Possessing Jessie by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

was crazy.
    Jessie found herself facing one of those ultra-thin, fashionable, aging ladies terrified of their own wrinkles, whose attention to her face–plastic surgery, Botox?–did nothing for the baggy, sagging skin of her neck. “Good morning, Jessie,” she said with a show of unnaturally white teeth. She was probably trying to be warm, gentle, reassuring, to project the message You’re not in trouble after all, Jessie. I’m your friend .
    Yeah, right. Jessie just gave a Jason-grunt and slumped in a chair.
    â€œPlease take your sunglasses off, dear. I need to be able to see your eyes.”
    Jessie couldn’t really explain why she was getting so annoyed with everything. Before today, she had never worn sunglasses indoors. They were making her world awfully dark, yet she did not want to take them off, because the fun of messing with people’s minds more than made up for the inconvenience. She challenged, “Why?”
    â€œSo I can try to tell how you’re feeling, dear. Why you’re acting this way.”
    â€œWhat way?”
    The psychologist’s warm-and-gentle pose began to erode. “Jessica, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Your dressing this way to assume your sadly expired brother’s identity is particularly concerning. Allowances have been made for you because grief takes many forms, but now it is time for this to stop.”
    â€œAccording to what calendar?” Jessie shot back. Skinny old bag, she pisses me off . Jessie had never felt so angry.
    â€œAccording to common sense, Jessica. The school administration–”
    Jessie jumped out of her chair. “Don’t give me that. There’s no law–”
    The woman leaned forward with what was probably meant to be compassion but felt more like the pity of a superior being dispensing wisdom. “We all have to deal with reality, Jessie.”
    Anorexia lady thinks I’m crazy just for wearing Jason’s clothes ? Fine, Jessie decided, she’d be crazy. “That’s not my name,” she said loudly. “Jason. Call me Jason.”
    â€œNow, Jessie, you know we can’t do that.”
    Why not? Jessica, super-student, knew that by law, as long as she wasn’t committing a crime she could use whatever name she wanted to. “Call me Jason .”
    The argument went on for some time and ended in a deadlock. Jessie kept her sunglasses on. Jessie said her name was Jason. The school psychologist finally let her go back to class, and for the rest of the day when she wrote her name on her papers, she put Jason Ressler. It looked funny in her neat, oval handwriting instead of his wild scrawl.
    Coincidentally, on that same day in a small city several hundred miles away, W. Richard Ressler was also seeing a psychologist, to whom he confided, “It’s Wendell. Wendell Richard.”
    â€œNothing wrong with that,” the comfortably plump woman responded.
    â€œI know that now, but when I was in school–kids can be awfully cruel about nothing. Wendell Witchie! Wendell Witchie! I hated it.”
    â€œThey bullied you? Over a period of several years?”
    â€œOh, yeah. They threw me on the ground and rubbed my face in the dirt whenever they felt like it.”
    â€œWe’re just starting to realize how much that sort of childhood abuse by peers is internalized, contributing to a lifetime lack of self-esteem. It’s no wonder you are still trying to find yourself.”
    Yeppers. And he had gone about it all the wrong ways at first. Leaving his wife and family. Running here, running there, thinking he would feel like a different person in a different place. Bars and fast cars and liquor and drugs, months of partying, until he had ended up in detox. He’d pretty much wasted two years, but now he was clean and trying to stay that way.
    He didn’t have to tell the doctor any of this; she knew. He’d been seeing her