Week One

“Guess who?” A familiar voice called out from behind the door after a series of louds knocks.

Ariella shrieked and dashed across her room so quickly she nearly knocked over the large bowl of popcorn sitting on her nightstand. She flung open her door to find a tall, scrawny boy with a big goofy grin plastered on his face.

“Arthur! You’re back!” Ariella said, wrapping him in a tight hug. His dark skin was, if possible, even darker, and he was still wearing his bright orange camp counselor t-shirt, but he smelled of chai tea and axe body-spray—a combination she had never found anyone able to duplicate— so she figured it must still be her weirdo best friend.

“Um, wow.” Arthur said, pulling back. “Blue!”

“Oh yeah,” Ariella said with a laugh as she let go of his shoulders. She had forgotten Arthur hadn’t seen her new hair yet. “What do you think?”

“It looks great!” Arthur said earnestly, though his voice seemed a tad too high.

“Really?” Ariella crinkled her nose. “I kind of hate it.”

“Well, you should,” Arthur said, his voice now normal and his expression distasteful. “It looks like you’ve murdered Cookie Monster and worn his pelt as your prize.”

“You sound like my aunt!” She pouted. “The color on the box was much lighter and sleeker!”

“I’m sure,” Arthur said as he took a seat on the floor and took off his boots.

“I still have to wait two more weeks before I can change it back!” Ariella collapsed onto her bed with a dramatic sigh. “I mean, at least it pissed Aunt Rosa off, which is something. And I have gotten some pretty hilarious reactions too.” She grabbed a handful of popcorn.

“I’ll bet,” Arthur said, stretching to reach the nightstand where the bowl was perched.

“Like my poor psychiatrist,” Ariella said between munches. “She did a pretty epic spit-take when I went in last week.”

“She?” Arthur repeated.

Oh, right. Ariella hadn’t told Arthur that she’d had to switch psychiatrists. Again.

“He. Slip of the tongue. You know what I meant.” Ariella said, feigning annoyance. Though, in truth, Arthur was the person she was least annoyed with these days. (It might have had something to do with the whole being gone all summer thing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all the jazz.) She almost felt bad lying to him, but. Four psychiatrists? Honesty was out of the question. What kind of normal person had gone through four psychiatrists? (This wasn’t even counting the various therapists and guidance counselors that had also come and gone along with said psychiatrists.)

Not that Ariella cared about being normal in the boring "9 to 5, 2.5 kids, and house in the country” type way. But normal, stable personhood…not feeling like a boiling pot about to overflow or gingerbread on the verge of collapse at any given moment? Well, that was something else.

Ariella often felt like she had a better hold on her life these days—she had accepted long ago that the line between what was real and what was not would always be blurry for her, and that as snide and condescending as Aunt Rosa was, she was right in suggesting Ariella need help controlling her “delusions.” Thanks to wonders of puberty, she had even garnered a small measure of popularity towards the end of high school that had more or less survived her transition to community college. She probably had made too much of an impression with some of her out-of-control elementary school incidents to be the girl most guys would take home to their moms (for such a small town they sure did have a pretty big memory), but it was rare that she was uninvited to a party or unable to find a date. Ariella liked to think of herself as pretty down-to-earth, as strange as that might sound to some people.

Except that she couldn’t hold down a psychiatrist.

Ariella let out a loud sigh, which prompted Arthur to asked if she was okay (he was probably looking for a way to end the awkward silence that had settled). She brushed off his concerns with some vaguely witty comment, as per usual. Batting off Arthur’s worries was almost second nature at this point.

“It’s just I mean, I heard your aunt saying—not intentionally!” Arthur spluttered, and Ariella felt a twinge of anxiety. Nothing spelled trouble like her aunt talking about her with other people. “Just, I mean she was on the phone when I came earlier, you know and—“

“Oh just spit it out already!” Ariella groaned—though perhaps she should have let him splutter on for a bit more. Aunt Rosa had a…history of complaining about putting up with Ariella’s mental health to many of her snotty girlfriends, most of whom already felt great sympathy for poor Rosa being forced to take sole responsibility for the child of a sister she hadn’t even liked. No doubt Ariella’s fallout with Dr. Gardiner had been a topic of discussion several times. Though Arthur would, of course, be as annoyingly understanding and tactful about it as ever, she felt mildly humiliated at the thought of getting caught in her lie. The only thing weirder than having four psychiatrists is pretending you didn’t.

“Well…I heard you about you and Sam Martin.” Arthur eyed her nervously.

“Oh,” Ariella let out a breath (and wondered briefly just how much Aunt Rosa bothered to keep track of her love life), but she still felt her shoulders tense up. He hadn’t hit on the psychiatrist issue, but this topic was far from pleasant as well. “Oh, yeah. That was ages ago though, Arthur. Afraid, you’re still behind, Mr. Camp Counselor.” She said in a falsely light tone that was usually able to fool Arthur.

“I just…I dunno, I thought you might be upset. He was your boyfriend for quite a bit.”

Ariella shrugged. She’d never thought of Sam as her boyfriend (she disliked the word in general—it carried too many expectations), but she knew what Arthur meant. Sam and her had gone out for nearly three months. That was practically a century in Ariella time. “Eh, it was bound to happen. He was kind of boring me, anyway.” Both of which were true, even if they hadn’t been her reasons for breaking up with him.

Arthur squirmed uncomfortably a bit at that, but if he sensed there was any deeper issue he let it be. “Ah, okay. Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Please, Arthur, you know me,” Ariella said with a slightly overdramatic hairflip. “I’m never down for long.”