Chapter Three | This Charming Man

♫ This Charming Man by The Smiths

The business card that Atlas Wilder has given me is made of such a thick paper that it doesn't even crumple between my terrible fingers.

I've saved it in my phone case, but my phone case is clear and if I would've happened to bump into him again and he saw it, he'd probably think that I'm psychotic or obsessed with him. Instead I now save it in the folds of my wallet, which means that I have to carry that around now. And since it's too big to fit into any pocket (thank you, women's clothing and your innovative idea of fake pockets), that in turn means that I have to carry a purse around, all to keep a phone number safe that I, for some reason, haven't yet saved to my phone.

It freaks me out that I even have this to worry about. Since when have I ever been the kind of girl boys give their phone numbers to? Why didn't I scare him off the second I opened my mouth or stirred an inch, exposing myself for the spastic freak I am? I may be eighteen years of age, but I don't have enough experience to deal with phone numbers.

"You're sitting there like someone's about to photograph you for a cover of a historical coming-of-age story." A half-eaten PopTart is dangling out of the corner of Olivia's mouth as she gets dressed, her hair still soaked from the shower.

"I don't know what that means."

Olivia laughs as she sticks her feet into a pair of white Nikes. "It means that you should probably loosen up, move around, and tell me why you've been staring at that card for over forty-eight hours."

Forty-eight hours? God, she's right. At this point it'd almost be rude to text him anymore. "It's just a phone number." I shift uncomfortably on my bed.

"Oh, I see. Some guy gave you his number at Monday's party, didn't he? And you're too innocent and sweet and inexperienced to know what to say."

Pretty much.

Olivia's quick to come to my rescue and jumps onto my bed so she's sitting next to me, plucking the card from my hands. "Let's start with the most important question, here. Do we want to text him back? Or leave him wondering if the pretty girl with the big brown doe eyes was just a vision created by his drunken state?"

"Atlas doesn't drink," I remark. I immediately blush afterward, maybe because me remembering that seems sickeningly significant and maybe because of Olivia's amused smile, but she's unbothered and turns back to the card.

"Say no more. Phone?"

I begrudgingly hand her my phone. A feeling of apprehension creeps up on me, a question mark, is this a good idea? What will this lead to? Do I want a stranger to have my phone number? My Dad once said it's the key to unlocking someone's entire online identity and the more I think about it, the more appealing anonymity sounds.

But Olivia's fast and determined. I lean over her shoulder to watch her type.

"Okay, no, stop!" I grab my phone back, careful to avoid the bottom of the screen so I don't accidentally hit send.

"What?" Olivia asks innocently. "Boys like girls who aren't afraid to take initiative, who have a little edge."

I snort. "Well, I don't have any edge, so that would be misleading."

She rolls her eyes and sticks out her hand. "Fine. I'll keep that in mind. Now, give me your phone back."

"No way. You're gonna hit send this time."

"Ugh, you're not a big fan of fun, are you? Suit yourself. But nothing's gonna happen if you don't text him."

"Maybe that's a good thing." I raise and lower my shoulders as I hold the backspace button and delete the chat all together. "Maybe I'm supposed to re-meet him the old-fashioned way. Bumping into him in the halls or spilling coffee all over his white T-shirt, that sort of thing."

"That'd be great, but this isn't a book. This is reality, and most importantly, a very large campus spread out over the entirety of New York City. You should utilize everything the universe has given you." She stands up from the bed and looks at me through her perfect eyebrows, the playful smile suddenly more of a warning. "Text. Him."

I catch a glimpse of the purple calendar that hangs over her pillow as she rummages through her drawers. It's a cloudy Thursday morning, marking my third morning waking up in an environment that might be growing on me, but is still unfamiliar and at times uncomfortable. The past two days have mostly been what you expect from an introduction week— attempts at exercises meant to create bonds between me and my fellow freshmen, paired with awkward interactions with the professors I have this semester.

Today is supposed to be different. Administration has let go of the reigns a little and given us the freedom to explore on our own terms. For normal people, this means going into the city and touring the sights. For me, it means appointments with my counselor and department head, not to forget the trips to the administration building to make sure everything I'll need this year is in order. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to cross the street for a sandwich in between and call that my neighborhood sightseeing trip. And there's always tomorrow— although, I am meeting my new physician tomorrow, and with my weak legs I'm sure a trip to the New Amsterdam Medical Center in Brooklyn will kill enough in me to knock me out by five P.M.

Olivia collects her stuff in a shoulder bag and bends down to the mirror by her wardrobe, puckering her lips. "Okay, gotta go, I'm already late to meet the girls." She smears some lip gloss on her lips, waves at me and breezes out the door.

I stuff Atlas Wilder's business card back into my wallet and stuff that in my purse, that I hang over my head and on my shoulder. I copy Olivia's actions and bend down in front of the mirror, fixing my thick hair and attempting to brush all of my eyebrow hairs with the tip of my middle finger (to no avail, of course).

Something in me wills me to relax. The girl I'm looking at is, in a way, the girl I've always dreamt about— she's going out there to get her affairs in order, has befriended her dormmate and left her parents' house and hometown without crying, somehow. She has the phone number of a boy in that purse of hers, she attended a party just forty-eight hours ago. Maybe NYU has a transforming kind of power that turns nobodies into somebodies and nothings into somethings. I feel like I'm slowly growing into someone else, like only my looks have yet to catch up with the slow shift of my heart, and it's exhilarating. Tomorrow I'll wake up and look into the mirror and see someone else, and nobody will question it.

The stairs have slippery banisters and floor-to-ceiling windows. It echoes when you speak, and even the shift of fabric sounds louder. I think I hear my heart beating as I walk down in the deserted space, every sensible person having left today to find scraps of themselves in this unknown city. There's something so sad about it, I wish I was out there experiencing the same thing. Instead I postpone the excitement for have-to's, for future-me-will-thank-me's, and for responsibilities-that-only-screwed-up-people-have-to-deal-with's. Suddenly it feels ridiculous to be there on my own, that I have to meet up with officials for official things when I could be with Milo or Olivia or even Atlas, seeing the city.

I have my phone clutched in my left hand and lift it as I descend the last step hands-free (also ridiculous: I feel a sense of pride when I let go of the banisters at the last step of the staircase, it gives me an idea of what it's like to not need something to hold onto at all). I have a map of the campus installed as my lock screen, and with my best finger drawing abilities I marked the route to the administrations building. Even with no-one watching I bend my head down and keep my eyes glued to the screen and the area of my feet, so it looks like there's something important I'm doing or about to do.

I recall a cold February day a few years ago. My Dad had forced the family to go on a walk once again, and I hung behind with strides that were a little too big for me. I noticed him slowing down by the recognition of the old, brown hiking boots he only ever wore for walks like this very one, watched as our steps almost lined up. I tired myself out just by trying to match his.

"Why are you doing that?" He stuck out his elbow as he asked me that, his hand still in his pocket to weather the cold, and I hooked my arm behind his.

"Doing what?" I couldn't match his strides and gave up. A little twig stuck out from under a particularly deep patch of snow and I stepped on it, fascinated by the way my feet sunk away in the crunchy white until it almost seeped into my shoe. I had to take a few faster steps after that to catch up with my Dad again.

"Look down," Dad said. "You always look down when you walk. You didn't even see your brother slip and fall just now."

We automatically stop doing something the moment someone calls us out on it. I remember looking up, feeling the sharp wind knock against my face, and then feeling the overwhelming urge to look down again as if I was doing something wrong by seeing how the path drew to one dot in the distance, and how far in front of me my siblings and mother— and their fast-paced feet— were getting. I glanced sideways instead and took in my Dad's face. He'd been right about me looking down, at least, because this is the first time I saw the frost nipping at his beard.

I don't know if I had an explanation for looking down as much as I do. Claire would have probably found some profound meaning behind it, like me being scared of confrontation and how looking down would be a way of avoiding eye-contact and staying oblivious to looks I might be getting. Maybe I just like seeing how the snow or the sand of the beach or whatever shapes after my feet, maybe I just like leaving something as subjectively tangible as a footprint behind. Maybe my shoes just fascinate me. I don't like the idea of being so anxious that it shows in my moving around, as if the fact that I have an entire disability that tugs my knees back and sharpens my movements isn't enough.

I ask myself that question: Why are you always looking down? And I look up as I leave the building, and the wind hits my face and I look down again and think I don't know. It's just comfortable. And I decide that that's a good enough answer. Maybe I told that to my Dad, too, all those years ago.

At least I recognize patterns in stone, I navigate by following the edge where the pavement stops to make room for patches of grass, I let bushes swiftly brush against my leg. My lock screen tells me where to go and I once again appreciate the comfortability of not needing to look up.

The bushes stop and the pavement is blocked by a single step. I look up, finding myself at the administration building. The metal banister is a few feet away from me, but I don't need to hold onto anything when I'm going up. I've been able to walk up stairs without assistance since age thirteen, when I learned that the trick is to lean forward a little. I've yet to learn a trick for going down them, until then I'm counting on banisters.

It doesn't take long for me to tell the lady at the front desk my name and have her tell me to take a seat. My first appointment is with a Doctor Hyde, licensed therapist and counselor at NYU. The website said he was only counselor to students with disabilities but they didn't state a reason, and they didn't attach photos to names, either, so I don't know much about this guy except for his degree, name and pronouns which were stated next to it.

I'm the only one in the waiting area. After just a few moments a girl in a wheelchair appears from the hallway, and a tall man with a buzzcut and the smoothest dark skin I've ever seen follows her out. "I'll see you at the meeting, then, Isla," he says with a gentle smile.

The girl grins back. "See ya, doc." The doors open automatically for her and I just now notice the tilted platform outside she uses to leave.

"You must be Nova." His voice draws my attention to him. His brown eyes are friendly and the same gentle smile he gave his previous student— Isla— meets me. He extends hishand.

I stand, caught off guard, and shake it. "Yeah, I'm Nova."

"Nice to meet you. We can get to my office right away. Best thing about introduction week is how smoothly everything still runs. There's always this misplaced optimism that tends to hit us in the face when the turbulence of classes takes place again." He's being playful and open with me as I follow him down the hall, but I don't know what to say.

It happens way too often. Someone says something and I spend so much time pondering over what to say back, that by the time I come up with something the moment has passed and I'm left with someone who thinks I'm rude and uninterested.

Usually I try to shrug it off, but I can't help but feel like I have to make a good impression on this guy. I had to make a lot of phone calls and pull a lot of strings to secure an appointment with him in the first place— he's not just a big deal on campus, but my research has proved him to be a therapist slash counselor with a reach that far surpasses the restrictments of this school.

Besides, contrary to what might be common expectations, I want to make a positive impression on someone who has to evaluate me in order to help me. I don't want him to think I'm a complete, anti-social psycho off the bat (the word psycho reminds me of the first day when Milo came around with the drinks and I dipped my fingers in to grab the cup, I can't help but expect everyone who witnessed that to still think of me as one). And yes, therapy or counseling or whatever is supposed to be free of judgement, but this guy is not Jesus Christ. He sees me, he forms an opinion of me that might be negative, and I care too much to have peace with that possibility. (How do people say 'whatever' and mean it?)

He's wearing Nike's. My mind says, you're doing it again, and I look up and focus on his head and then the space. The hallway seems to be an extension of the lower floor, probably built quite recently as buckets of paints and tilted paintings still sit on the floor, leaning against the walls. It smells new, too, like that distinctive odor of a hardware store. It gives me a faint headache, but that can also be because I'm nervous and all I can think about is how much I don't want to do this.

I can't recall if he's said anything else since I ignored his comment, but he doesn't seem to mind. His office is located at the end of the hall and has a door with his name on it, those kind of black letters against a warped glass that sits in the door. "Dr. J Hyde", it says. I already forgot what the 'J' stands for.

"Take a seat, Nova."

Claire had plastic chairs and a desk in her office. She once told me that she identified as a minimalist and that her shrink told her that less clutter equaled less problems. That same afternoon I decided to clean my bedroom and donate a bunch of stuff, and when I told my siblings why I had that sudden urge all they could say was, "Isn't it kind of weird that your shrink is seeing a shrink?"

Eventually all of the things I 'donated' ended up in boxes in the attic, because my mom's a hoarder and the attic is her "nostalgia space", but it was a nice thought, anyway, and Claire was proud of me when I told her about it.

Minimalism turned out not to work for me, though. By the fall I'd gone back to filling my bedroom with trinkets won over the course of the summer and meaningless clutter like flight tickets, key chains, stationery and shells I'd found on the beach, and doctor Hyde seems to share that habit. His office looks like an explosion of some sort.

Maybe it's just because of the renovation, I think to myself, but there seems to be a regularity in the way he's filled the space. Large potted plants with weirdly shaped leaves ("it's a good sign if your therapist has plants," Mom once said. "Seriously— imagine if there were a bunch of dead plants in their office. You don't want a therapist who can't even take care of plants"), stacks of papers and files yet to be put away but organized, a large note pad and multi-colored pens, a MacBook with a charger that disappears into the hole in his desk. I notice the picture frames and framed documents on the wall behind him, framing the windows that look out over the street. He seems to have enough diplomas to convince me of his professionalism, and a significant number of children that all look like him. To know that the people around me have lives of their own has always been strangely comforting. Their entire existence would be proven to not revolve around mine.

Doctor Hyde sits in his seat, a lush leather chair on wheels. I follow his example and sit on the other side of his desk, sliding my coat off of my shoulders and taking ahold of my purse's long strap to take it off and stick it between my thigh and the side of the chair. As he settles in, I quickly silence my phone. There's nothing as embarrassing as scrambling to stop the ringing of your phone in situations where it shouldn't be, especially with hands like mine that (to put it lightly) don't perform well under pressure.

"So, Nova. I was glad to read your e-mail this summer. I completely understand how challenging it must be to have to get so much in order before the year starts." He clicks his pen and writes my full name at the top of the paper in a steady handwriting. Nova Carter, with a tiny smiley face and the date.

I nod, because what can I say to that? And he acknowledges my reaction before he continues talking.

"These kind of appointments are usually not that serious, so don't worry, I won't push you to tell me your entire life story just yet." He grins. "Let's start off simple: why are you here? If you had to put it into a sentence."

My answer— continuation— doesn't seem good enough. I can't really stay with Claire, who has an office in Massachusetts, when I now live in New York. But therapists rarely want you to answer that question for them, I've learned. It's more an exercise, knowing for yourself what your goal is and what you're working towards, something along those lines.

Even though I know this, my mind blanks. Why am I here?

"I could use some counseling about going to college with a disability." It makes sense when the words leave my mouth. Doctor Hyde nods as he jots it down, so I assume it wasn't the wrong answer if there even is one. "There are a lot of things I need to function well, I think, and it would be nice to have someone who could help me figure that out."

"Well, you've come to the right address. My assistant has had some correspondence with your physician back in Addenfield and your high school guidance counselor. They've sent me some files, I'd love to check those out with you to see if everything's in order." He rolls his seat back and opens a drawer behind him, fingers running over the spines of paper envelopes before they pinch a particularly thick one and pull it out. "I've yet to get some proper maps for these, but until then..."

I've never seen my files before. My doctors, whether it be physicians or orthopedists or therapists, always type something on their computer as they talk to me, or write it down like Claire and Hyde do, and I never find out what it is they say about me. Whether they're truly just notes or criticism and eye-catchers, too. Battered hands, two cuts on her palm, balls her hands into fists when asked a particularly personal question. That sort of thing.

There have been a few times where it seemed like what I was saying didn't matter as much as how I said it. Once, I told my physician about the problems I was having with my knees at an intake appointment and she hummed in response and asked, "Does it bother you, to feel your mouth pull to the side like that when you speak?" It caught me off guard, but I answered like I was supposed to and we didn't circle back to my knees until minutes later.

Sometimes I can't help but feel like this surface version of me, the girl with trembling knees and sharp movements and a pull around her lips is all people define me as. It's kind of their job, I guess, there's no reason for an occupational therapists to know I have a dog named Texas at home, but it usually still leaves me feeling a bit queasy afterward. I want people to know there's more to me than problems and bodily defects, even if it isn't their job to.

Doctor Hyde makes more piles. One provided by my high school guidance counselor, another provided by Claire, another by the hospital. He folds his arms on the desk and leans forward. "Take your pick, where do we start?"

This, like everything else today, feels ridiculous. But I pick the high school one.

All that I have the right to use is pretty much the same as in high school: leaving class early so I can make my next one regardless of my slow legs, using a laptop for exams and midterms, that sort of thing. Still, doctor Hyde actually has to file a report and mail that to all my professors which takes forever, too, because he needs my signature and a copy of my physician's files and my ID.

"We'll have this in order by the weekend," he promises me an hour later, stacking everything up and sliding it all back into my envelope.

My wrist is limp from the signatures I've had to put on dotted lines; I guess disabilities are something they at least take seriously, more so than my high school. I didn't get half of these things until my final semester of senior year, by then it only felt like getting a taste of the ease I could've had my entire high school career. I suppose I have myself to blame for that, too. You only get help when you ask for it and I've always been too afraid of standing out, being odd and weird. Everyone always assumed I was more normal than I am, just because I was scared of changing that perception. Denying the fact that I am disabled played a huge role in that, too. But that's kind of the thing.

I've spent my entire life thinking that my disability would pose as a bigger problem for me when I acknowledged it, when in reality acknowledging it and as a result getting the help I needed only made it smaller. Not in my mind or that of my peers who suddenly noticed that there was a lot that I was getting and they weren't, but in basic interactions and events. If I hadn't told my guidance counselor that I once had a panic attack during a math test, because my fingers were cramping up and spasming and I couldn't finish my exam because this went on for twenty minutes, then I would've never gotten that green slip that gave me thirty extra minutes and the choice between taking it with my classmates or in the peace of an empty classroom on a day I picked out myself. I figured I deserved that peace in order to perform the best I could, and I acknowledged my disability in order to get it. That's also what got me in this office today. I shouldn't have to adjust to my surroundings, they should adjust to me and eliminate everything that makes me disabled here in the first place.

It reminds me of the social model of disability I read an article about last summer. It states that a person is made disabled by their surroundings failing to adjust to them. A wheelchaired girl like Isla isn't disabled at NYU— a school with proper ramps and elevators. A near-sighted person isn't disabled with glasses on so they can see the whiteboard at the front of the auditorium. And I'm not disabled if I'm given the time to move around in the best way I can. A disability doesn't lie with the person, but with their environment.

Somehow, that calmed me down a lot prior to coming here, and it prompted me to get out there and do what I'm doing now, saying, "I'm Nova and this is my problem and this is what I need from you to fix it." As a reflex I straighten my back and raise my chin. I can own this, I tell myself. I am owning this just by being here.

The envelope is slipped back into the drawer and Doctor Hyde turns to me. "One last thing before you go, Nova..."

I groan internally. I'm actually certain that one more signature will mean the end of my functioning right hand.

"I had this idea a few nights ago, looking through all the files I'd received of freshmen who'd be attending this school with disabilities, and it gave me an idea." Another drawer opens and with a flourish Doctor Hyde presents a flyer to me. "I think it would be great for your settling in here if you could connect with students who are in the same boat you're in. So, I checked with the headmaster and he gave me the green light to organize meetings right here on campus. I'm still mulling over the name, but the general picture is having an afternoon every week where we meet up and check in with each other and make friends. It's not group therapy, it's just... talking. Having lunch. Doing stuff. Like I said, I have a very general picture here."

He looks excited about it. I take the flyer from his hands and the paper is so thin that I immediately ruin it. I lay it on my lap in an attempt to hide it.

"It's a group of maybe fifteen people, assuming everyone comes, that is. It's not mandatory at all, and I completely understand if it's too... I don't know, confronting, maybe, but most of you don't know anybody here and I think it'll be nice to have an anchor like that. Something steady every week you can kind of come home to." He stands up. The clock tells me it's almost two and my stomach is making weird noises due to my lack of lunch. "Will you think about it?"

I stand up, too. "Yeah, sure," I say.

"My e-mail address is on the back, let me know what your decision is."

He walks with me, back to the front of the building where someone else is sitting in the waiting room. They eye my legs as I walk, but I don't mind when I see the leg braces clutching their shin, because it's indicating that it's less judgement and more understanding, like an "I've been there and it's fine."

Up until that point I've been thinking that I'm certain that I'm not going, that a meeting full of disabled people with their wheelchairs and crutches and leg braces will only highlight the fact that regardless of how normal I might feel, I'm just like them. But this look this person is giving me makes me reconsider it all. They don't smile at me or anything and they look away quickly, but that's just it. They know how it feels. They don't judge me for it or give me the Look, they glance away and respect the feelings they know I'm having. That never happened to me before.

So, I tell Hyde I'll be there, completely certain, and then I leave and fold the flyer in half as I descend the steps outside without using the banister.

I catch a glimpse of my wallet and in a rush— probably caused by that same person in the waiting room— I switch it out for the flyer and scramble for Atlas Wilder's business card, but it slips out of my hands and is caught by the wind.

The card scratches on the pavement, and while trying desperately to prevent more things from tumbling out of my purse I hopelessly leap after it. It gets caught on a twig that's sticking out a few inches over the stone, and before I can reach for it someone else beats me to it and sweeps it up.

"Atlas Wilder... I know that guy."

I glance up.

A small smile plays on Atlas lips, teasing, as he turns his card over between his fingers and eyes my embarrassingly disheveled state.

I catch my breath and sheepishly take it from him, avoiding his gaze. "Thanks." I let it glide back into my purse and pretend to busy myself with something in there. "Um, I was just about to—" But I stop myself. What was I even going to say? After not texting him for forty-eight hours he probably assumed the opposite of what has actually gone through my mind the past few days, that I didn't want to text him at all.

He confirms my thoughts. "Don't worry about it, Nova Carter. I didn't give you that card expecting anything. What you decide to do, or not do with it is completely up to you."

I raise my head again and meet his eyes, slightly panicking. No, I think, actually—

"No hard feelings. I'll see you around, then?" He waits for my reaction but my mind blanks. Just as he's about to take a step away, I blurt it out.

"Have you had lunch yet?"

Atlas turns to me, studying my face and then smiling so genuinely that I can't help but smile back at him.

"I haven't, no."

I know that this isn't something I usually do, take the first step and everything (did I, though?), but something makes it easy. Maybe it's because he didn't give me the Look when I met him in that maze, or because of that person back in doctor Hyde's waiting room who looked away when I walked out, or maybe it's just the rush of getting my shit done just now like an actual well-functioning adult person.

Atlas turns to me fully and tilts his head, the smile still dangling from his lips. "Is that an invitation?"

I think to myself, or maybe it's how his eyes have this glisten even though there's no sun today, and nod.

"Then let's go."

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