Notes from the Blender by Trish Cook

like some Victoria’s Secret model or something—well, I never got to see her in her underwear, but what I mean is that she was someone who basically lived in my fantasy life and not the real world at all.
    “Eh,” Dr. Gordon said, “so there’s a beautiful girl you never get to have. Nobody gets to have them all. And once you’re married—forget it. The stuff about your dad—that I get. The stuff about your mom that you’re hinting at but not really saying—I get that, too. But the hot stepsister—no big deal. You’ll go into the bathroom after she defecates one day, and she won’t be some airbrushed fantasy figure anymore, and you’ll go find somebody you can actually date.”
    “Neilly Foster has never defecated in her life.” I mean, really—a beautiful girl like that squatting and laying some cable—it’s so absurd I couldn’t even picture it.
    “If that were true, she’d have quite the distended abdomen,” Dr. Gordon said. “Also, she’d be dead. I don’t think either of those is true.”
    “‘Distended Abdomen’ would be a good name for a band,” I told him.
    “Yeah, well, send me some royalties when you hit it big. For now, our fifty minutes are up, so get out of here. I’ll see you next week.”
    “All right,” I said. What a dick. I liked him.
    The ride home was fun because I could see Dad dying to ask what happened, knowing it was inappropriate to ask what happened, and finally giving in and asking, “So how was it?”
    “It was okay. We just talked about shit,” I said, and I smiled to myself because Dad would probably never guess that shit was an actual topic of conversation.
    Youth group turned out to be another holding-hands-with-Chantelle session, but I was not my usual glib and charming self. I was tired from crying, and also once you unlock that box in your brain where you keep all the hurt, it’s not that easy to shut it again.
    “So,” Chantelle said, “what makes a good relationship?”
    “Nobody dying,” I said, and realized only too late that I’d just snapped at a hot girl. What the hell was wrong with me?
    “Whoa. That’s cheery. Are you being ostracized for your sexiness again?”
    “No, I just…I…Do you ever have, I mean, can you…I’m sorry, I can’t even put a freaking sentence together. I feel like something a dog puked up, licked up, and shat out.”
    “Nice image.”
    “Sadly accurate image. If you had just the glasses without the blindfold, you’d see I’m right.”
    “How do you know I wear glasses?”
    Crap. I just gave myself away. Well, I figured I might as well just lay it all out, then. “Uh. I peeked. I’m sorry.”
    “You peeked? That’s bad.”
    “Sorry.”
    “No, you’re not.” I wasn’t peeking now, but I could hear the smile in her voice.
    “Yeah, okay, I’m not. I mean, I…ugh, I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to play the game here tonight because I’m just all messed up from thinking about stuff that makes me sad.”
    “Do you want to, like…I mean, I know we don’t really know each other, but if you want to tell me …”
    “I appreciate it, but I don’t know if I can do it without—I mean, I’m kinda holding it together right now, and I don’t think I can stand it coming apart, if you know what I mean.”
    “Yeah. I do, actually.”
    A lightbulb went off in my head. “Hey, maybe this is like really cheesy or whatever, but, I mean, I like talking to you, and maybe I could, like, buy you a cup of coffee or something to thank you for putting up with me being such a mess tonight. Like tomorrow after school?”
    “Sure. How will I know it’s you, though?”
    “I guess you’re going to have to peek.”
    She pulled one wonderfully soft hand out of mine, and we each used our free hand to pull the blindfolds down off our eyes. Of course, I had already looked at her, but I did need to check to make sure she didn’t scream in horror when she looked at me. It occurred to me that the black Demonic Stain