what you tell her. Don’t make her any promises that you might not be able to keep. You’ll end up hurting her.”

The doctor was clearly warning me against trying to get back together with Sage. I’d been mulling over the same thing. I’d even considered asking her to take me back, hoping it would help her out of her depression. Or help me.

“What business is that of yours?” I asked, trying to remind the doctor that I wasn’t her patient and didn’t have to do what she said.

“It’s my business because I care about her. Just like you do. Sage is hurting right now. Just go in there and listen. She needs an understanding friend right now more than anything.”

I wouldn’t admit it, but the doctor was right. I would have promised Sage whatever she asked to make her happy again, but when she left the hospital, nothing would be different.

“Are we through here?”

Dr. McGregor smiled and led me through another door. It was an airy room, painted light green, with bright, wire-mesh windows and many plastic plants. Games, puzzles, and books were stacked on various tables. Overhead, a TV watched us with a blank blue face.

Sage sat slumped on a couch staring at her hands. She was wearing sweatpants, a sweater, and slippers. Those might have been men’s clothes, but it didn’t matter; she still looked like a girl. An ID bracelet was strapped around her wrist. Her face was turned away.

“I’ll let you two talk,” said the doctor. “And remember …” She pointed to an overhead security camera, then left.

Sage didn’t acknowledge me, just kind of sat there. Jesus, they hadn’t drugged her, had they? I sat down on the same couch, a cushion away.

“Sage?”

She didn’t look up. “You shouldn’t have come, Logan.”

“How could I not have come?” That sounded too defensive, like I was doing her a favor by being there.

Sage looked up at me, and I cringed before I could stop myself. My face had almost totally healed. Hers had gotten much worse. Her left eye, nose, and lip had all swollen together, melting the side of her face into some kind of grotesque clown mask. Her braces had been removed, and there was a gap where a tooth had been. What would that maniac have done if Sage hadn’t pretended to be unconscious? That guy might have killed her.

“Pretty nasty, huh?” said Sage.

“You look fine.”

“Liar.” There was just a hint of a smile in that voice.

“You look terrible.”

“That’s better.” I couldn’t tell if she was grinning or if that was just the way her face had swelled.

“Sage, I …”

“Don’t.” There was something very final in the way she said that. “Don’t apologize, don’t say you’re sorry, don’t ask me what you can do. My family’s been giving me that bullshit all week.”

“But …”

She sighed. “Let me make it easier for you. You used me, and that makes you a prick. You wouldn’t stand up for me, and that makes you a wimp. After everything you promised, you still thought of Logan first.”

So much for her wanting to get back together. She turned and faced me again, and she really was smiling this time.

“But I don’t hate you. I don’t really like you, but I can’t actually hate you, either.”

“I didn’t mean—”

She cut me off. “I swear, Logan, you give me a whiny apology, and I’ll get you thrown out of here.”

My thoughts regrouped. “How are they treating you?”

Sage rubbed her side. “It’s kind of a weird place. They lobotomized some guy last week, and then this big Indian threw a sink through a window and escaped.”

“I’m pretty sure that was a movie.”

“Okay, the food stinks and everyone keeps wanting to talk about my feelings.”

I tapped my fingers on the arm of the couch. There was a question I had to ask to put my mind at ease. “Sage, your father said you … threatened to hurt yourself. Did you mean that?”

Sage leaned her head back, grimaced in pain, then
slouched forward. “I’m not going to kill myself. I wouldn’t hurt Tammi like that. Or my mom. Or you, I guess. But sometimes I do want to die.”

“You’re too wonderful to die.” It slipped out before I could stop myself, and it was dangerously close to what the doctor had warned me about. But I kept talking. “Sage, I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re too bizarre, too tacky, too ridiculous for words.” That didn’t sound right. “I mean, I just really enjoy you. You’re fun and loud and …”

Sage almost laughed. “I can see why you’re not on the debate team. But thank you, Logan. You know, you always made me feel normal. I suppose we should have stayed friends. I guess I just wanted us to be more.”

“That’s what I wanted too.” And then, when I got what I wanted, I ran away.

Sage seemed to straighten up. “I guess I’m not the first girl who got fucked over by some asshole.” She looked at me with false contempt. “And I’m not the first girl who got her teeth knocked out by some psycho. When I decided I wanted to be a girl, I forgot that I’d be inheriting a whole new set of problems.”

She sounded hopeful that she was going to put everything behind her.

“How long will you have to stay here?”

“Not long. Maybe two more weeks. My folks are working it out with the school so that I can make up my work and still graduate.”

I’d been worried about that. “I’ll visit you again. Every
day, if you want.” Then I could spend the summer proving to her that I was worthy of her friendship. That if she gave me another chance, I wouldn’t let her down.

Sage wouldn’t meet my eye. “No, Logan. We won’t ever see each other again.”

She said it matter-of-factly, like she was dropping a class or something. I hoped she was joking.

“What?”

She turned until I was facing her back. “You heard me.”

“Why? We’ll be at Mizzou together. I know I’ve used up my asshole points, but don’t tell me you don’t want to be friends anymore! Is that what you really want?”

“Keep your voice down or they’ll kick you out.” Sage stared up at the blank TV screen for a moment, her hand gently touching her bruised cheek. “Logan, I’m not going to Mizzou. I’m going to take a year off and go to school … somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? What for?”

Sage just looked past me, running her tongue along her damaged smile.

I was ready to start climbing the walls like a resident. “Sage, if you want me out of your life, fine. Get a restraining order. I won’t go within fifty feet of you. You don’t have to talk to me again. But would it really be so horrifying to live in the same city as me? Mizzou’s huge. We’d probably never run into each other.”

I was yelling, hyperventilating. I waited for Dr. McGregor to come in, but she didn’t.

“Are you through, Logan?”

I caught my breath. “Yeah.”

“I don’t want to go to Mizzou because I don’t want you to see me as a man.”

I blinked in confusion. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

And then it hit me.

“Sage? Jesus Christ, you’re not thinking about … living as a guy, are you?” After all the fighting, the misery, the struggle to become a girl, she wasn’t going to give that all up. She couldn’t.

Sage pulled her knees up to her chin but still wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t do it, Logan. I could live with a father who hates me, and a society that treats me like a damn joke, and a body that’s too tall and too muscular … but when that guy started pounding me, and calling me a fag, and kicking me in the crotch …” She stopped talking for a bit, then continued, almost whispering.

“I realized that I’m never going to be a woman. Even if I have the surgery, I’ll be faking it. I’ll always be a boy to my family, and I’ll live the next sixty years wondering if my secret will get out. I just can’t take it anymore. I tried and I failed, so I’m quitting. I wish we could stay friends, but after what we did together, we couldn’t face each other man to man.”

Had Sage had some kind of breakdown? “You’ve lost your mind!”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“You know what I mean. Sage, you’re not a guy! You’re a chick! Things are bad now, but in a few months …”

She swiveled slowly until we sat face to face. I flinched. I’d never seen anyone look so dejected, so beaten. “It’s always been bad. I smiled for the world, but I’ve been dead
on the inside. Ever since I first tried to be a girl, I’ve felt like I was drowning, like I had to swim with all my might
just to live, day to day!
I have to get out of the water, Logan. I’ll go under for good, otherwise.”

I stood up. This wasn’t right. It had never occurred to me she’d do this. I somehow knew that if I said the wrong thing now, then I’d never see Sage again. “You think you’ll be happy as a man?”

“I’m not happy now.”

“You’ll be miserable as a guy. You’d hate yourself. Is that what you want, to wake up twenty years from now and realize you pissed away your only chance at happiness?”

That struck a nerve. “I think you should leave, Logan.”

I didn’t budge. “Don’t do it, Sage! You’ll regret it. Can you really deny that you’re a girl? Look me in the eye and say you’re a man. Do it!”

“Dr. McGregor!” she called. The therapist must have been waiting right outside, because she burst in, along with a different guard.