Thinking Straight. Robin Reardon

      It had felt like he’d kissed me that night, too.

      Once or twice as I knelt there—after my ministrations, that is—I heard someone walking by in the hall. When I finally got up, there was no sign of anyone, and of course I couldn’t know if anyone looked in on me. But if they had, all they’d have seen was my back bent over the chair.

      The wastebasket next to my desk seemed the best place for the used tissues, so I dropped them in. Blanket back on the bed, chair back at the desk, I sat down and opened my Bible. But the words just blurred in front of me, running together, no meaning to them. I sat there staring at nothing for a minute before I realized I had to take a leak. Was I allowed to do that during Contemplation? I couldn’t remember seeing any rules about that, so I left the Bible on my desk and went down the hall.

      I couldn’t have been gone more than three or four minutes tops, but when I got back to the room, there was Charles. He stood there, his face a weird combination of anger, pain, and something that looked like betrayal. He was holding my wastebasket.

      Shit.

      I stopped in the doorway and waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, I acted like I didn’t know already what he’d found. I shrugged like I was asking, “What’s your problem?”

      Anger won. “Don’t pretend with me,” he said, nearly snarling. “You know very well what I found in here.” He held the wastebasket at arm’s length in my direction and shook it.

      Jesus. He must have held the tissues to his face and smelled them; how else would he know what was on them? And he obviously knew what was on them. I shrugged again. This time it said, “Whatever.” I walked toward my desk while he rotated in place to follow me, the basket still held out. I picked up a pad and pen and scrawled, “Enjoy yourself?”

      Even as I held it up to him I knew it was a stupid thing to do. I should have apologized, cried even, anything to make him feel I understood the need for contrition. He looked as though he wanted to throw the wastebasket, but instead he walked back to where it had stood before he snooped into it and set it firmly down onto the floor.

      He said, “I see you’ve already sealed your MI. Did you include this—this episode—in it?”

      I just stared at him. No answer. No head motions.

      “You must open it again. You must confess this infraction.”

      His eyes and mine entered into this battle of wills. Then I reached for the pen again and I wrote, “This is my Contemplation time. You’re supposed to leave me alone. So leave me alone. Go away.”

      This was true enough, and Charles knew it. He shouldn’t even have been in the room. Come to think of it, why had he come here, anyway? Sure, it was his room, too, but the resident in SafeZone has two hours of solitary Contemplation in his or her room that are not supposed to be interrupted except by someone in Leadership. (See? I’m getting the hang of this.) Strictly speaking, Charles was just another resident.

      His eyes shot darts at me before he turned on his heel and left. From over his shoulder I could barely hear the words, “Don’t forget to bring your Bible to Prayer Meeting tonight.”

      That’s it, Charles. Stay on message, whatever you do. However angry you are.

      I went back to my Bible, looking up in the concordance section things like spy (Galatians 2:4: “This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage”) and observe (Isaiah 42:20: “You see many things, but don’t observe”), and betray (Proverbs 11:13: “One who brings gossip betrays a confidence, but one who is of a trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret”).

      This was amusing but not terribly instructive. I’ve had to admit in the past, and again now, that using the concordance at times like this may lead me to something really true and painful, something that stabs directly at a sin and sears into me like a hot poker, but mostly it’s just a way for me—or anyone, really—to find what I want to find, to prove my own point. It takes things out of context and lets me apply my own interpretation.

      So I gave that up and, feeling a little sinful and self-indulgent, I turned to the Song of Songs and imagined myself with Will again. No tissues this time; it was just love.