Inside Read Online Free PDF Page A

then sat fidgeting with the tissue in her lap. After a while, Grace said, “Tell me about the boy.”
    The girl shook her head.
    “He’s part of this too, you know,” Grace went on. She needed Annie to say if she knew him well or just a little, whether she loved him, anything that might lead to a real discussion.
    But Annie only shook her head again and smiled wryly. “He’s nobody,” she said, her tone weary, suddenly wise. She was a chameleon: in her school uniform, crying and begging for help, she’d seemed a child; now, crossing her legs and smiling mysteriously, she could have been five years older. Grace could feel her receding, the mask of her face closing. So for the next few minutes she gave a rote explanation of the options, of Annie’s future, urging her to seriously consider all the possibilities, to talk to her doctor, to
think
, and to remember that no matter what happened, her life would not be over.
    Annie nodded, acting as though she were listening, but when Grace paused, she said, “I can’t trust the doctor. She’s friends with my mom and I know she’d tell her even if she promised she wouldn’t. I can’t trust my friends, they’re such total gossips I know they’d have to tell somebody and soon it’ll be all over school. You’re the only person I can tell.”
    “I’m glad you feel you can talk to me.”
    The girl saw an advantage and pressed it, leaning forward and locking her wide eyes on Grace’s—the same posture she probably used at home when asking for some special present. “Will you promise not to tell my parents?”
    Grace sat back. For the second time in as many days she felt herself being enlisted in a pretense, a story in which she ought to play no part. And again she felt that same need to take a risk, to earn thetrust of someone in need, because nobody else in the world seemed to have it. But this was a child. “I can’t do that,” she told her.
    “I should’ve known,” Annie said. “This is such a waste of time.” She stood up and stuffed her things into her bag, the zipper of her fleece singing as she pulled it up.
    “Wait,” Grace said, wanting to give the girl something to carry with her out of the office. “Just remember that you have options.”
    When Annie turned, her face was as blank as snow; anything she’d just revealed of herself was now hidden behind a gate of disbelief. Only the tinges of pink at her eyes and nose hinted at the explosions of the past hour. “Sure,” she said, “options.”
    Grace had the sharp, sudden feeling that the girl would never come back again, or share anything of herself if she did. This wasn’t the first time that she’d seen a teenage girl in trouble, but Annie had gotten under her skin—her quicksilver changes between adult and child, how hard she came down on herself, the shy glitter of her braces-thick smile. Grace wished it were permissible to tell her the simple truth: that the same thing had happened to her in high school, and that while she would never wish it on anyone else, everything had turned out fine. This was hardly appropriate therapeutic practice, and she never once had been tempted to confess it before. Something about Annie was different from other patients, and it made her want to prick the bubble of the girl’s unhappiness. And the way she talked about the baby’s father, her air of shielding secrecy, had touched Grace’s heart, and her memory.
    She bit her lip. “Okay, Annie,” she said, “I won’t tell.”
    When she closed the office at five thirty and stepped outside, it was her own life, not Annie’s, that she was thinking of. Back in high school, she had been a champion downhill skier, gifted on the slopes. She had spent her weekends drowsing on overheated buses to and from Blue Mountain. Her parents’ house had a wall filled with her trophies and medals and blurry photographs showing her swooping across the finish line in an aerodynamic crouch. There had been talk of