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“I don’t know,” I say. Every syllable of honesty hurts. Putting my fingers into whatever open wound or septic organ I’ve been carrying around for my entire life. “I don’t want to do this.”

“And what does this mean?”

My thumb starts to tear up my hangnail, sending a sharp jolt of pain up my finger. Dr. Lý’s eyes lock onto it, and I almost growl—Jesus, this isn’t self-harm, it’s a stim, leave me alone.

But it does hurt. I wrap the offending thumb in my fist, hands searching for anything else to mess with before landing on my nail polish. A chip comes off almost immediately, and I don’t like the way my nails are sitting on my fingers. I put one in my mouth to jam my lower teeth into the delicate skin underneath. I’m convinced I’ll taste blood.

I don’t.

But I don’t believe my tongue.

“Is there blood under my nails?” I ask. “It feels like there is.”

There’s an instant fight behind Dr. Lý’s eyes. The clinical refusal to entertain reassurance-seeking so it doesn’t devolve into a full-blown compulsion, versus wanting to reinforce any halfway-positive interaction with literally any adult.

“Give me your hand,” she says.

I close the space between us, carefully, and hold it out. Dr. Lý takes it between both of her own. Her fingers are cold.

I never liked any of my therapists. (Besides my speech-language pathologist, but I don’t think she counts.) They were all frustrating, or trying too hard, or incapable of doing anything that actually helped.

That said, Dr. Lý was the least bad.

“Tell me what you meant by this,” she says. “You don’t want to do this. What is this.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Everything.”

It burns. I’m alone. Things keep happening and things keep changing and I don’t know how to handle it. My head is in the Saw trap and I hate myself so, so much.

I see my father tomorrow.

With a frustratingly gentle expression, Dr. Lý holds up my hand to the ugly light illuminating the ER entrance. I remind myself to breathe but I’m not doing a very good job.

“No blood,” Dr. Lý says.

No blood, I tell myself.

Then she says, “Have you been drinking?”

I rip my hand out of her grasp. “No—”

“You’re red. And your words are slurring.”

“No they’re not.”

I’m not lying. Yeah, I had a drink or two before I left the house, or whatever, I didn’t count. I was about to have a meltdown and I couldn’t do that, not the night before the trip. I needed to stop it before it got too far. So I did. That’s not drinking. Not like Mom drinks, until she passes out in the living room or gets sick in the kitchen sink. There’s a difference.

I say, “I’m fine.”

Dr. Lý scrubs a hand over her mouth. “Okay. You need some water, a blanket, and a safe place to sober up. Did you walk?”

“I’m not drunk.” For the first time, I hear the sluggishness to the words, and it’s awful. Embarrassing. I say it again, trying to do better this time. “I’m not drunk. I’m not my fucking mom.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Yes you did.”

Dr. Lý shakes her head and I swear to god it turns my vision red. “All right. I understand that’s what you heard, and it’s fine if you don’t like that.” Fuck off. “But we still have to get you someplace safe. And if that’s not walking right into this ER here, then we need to figure out what else we can do.”