Daniel Hur
Dr. Foss
ENGL 384
19 April 2020
“Penelo! Penelo!” cried Mrs. Brennan; I tried focusing on the problem on the board. However, no matter how hard I tried, my brain would wander. “Penelo!” cried Mrs. Brennan even louder. Her shouts felt like noise in my ear. My entire brain felt like it was about to burst. A couple of my classmates tried to stifle back some laughs. I looked at the ever-so-furious face of Mrs. Fredericks. Her face was burning with so much anger and animosity.
“Penelo! Could you please solve the division problem on the board,” Mrs. Brennan tried to say in a calm and soothing voice. I shook with fear. Division. I think I knew what kind of necessary equations were necessary in order to solve the problem. Division. It seemed so familiar.
My breath shortened. A couple of my classmates started to laugh and I didn’t know what was going on.
“Penelo, I’d like a word with you before you leave for class today,” she said. I hung my head in utter disappointment. The bell rung. The rest of the kids started to exit out of the building except for me. Mrs. Brennan looked disapprovingly of me. “Penelo, I know that you can do so much better than how you are doing right now.”
“I know,” I said.
“I know the concussion was really bad for you, but you just can’t keep going like this. Something needs to change, and I think it is about time that you went to see the school therapist.” I raised my head a little.
“A therapist.”
“Yes, now here is the card. It’s about time that you got some help for one.”
***
As I was making my way to the bus, I couldn’t help but look down at the card my teacher had given me.
“Mrs. Leslie Brushae. Phone#: 571-218-9898. Room 218.”
“Hey, Penelo! You did pretty good back there at Math class.” I turned to see Rachel pointing at me with a group of other girls. At one point during the hockey season, they had all been my fellow teammates. Now they were making fun of me.
“Hey! Penelo, I thought at one point you were probably the smartest girl in the class! What happened?” another student mocked. I closed my eyes as I started to board the bus.
“Yeah, good luck trying to live the rest of your life as a hobbo!” another student said. I covered my ears. It was true. I used to be so good at Math, but ever since the concussion, it all changed. Everything about me changed, and now I had no choice but to live with this new reality. If only I hadn’t slid into the goal to catch the puck. I shut my eyes even harder as the memories started to resurface. Me helplessly on the ground, barely conscious while several of my teammates asked if I was ok.
***
“I’m home!” I cried out in the loudest voice possible. As soon as I saw my parents come running forward, I smiled.
“Hello, honey, how have you been doing? How was school?” my mother asked. My smile started to disappear.
“Well, uhhh…I got kind of stuck on a math problem,” I began. Seeing no other way out of this, I gave the card that my teacher had given me.
“What’s this? A psychologist?” my mother asked as she and my father started looking on. I shifted from one foot to the next.
“Honey, has school really been going ok?” my dad asked. I breathed a huge sigh as if I had just gotten a large weight off my chest.
***
“Well, honey, I don’t think she can just live like that forever,” my mother said. “She needs professional help.”
“Yes, but do you think all this is really necessary?” asked my father. “I mean, all I’ve ever wanted her to be was just a normal girl.”
A normal girl. For some reason that felt like it was farther away than ever. I crawled into my room and started staring at the wall. Get up, the inner voice inside of me started to say. I stirred inside my bed, wanting nothing more than to make myself go to sleep.
It was just a little hit on the head, I thought to myself. Just a small hit and that was all that it needed for me to be in a ruined state. On the left side of my room were my hockey shoes that I had used to skate around on the ice. Walking over to the side of the room, I picked it up, my hand trembling.
***
As I walked into the room, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making a mistake as I went through those doors. What was going to happen to me? Stop worrying, I told myself. I took a deep breath as I walked into the room.
“Hello there!” I looked up to see a fairly middle-aged woman sitting in front of a desk and typing on a computer. “My name is Dr. Brushae!”
“Hi, I’m Penelo,” I said. The woman started to leave the computer. She had her hair tied back in a bun. Thought her skin looked old and frail—as if she was a woman that was starting to peek at her age—there was a hint of joy inside of her that seemed to counteract against her age. “Mrs. Brennan has told me all about you.” I stood in her office door, almost as if I was afraid to go up to her. “It’s ok, now tell me. Tell me whatever is going on within your mind. How are you?” My entire head was spinning, but I wasn’t just going to break down in tears in front of her.
“I’m good,” I said.
“Is that true?” she asked. I noticed she was jotting down notes inside of her notebook.
“Yes,” I replied. She leaned forward. Her eyes focused very hard into mine.
“Penelo, you can tell me anything you want. Mrs. Brennan may have told me some things about you, but I assure you that I don’t believe in any of them.” My body stopped tensing and I began to relax.
“It’s just ever since I got the concussion, I just felt like my entire life just went to shambles,” I said. She looked at me and nodded her head. Her face looked like it was filled with compassion.
“I’m sure it was really hard for you; the fact that you couldn’t quite play anymore,” she said. I nodded my head. My breathing began to slow.
“I can tell that you suffer from a lot of anxiety,” the doctor said. We talked for hours. Finally, she took out an object from her pocket. “I’m thinking about prescribing you on Serotonin medicine. They are anti-depressants that might help you, but I also wanted to give you this.” She handed me the object that she took out. It was shaped like a bell that hung from a cut ribbon. “This is my lucky charm, and I am lending it to you. I usually like to give my patients trinkets that I used to have when I was a child. I am lending this to you.” As soon as it fell in the palm of my hands, I could feel the weight of the charm, which calmed me.
“Thank you,” I said.
***
“So how was your meeting with the school therapist?” asked my mother.
“It was good,” I said. “She gave me this.” I put down the bell in front of my mom.
“Well, that’s kind of…cute,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, and she also gave me some serotonin as medicine for my mental illness.”
“Sero-tonin,” my mom stammered as she struggled to put the word together.
“Yeah, it’s medicine to help with my mental illness.”
***
“So, how has the Serotonin been helping you?” asked the doctor.
“It’s been going really well,” I said. “And thank you for being willing to hand over your lucky charm over to me.” The doctor smiled.
“Well, I’m glad that you have been able to find yourself,” the doctor said. “So could you please try and reiterate the accident that you had on the ice.” I thought back.
“I was skating as the goal keeper for my team. I paid very close attention to the puck,” I began. My voice began to quiver. The doctor took notes. “As I was trying to keep track of the puck, I lost my footing. Before I knew it, the puck was zooming towards the goal and I was on the ground.” My voice continued to quiver.
“No need to be sad,” she said.
“I know, I know, but for some reason no matter how hard I try I find it really hard for me to keep it together whenever I talk about this. I let the team down, and it was all for nothing.” I could still see Rachel’s face glaring at me with anger.
“Oh, Penelo,” my doctor said.
***
“So, Penelo, can you solve this division problem?” my teacher asked. I clutched the lucky charm. Make sure to clutch the charm when you are nervous, I recalled the doctor telling me.
“24,” I said. Ms. Brennan looked shocked.
“Yes, that is the correct answer. Very good,” she said. The rest of the class was silent. I felt proud of what I had managed to accomplish, happy with the fact that I had solved the problem.
***
As I returned home from school, I couldn’t help but feel prouder of today.
“Mom, Dad, I’m home!” I cried. My parents came running in. I embraced them with a hug.
“Honey! So nice to see that you are a bit happier,” Mom said, thought underneath the happiness I could sense there was a bit of uncertainty.
“Yes, I agree!” said Dad. “It certainly helped you a lot when you had started to see the school psychologist.” Despite the fact that I was feeling overjoyed by the fact that I was being embraced with love by my parents, I couldn’t help but feel like they sensed something was wrong with me.
***
“Honey, I’m not sure if this is ok for her. Some of the things that I hear about the school doctor sound a little bit suspicious and up in the air to me,” my mom said.
“I think you’re worrying too much. She seems to have some major improvements ever since she first started meeting the doctor,” my dad replied.
“I don’t know. I hear there is a board of parents that will be coming forward to complain about some of her methods.” I froze in fear, but I realized there was nothing I could do.
***
Dr. Bruchae sat very quietly at the desk—the only difference being that now she no longer had another student that she was trying to talk to. Now she had several parents that had come to complain of her.
“Dr. Brushae, we understand that you have done your very best in terms of trying to take care of the students at the school, but may us parents interject with some complaints that we have of you,” said another man.
“My son came home one day and brought a little trinket with him that is called a lucky charm,” said one mom. “I couldn’t help but feel that you were forcing some kind of spirituality on him.”
“No, that wasn’t the case at all,” Dr. Brushae said. “All that I really wanted was to send him some kind of encouragement. Something that will get him up more.”
“Another thing, Dr. Brushae,” said another parent almost as if he hadn’t heard what she had just said. “You seem to have a lot of heavy reliance on medication as a method to cure your patients. Don’t you think that it is a little far-fetched to keep feeding your students meds? I mean, what about the side-effects?”
“I have that all under control,” she began. Then she made contact with Penelo’s parents. Her speech stopped dead in its tracks.
***
“And now I have just shown you how to solve these problems,” I said as soon as she finished doing the equations on the board. Ms. Brenna clapped her hands in excitement.
“That’s excellent Penelo!” cried Ms. Brenna. I walked back to my desk.
“Excuse me, but Dr. Brushae wants to have a word with Penelo.” I walked out of the hallways to see Dr. Brushae. She had a smile on her face.
“Congratulations!” she said when I told her about the math problems; however, soon she started to tremble. Her voice began quivering as if she was crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“Penelo, I just wanted to tell you that I am so proud of what you managed to accomplish,” she said. “But I wanted to let you know that I will be leaving this school in hopes of finding something that is more suitable to me.”
“What?”
“There were so many complaints,” she said, wiping away some tears. “I might have to either transfer somewhere else or re-evaluate my style of counseling.” I stood there in shock. “Just remember to stay strong and keep the lucky charm…”
***
As I rode home that day, my entire head felt like it was spinning. It seemed like so many things just happened all at once. For some reason, I almost felt like Dr. Brushae had betrayed me, and yet, I couldn’t figure out a legitimate reason to get angry about it.
I took out the lucky charm that Dr. Brushae had given me long ago. The ribbon that was attached to the top of the bell had been lost. Now all that was left was a plain golden bell.
I clutched the bell inside my pocket, thanking Dr. Brushae for everything that she had done for me.
“Hey, Penelo!” I turned around to see Rachel trying to talk to me. “Do you wanna sit with me?” she asked. Initially I looked really apprehensive, but eventually I ran over and sat with her.
“It feels like awhile since the last time I talked to you,” she said.
It’s been awhile since the last time I’d talked to you, I thought back.
Word count: 2250
“I pledge that I had no unauthorized help on this assignment.”
-Daniel
