nything, but she’s constantly reliving the memory of her five-year-old daughter chasing a bird into a busy street, and yeah, it’s pretty fill-in-the-blank from there.
I try to keep my eyes low and ignore her screams, but I can’t help but look up when another orderly approaches with a straitjacket. They carry her away through the same door I’m about to walk through. I wonder how much of her life she’ll have to forget to live without a straitjacket—and maybe a muzzle if she doesn’t keep it down.
The waiting room is silent now. Any chatter has stopped. Lives depend on this procedure.
This really obese dude—Miguel, I think—told our therapy group that he could stop overeating only after he forgets his childhood traumas. He’s here now, the ketchup stain of his last meal on his shirt. I almost want to hug him. I hope he’s deemed unfit enough to get the procedure so he can be healthy again, physically and mentally.
Like him, I’m here because I don’t want to be who I am anymore. I want to be so happy that bad memories aren’t following me around like unwanted shadows.
Dr. Castle encouraged me to give her a list of happy things I should think about whenever I started thinking about things I shouldn’t. During sessions, I always faked smiles while unhappily answering because she was so nice. She was trying to help.
I hold Genevieve’s hand to calm her down, which seems pretty backward if you ask me. There’s blue and orange paint crusting around her fingernails. “What were you working on?” I ask her.
“Nothing good. I was playing around with that idea I was telling you about, the one with the sun drowning in the ocean instead of setting behind it. I didn’t know how to finish it though . . .”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. Not surprised.
She reaches across me and stops me from tugging at my sleeve, which I didn’t even realize I was doing. She knows all my signs and I can’t even pay attention to her when she talks. “You’re going to be okay, babe. You have to be.”
Empty promise. No one ever thinks they’ll get cancer. No one expects a gunman to open fire at the bank. “I’m more nervous that nothing will happen instead of something going wrong.”
Some of the risks include severe memory loss, anterograde amnesia, and other shit like that. But a small part of me thinks I would be better off brain dead than waking up the way I am.
Genevieve looks around the waiting room with its stark white walls and crazies and patient employees. I bet she would consider painting something Leteo-related if it weren’t for the signed nondisclosure agreement that allows her to be with me today provided she never discusses her presence here with another human being unless she wants to pay a zillion-dollar fine.
“I wouldn’t worry,” she says. “We read through all those brochures a thousand times and watched a marathon’s worth of post-op videos and everyone seems fine.”
“Yeah, but they probably wouldn’t show us the patients who have to be spoon-fed for the rest of their lives.” I fake a grin for her. I’m tired of faking, which is ridiculous considering the circumstances about to unfold. But at least I won’t know I’m faking, and that’s honest enough for me.
Genevieve looks behind me and immediately tears up. I turn. Dr. Castle is standing by the door. Her sunken-in sea-green eyes are always kind of comforting, even now as she stares at me, but her tousled mass of red-orange hair reminds me of living flames. I fight back panic. She probably hasn’t announced herself so I could have a few more minutes with Genevieve—maybe even myself.
I pick up Genevieve by her waist and spin her around a couple of times. Getting dizzy before someone plays with my brain is stupid, I know. Before I can ask, Genevieve holds my hand and says, “I’ll walk with you.”
The closer we get to Dr. Castle, the more it feels like I’m marching to my death, and I know I sort of am, at least the part of me everyone is better off without. The panic melts away.
“I’m ready,” I tell Dr. Castle with zero doubts.
I turn back to Genevieve and while I’m kissing the girl who has been keeping my secret without knowing it, I wonder again if maybe she’s known all along. We’ve never gone as far as saying we love each other in the year we’ve been together. It’s simple, I know, but she’s smart enough to never admit loving someone who can’t love her back.
I never thought I would say anything like this to her, that I would rather hold this secret in my tight fist until the day I die, but I go ahead.
“I know you know about me, Gen. I won’t be like that tomorrow, okay? We’re going to be happy together, for real.”
She’s speechless, so I kiss her one last time and she weakly waves to me, probably saying bye to the person she found a way to love despite that wall I’m about to knock down.
I quickly turn around and head through the door, sick that all my lies and chaos have brought me to this breaking point. I know it’s what has to happen. I can’t be like Collin who can pretend like nothing ever happened between us and who can fucking forget everything that did. I no longer have to be ruined by another guy. I no longer have to hurt the girl who thinks I love her.
At the threshold, Dr. Castle places a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“Remember that this is for your own good,” she reminds in her light English accent.
“I think we both know that remembering doesn’t really do anyone good around here,” I half joke, and she smiles.
I won’t remember that this is for my own good, because I won’t remember why I came here in the first place. Leteo will make me forget my relationship with Collin. My insides can stop burning me alive with how much I miss him. I won’t ever get jumped on the train again for liking another guy. My friends will stop being suspicious of what I’m doing when I’m not hanging with them. We’re going to kill that part of me that’s ruined everything. I’m going to be straight, just like how my father would’ve wanted.
This procedure isn’t a promise I’ll stop being you-know-what, but using science against nature is my best shot.
I’m stretched across a narrow bed with wires sealed to my forehead and heart. I’ve lost count of how many needles they’ve stabbed into my veins and how many times someone has asked me if I’m comfortable, and if I’m positive I want to do this. I’ve said yes and yes and yes a lot.