1413: Part 27

The smell of antiseptic filled Kristina’s nostrils. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, but it was a familiar, immediately identifiable one. The smell of medicine.

Kristina had never been a sickly person, but she had oddly fond memories of going to the doctors as a young child. It was a simpler time, when she felt she got along better with her parents, and felt like she could trust “adults” to do the right thing to help her.

Now she was an adult herself, and she knew all too well that adults’ motivations weren’t always particularly simple, nor did everyone just want to help each other and make a better world. But neither was it so simple that some people were just outright evil, either; Mark was clear and living proof of that. She’d grown to think of him as a monster, but it had become apparent that he was a broken man responding poorly to an unfortunate hand that life had dealt him more than anything else. She still wanted nothing to do with him, mind, but she at least pitied him rather than hated him now.

Kristina looked around the waiting room. No-one was talking to one another. The atmosphere felt awkward.

Behind the reception desk, the receptionist was chatting to a nurse who was rifling through some files. Kristina couldn’t make out the details of the conversation, but the pair of them seemed to be getting along well with each other, laughing and joking as they went about their workday. She felt suddenly envious that she had never really felt that way about her own job; she’d always felt isolated, even though she was supposedly part of a team.

Still, it wouldn’t matter much longer. Today, she hoped, would be the first steps towards a new beginning. She knew it was probably going to be a tough road ahead, but it was for the best. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

“Miss… Kristina Charles?” called the receptionist. Kristina raised her hand politely and stood up, then walked over to the desk. “Dr. James is ready for you. Room 3. Do you know the way?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Kristina. She hadn’t spent much time in this surgery, but she had seen Dr. James several times in the past, and knew the way to his room. She passed through the double doors next to the reception desk, followed the corridor around the corner to the left, and came to the door of room number 3.

This is it, she thought. Are you ready?

She rapped three times on the door, heard a cheerful-sounding voice call “Come in!” from within, then pushed it open.

Dr. James was sitting in his large leather chair at his computer. He motioned for Kristina to sit down in the chair across the room from him.

“Hello, Kristina,” he said with a familiar tone. “What can I do for you today?”

“Um,” said Kristina. “I’m not quite sure how to bring this up, really.”

She’d been running over and over in her mind how she was going to explain her situation to the doctor, but now she was here, she felt embarrassed; like she was committing some sort of fraud. Did she have any right to do what she was about to do? Wasn’t she just letting everyone down, giving up?

“It’s okay,” said Dr. James with a sympathetic smile. “I can see that you’re distressed. In your own time.”

Kristina closed her eyes and took a deep, unsteady breath. She suddenly felt like she was about to start crying, but held back the tears, because she knew if she started, it would be very difficult to stop.

“I am… having some trouble,” she said. “A lot of trouble, in fact.”

The floodgates opened. She explained how she had been feeling; how it was difficult to motivate herself to get up in the morning, how it was hard to summon up the enthusiasm to do her job, how she felt guilty that she didn’t feel better about what she did for a living.

She talked about how she suffered nightmares; how she was kept awake most nights by images of things that had happened in the day.

She talked about the times she’d suffered nosebleeds when she felt she couldn’t take any more pressure; how she felt constantly overwhelmed and unable to cope with everything that was going on around her, even the most mundane things.

She started to explain her breakdown in front of the science class, but the doctor stopped her.

“I get the picture,” he said gently. “And it’s okay. I understand how this sort of thing can be embarrassing to admit. It’s not easy to contemplate the fact that the course you thought your life was on might not be the right one, and it’s even harder to admit that something you once clearly felt passionately about is now causing you real problems. Because these are real problems; it’s not all in your head, if that’s what you’re worried about.

“What you’re describing to me, Kristina, is stress. Serious stress, likely coupled with depression. Now, I could prescribe you some medication and send you on your way, but I’m hesitant to do that right now. Instead, what I’m going to do — and what I suspect you were hoping I might do — is get you some time off to collect your thoughts and determine what it is you might want to do, because I feel it’s something you’re struggling with right now. The year is getting on, and Christmas is coming up; I’ll sign you off until the end of the year, and when the New Year is coming up I’d like you to make another appointment, come and see me and determine what you’re going to do. Does that sound good?”

“Yes,” said Kristina meekly. “Thank you.”

“All right, then,” said Dr. James. He turned to his desk, pulled out a pad of paper with red lines on it from his desk drawer, then began to write. A moment later, he was done.

“Give this to your employer,” he said. “And then get some rest. Lots of rest.”

 

*  *  *  *

She’d done it. She’d admitted that she’d had a problem, and she’d bought herself some time to deal with it. But now she had to determine how she was going to handle it.

She didn’t feel like she could really face going in to school right now — not while all the children were still there — but she felt it was probably better to give the note in sooner rather than later.

For the rest of the day she sat watching the clock, wondering if now would be a good time to go, but she still worried that there would be people hanging about. She wanted to be sure the school would still be open, but minimise the risk of actually running into someone, because now she had gone through with this, she was starting to feel scared and ashamed again.

She watched some television to take her mind off clockwatching, but her thoughts were too preoccupied to take anything in. She was grateful for the noise if nothing else, though; it proved to be distraction from her anxiety.

Nearly there, she thought, as the time approached six o’ clock in the evening. And then I can be free.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, sighed, then stood up. She opened her eyes and felt resolved. This was for her own good. This was the right thing to do.

She threw on her coat and left her home before she could convince herself to do otherwise.

*  *  *  *

She was happy to see that the school was still open when she arrived there, but the number of cars in the car park had thinned out somewhat. A few lights were still on, and she could see a couple of her colleagues in their rooms, probably getting things ready for the following week. Friday afternoon was a good time to tidy up and get things ready, but it was also the time when a lot of people — Kristina included — just wanted to get out and leave the work behind for a couple of days.

Kristina grimaced as she thought that it was more than a couple of days she’d be leaving the work behind for; it was, in all likelihood, forever.

She pushed open the front door of the school and looked around. The corridor was quiet — no children, no staff, and no-one on the reception desk. Kristina tried the door to the reception booth and found it unlocked; she fished the doctor’s note out of her pocket, left it prominently in the middle of the desk, and then made to leave.

As she put her hand on the handle, though, she had a sudden crisis of confidence; she reached for the receptionist’s pad of sticky notes, scribbled a quick note that read “Sorry — Kristina” on it, then stuck it to the doctor’s note. Then she removed it and stuck it to the desk next to the doctor’s note. She wanted to ensure that it was seen, and that she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone about it, even though she felt sure that would probably be unavoidable in the long term.

Then she departed the reception booth, trotted out to the school’s front door and broke into a run as soon as she was outside again.

She didn’t look back.