Chapter 2
BPOV
WHAT! I thought. Why would I ever want to kill myself!
"WHAT!" She screeched. I was glad, only minutely, that she felt the same why I did. I tried to make my face impassive with my eyes closed because I knew they'd be checking to see if I had heard. There was about a minute of silence before my mother continued. "My Isabella would never attempt to kill herself. She would never even think of such a thing! She's a happy girl, the perfect daughter. She wouldn't. She couldn't." My mother said fiercely. Her motherly desire to protect me was etching away on her somewhat calm mask she had been wearing in front of me. Being Renee, she would endeavor to protect me from anything, especially slanderous remarks from some trauma room doctor.
"Mrs. Dwyer, please calm down. The evidence, well… it's very suggesting. I'm not trying to say that it was most definitely her aim, but the way she left the house is also questionable. I think that after she's released that you should take her to some sort of counseling. This event will invariably be traumatic for her and it would be helpful if you could try to discover what occurred before the accident. It's imperative, actually. I can give you the number of my colleague Dr. Uley, Samantha Uley. She's a psychologist and an excellent one at that."
"You think she needs therapy?" Worry colored her question unabashedly. My mother had no idea how difficult the next month and a half would be with Dr. Uley when she took that business card.
I'll never forget what I overheard that day in the hospital. It chilled my bones—a chill that hasn't yet left them. I looked around my now-sparse room. It was an odd sensation when I realized that I probably wouldn't even miss it. I wouldn't miss my life in Phoenix at all. I had become so separate from it in the last weeks that it was starting to feel like I didn't belong anywhere in it.
"Bella! Let's go!" My mother called from the car. I picked up my carry-on bag and left our small ranch-style house in Phoenix. I didn't even look back as we pulled away. One thing I would miss, though, would be the sun. It's the only thing that kept me feeling alive since the accident. Forks would be devoid of sun and affluent in rain, I knew that much from my visits to my brother and dad. I also knew that I needed a new parka: I would be freezing this coming winter. Yet, I couldn't fathom how it could be any different than the chill that was already inside me. Perhaps I would feel more at ease if the weather matched my insides.
I boarded my plane after a tearful good-bye (on my mom's part) and found my seat by the window. If I had to fly, the only way I didn't feel the suffocation of claustrophobia was if I had the window seat. I closed my eyes and let the last bit of sun before my self-imposed exile to Forks filter through the window and wash over me before take-off. I had decided that I should go to Forks after weeks upon weeks of talk therapy, hypnosis, drug therapy and other stupid methods Dr. Uley thought might work. None of it worked. I still couldn't remember what happened that made me leave Lauren's house, much less being at her house. I was pretty apathetic to finding out anyways. I figured it was just meant to be one of those life-changing mysteries.
Sitting on the plane, I thought back to the second time Dr. Uley tried hypnosis on me after the first epic failure. She had me lay on her plush over-stuffed couch with my eyes closed and dimmed lights. There was light swirly-type music playing in the background; it was all too Freudian for my taste. She used phrases like relax, sleep, you're floating, just listen to my voice. I wondered when she would pull out her pocket-watch on a chain and wave it in front of me saying "you're getting very sleepy, very sleepy!" I had to stifle back my laughter as I thought of this while she was talking. When I realized that there was no way that this broad could hypnotize me, I decided I was going to have some fun with this. I let her do her psychology magic and patiently waited for her to start asking me questions.
"Isabella, I'm going to ask you some questions now," Dr. Uley informed me. "The Friday of the car accident, what's the most vivid image that comes to your mind?"
I thought out my answer carefully, I had to make her think that this psycho-babble was working. "The test, my final exam in trig," I responded with a breathy voice. I tried to make it sound like it was coming from my subconscious like she wanted it to.
"Isabella, why do you remember the test?"
"…it made me angry."
"Why did it make you angry? What about it upset you?"
"The problems… they had answers."
"What do you mean they had answers?" She was curious, that was evident.
"I was …jealous. The trigonometry problems had answers." In my mind, this was pure gold. I wasn't sure where I was going to take this, but at least that day's session would be fun… for me.
"Isabella, why were you jealous of the answers?" I could hear her beaming with pride; she actually thought this was her doing, that she was the genius to solve my defective mind. What a twit.
"My problems… they don't have… easy answers. I was jealous of the trig problems… They had easy answers." I thought she was going to cream her panties with excitement and write-in to the American Psychological Association at that very minute, gushing with how excellent she was. Give me a break.
"I see," she said. "What are your problems, Isabella?"
"I'm trapped. I'm not… able to be me."
"Good, good. Continue..."
"I don't feel like… like an Isabella. I feel like an… like an… Ian." I had to bite down hard on my tongue to keep from giggling. This was all so ridiculous; I thought that there was no way in Hell that she would have believed what I just said.
"Uh-huh… and why do you feel like an Ian?" She asked. Her own curiosity peaked at epic levels.
"I … well, I…" I continued. I paused for dramatic effect and threw in a fake muffled-sob for her pleasure. "I want… I want to be a Boy! There's no easy fix for me."
"A boy! You mean, like… trans-gendered?" She was astounded, clearly not expecting that from our session. In her politically-correct psychological terminology, I lost my composure and sat straight up only to crumple forward with heavy laughter. I shook the couch with it. I peaked up at her through my curtain of hair and saw the perturbed look on her face. Undoubtedly she didn't find this whole debacle as amusing as I did.
"Isabella Marie Swan, this is serious business: your recovery!" She forcefully stated when she had collected herself.
"Oh, c'mon 'Uley! Lighten up! It was funny. I can't believe you BOUGHT that!" I replied in between fits of giggles. "But seriously," I continued after composing myself. "The not being called Isabella thing has some truth… How many times do I have to ask you to call me Bella?"
She sighed before responding. "Bella, if you can't treat this seriously how do you expect to get better?"
"Get better? I'm fine. I just have a little bit of a memory problem, that's all."
"It's more serious than that, Bella. We're concerned for you. Your mother tells me that you haven't been quite the same since the accident. Has anyone told you what the doctors that cared for you in the hospital and the police officers that reviewed the scene of your accident think?" I shook my head no. I did know what they thought, but no one had outright told me. She continued, "They think that you were trying to commit suicide by driving your car into the telephone pole… What do you think of that?" She stopped talking and just looked at me. It was obvious that she was trying to figure out what my reaction would be. I could be quite surprising lately.
"Well that's just… ridiculous. I would never try to kill myself. I have no reason to. Besides, I'm not selfish. I think suicide is essentially a selfish act." The minute she told me what everyone else was thinking I thought back to my dad's offer to me at the hospital. Charlie had said that I could stay with him whenever I wanted. I had to get out of Phoenix with all these people thinking I'm going to off myself at any moment. I informed Dr. Uley of my idea to move to Forks, claiming the change of environment might be therapeutic, and how it would be nice to spend time with my big brother. That was our last session—two days prior to me boarding my plane—removing me from the scene of the accident, so to speak.
