Dancing in the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

was
not his problem anymore. Out of pity and a sense of responsibility, he
had stayed with her way too long. He’d thought he could help her, cure
her, fix her. He’d thought that he could will her to get better, that patience and attention and affection
would nurse her to health.
    What colossal ego he’d had.
    Finally, Shawn had come to understand that neither he nor anyone
else could make Leslie Patterson well. Her problems went too deep. Much
deeper than the cuts she made with safety pins and broken glass behind
her knees and into the flesh of her inner thighs.

CHAPTER 8
    His conversation with the police had been deeply troubling. Owen
Messinger breathed a heavy sigh as he replaced the phone receiver in
its cradle.
    All the hours of therapy over the last years hadn’t made Leslie
Patterson healthy. The police believed she had staged her own
abduction, an obvious cry for help. Leslie was still a very sick young
woman.
    Owen got up from his desk and went over to the bookcase, where he
pulled out the bright yellow binder from the shelf. Yellow was Leslie’s
color. The green, red, blue, orange, and purple binders contained the
files of the other young women he was treating for eating disorders,
self-inflicted wounding, and other impulsive behaviors. Each book
contained pages of the therapist’s progress notes on both the illness
and therapy for his patients.
    Taking a seat on the couch that Leslie had sat upon so many times,
Owen opened the yellow binder and began flipping through the pages. The
entries went back eight years. Leslie had been a high school sophomore
when her mother first noticed the razor marks on her daughter’s legs.
Not the minor nicks inflicted by an inexperienced adolescent shaving
her legs but angry slits executed with the sharp edge of the blade.
    In his unique brand of shorthand, Owen had scribbled down his
impressions:
    — l.p.’s eating disorder = extreme weight loss.
    — l.p. talks of eating 3x a day. closer analysis shows amount of food
actually consumed very limited.
    — L
.p, has engaged in excessive strenuous exercise as a weight
control measure.
    —
l.p. has persistent preoccupation with body image. Sees herself
as overweight
.
    —
l.p. denies seeing herself as emaciated though she is severely
under recommended weight levels.
    —
l.p. is trying to relieve stress by cutting. Unexpressed or
unresolved anger
.
    Owen realized that the notes he had made back then weren’t all that
different from what he would write about his patient today. Only now he
knew for certain that Leslie had expanded her arsenal of cutting tools
from razor blades to safety pins and shards of broken glass. And that
she wasn’t responding at all to the new therapy.
    The intercom buzzed, and his assistant’s voice came over the speaker.
    “Anna Caprie is here, Dr. Messinger.”
    “All right, Christine. I’ll be just a minute.”
    He closed the yellow binder and slid it back into its place on the
shelf. As he pulled out Anna Caprie’s green book, he hesitated for a
moment, wondering if he should continue with his innovative therapy.
But he quickly dismissed the thought as he went back to his desk and
pulled a package of razor blades from the drawer.

CHAPTER 9
     
    “I’m not hungry.” Leslie shook her head as her mother rested the
plate on the coffee table. “Why are you always forcing me to eat when I
don’t want to?”
    “I’m not forcing you, Leslie. I’m offering you some lunch. You have
to eat something, honey.”
    Audrey Patterson tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. For
the past three days she had made bargains with God. If her daughter was
returned to them, if Leslie came home, healthy and in one piece, then
she would be more patient with her daughter. She would not nag; she
would try harder to be a better mother and friend to her only child.
But the initial relief over having Leslie back safe and sound was
ebbing away as Audrey felt the familiar pattern reestablishing