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would call that a defense mechanism, I guess. She says I have a lot of those. She also says they’re healthy.
    I do my usual scan of the room. It’s important to me that things don’t change in this office. I’ve been seeing Dr. Waverly on and off for a long time now, since I was a kid, and I figure if you’re going to make the effort to depend on someone who gets paid to be your friend, the least they can do is be consistent. And she is. She’s always had the same framed Monet hanging on the eastern wall. The same Navajo rug spread on the floor between us. The only additions to this space over the years have been comforting ones: a stone owl with crystal eyes that sits and watches me from its perch on the windowsill; a photo of her son on the day he graduated from medical school, cap in hand, face beaming with pride. Plus there are always precisely five clocks in this room. I count every time. The smallest, made of brushed steel, sits on the bookcase to my left. It faces away from me, but I can still hear the racing heartbeat of our fifty-minute hour tick, tick, ticking away.
    â€œHow’re you handling things?” Dr. Waverly asks.
    I tap my fingers. “Okay.”
    â€œYou have gloves on.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œDoes that mean—”
    â€œYeah. I had one of my nerve attacks this morning. A bad one. First time in a while.”
    Her brows pop up over her glasses. “Bad?”
    â€œIt lasted until right before lunch. So not the worst, but … you know.”
    â€œThat sounds pretty bad.”
    I nod.
    She’s scribbling something in her notepad. “Well, it doesn’t seem like the Prozac’s working to control your symptoms the way it used to. We can try upping the dose. If that doesn’t work, there are other SSRIs to consider.”
    â€œMmm,” I say, which is easier than the truth; a few days ago, I stopped taking the Prozac she prescribed me. Back when I was in ninth grade and my numbness was at its worst, both my neurologist and Dr. Waverly told me Prozac could help control cataplexy in people who have narcolepsy. Not because they’re depressed, but because it helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle, which is what causes the muscle weakness in the first place, and even though they couldn’t fully explain my symptoms and even though they didn’t think I actually had narcolepsy, they both thought the pills were worth a shot. So I tried it. And the attacks stopped, for the most part. But I guess I’ve always been worried there’s something wrong with my brain, not just my hands or the way I sleep. That my doctors have been tricking me all this time. I don’t like that thought. At all. And now that I’m talking to Jenny, I really don’t like that the Prozac makes me feel less … sharp. Like I’m sort of soft all over.
    There’s nothing good about that.
    â€œMmm?” Dr. Waverly repeats. Like I said, she’s a shrink, and I decide right then and there not to tell her about the panic attack I had in gym class. I mean, I don’t want to end up in a hospital ward or something, locked in one of those rubber-walled rooms where you can’t get out without a court order.
    â€œI’ve got a date,” I offer. “On Friday.”
    â€œA date? With whom?”
    â€œJust some girl from school. She’s in my grade. She plays the piano and she’s really pretty. Smart, too.”
    â€œThe piano? So you have something in common?”
    â€œYeah, but I’m a pianist who can’t play when my hands don’t move. Plus I like jazz. Jenny’s more of a classical girl.”
    â€œAre you two sexually active?” she asks.
    I shift in my seat. “Uh. That’s kind of a non sequitur, isn’t it?”
    â€œIs it?”
    â€œUm, yeah. Sort of.”
    â€œI thought we were talking about what you can and can’t do with your hands, Jamie.”
    â€œI