After that he cracks my neck, a loud crack that sends a shiver across my shoulder, down my arm, and out my fingertips.
“The lights are on,” he says.
He has me turn over and put my head in the donut so I’m looking at the floor. He presses a little clicky thing on my back.
The chanting in the room gets louder.
“What language is she singing?” I say.
“Your language,” Dr. Prem says.
“Mine?”
“Sanskrit.”
“I wondered about that,” I say. I relax into the table. My body feels better. My head is quieter.
I feel the tiniest bit happy, like things aren’t as bad as I thought they were.
The woman sings in Sanskrit, the language of me.
Dr. Prem finishes the adjustment by asking me to take a deep breath and hold it. He says, “Think about any physical pain or tension in your body.”
There’s lots of physical pain and tension.
A pain in my neck from Mom.
A pain in my ass from Sweet Caroline.
A pain in my gut from not having a girlfriend.
And a pain somewhere lower that I don’t want to talk about.
Dr. Prem says, “Exhale,” and I let the pain go.
“Again,” he says, and I breathe in and hold it. “This time imagine any emotional distress—worries, fears, upset.”
I’ve got a lot of that, too. Maybe more than a sixteen-year-old should have. I exhale and try to let it go.
“Last time,” Dr. Prem says, “the deepest breath yet.”
I suck in a long, deep breath.
“You are connected to the Infinite and Divine—” Dr. Prem says.
I’m flooded with a feeling of lightness.
“—with every breath that you take,” Dr. Prem says. “Now exhale.”
I let the air rush from my lungs. I try to make the big whoosh sound that Dr. Prem likes to hear.
That’s when it hits me.
A vision.
Maybe that’s the wrong name for it. I don’t believe in visions. But it’s something.
I see me with The Initials, walking hand in hand in a forest.
We walk into a clearing, and Mom is there. She’s sitting with a picnic spread out in front of her. A vegetarian cornucopia. The Initials and I join her. We laugh and talk about everything with Mom.
Dad walks by and sits down next to us. He and Mom look at each other—a kind look, not the nasty glances they give each other in real life.
Even Sweet Caroline is there. She comes bounding out of the forest and plops down next to me, jams her hand into a bowl of blue corn chips.
We’re all happy in this vision. Together and happy. And then it dissolves.
I open my eyes.
“Where did you go?” Dr. Prem says.
“I’m not sure.”
He touches my shoulder.
“Rest here for a moment.”
I lie on the table, exhaling long breaths up towards the ceiling.
Dr. Prem marks something down on my chart. He puts it back in the holder and starts to walk away.
“Do you believe in visions, Dr. Prem?”
“I believe in everything,” he says.
I have to change my life.
That’s what I write in my journal the next day. It’s what I felt after my vision. The gap between my real life and the vision was so great that I have to do something about it. Life as it currently looks does not work for me anymore. I have no choice but to change.
So I come up with a plan.
It starts Monday morning. It starts with school. It starts with telling the truth.
When I get to campus, I go straight to the main office. It’s empty except for the Israeli office lady.
“Boker tov,” she says, tapping away on the computer.
“Good morning to you, too,” I say. She looks up.
“Sanskrit!” she says. She pronounces it correctly this time. She jumps up from her seat and throws her arms around me. Her chest presses against mine. It’s much softer than it looks from a distance.
This woman hated me a few days ago, and now she’s holding me like her long-lost child. I’m so shocked, I don’t know whether to hug her back or run out of the room screaming.
“How are you, motek? Oh, where’s your kippah?”
I touch my head.
“I guess I forgot it.”
“Let’s get you taken care of.”
She reaches into a drawer, pulls out a large crocheted kippah that looks like the Israeli flag. I wince as she pops it on my head.
“I need to see the dean,” I say.
“Of course. But he’s in the cafeteria right now.”
“It’s really important.”
“He wants to see you, too. I know he does. Go right down there.”
I extract myself from her hug.
“We’re all praying for your mother,” she says.
She rubs my back in small circles. It feels kind of nice. I stay there for a second.
“You poor boy,” she says. “I’m Dorit, by the way. If you need anything, you come and see Dorit.”
“It’s a little itchy in the middle, Dorit.”
“What’s that?”
“My back. It’s a little itchy….”
She moves her hand to scratch me low and in the middle where it’s hard to reach. She has big nails, unlike my mom, who keeps hers trimmed all the way down for yoga. The nails feel good through my shirt.
“Is that better?” she says.
“Much,” I say.
She smiles at me. I consider asking for a shoulder rub, but that seems a little over the top.
“I’ll be in the cafeteria,” I say.
“He’s here!”
Talya Stein shouts when I walk into the cafeteria.
I look behind me to see who she’s so excited about.
“Sanskrit!” she says.
It’s me.
Normally, I’m not the kind of guy people get excited about seeing. I’m more like the guy in school you don’t notice until something bad happens to him. Juvenile cancer or rehab or something. But I guess Mom’s fake accident qualifies.
I was expecting to find the dean at an early morning coffee meeting. Instead there is a bunch of students here. When Talya calls my name, a dozen of them turn around and burst into applause. It’s not standing ovation applause—more like that slow, steady applause that cheers you on. I hold up my hands to signal them to stop, but they just applaud louder.
I wonder if this is how the guru feels when he walks into a room. You could get used to this kind of treatment.
“Sorry to interrupt. I’m looking for the dean.”
A couple of students point across the cafeteria. The dean is on the far side of the room talking to a girl who has her back to me. I can’t see her face, but I recognize her hair right away, tight curls spilling down to her shoulders.
The Initials.
I think of the vision in Dr. Prem’s office. The Initials and I were together holding hands.
I have to remind myself that I’m not here to fantasize about The Initials. I’m here to tell the truth.
The dean sees me walking towards him and stops talking. The Initials turns around and her eyes widen.
“Shalom,” she says.
“Shalom,” I say.
These are the first words we’ve spoken to each other since second grade. Not the very first words, but the first kind words. We’ve spoken some excuse mes, some get out of my ways, some can I borrow a pencils, and other unavoidable school chatter. But we’ve never greeted each other.
Shalom. Hello, good-bye, and peace—all in one word.
The Initials. Love, pain, and grief—all in two letters.