Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

She crouched and quickly scooped up Celeste’s fluffy, pom-pom keychain.

Then, instead of calling out to Celeste as she should, she closed her fist around the keys and stuffed them into the cotton tote she’d been carrying around since college.

Two

Saturday

When Mia raised her head, heavy with sleep, off the vanity, the reflection staring back at her in the mirror made her breath catch. Her dark image, lit only by slats of moonlight stabbing through the shutters of her bedroom window, seemed more ghoul than woman. She dropped her chin and let her gaze travel down her Coldplay T-shirt to her hands, fisted on her knees, her legs crammed into last summer’s too-tight jeans, and finally to her feet clad in white tennis shoes. She could feel the damp seeping through the canvas shoes onto her sockless skin—the shoes were wet, from dew, maybe? She pinched her shirt to sniff the dank, woodsy smell, and her fingers transferred dirt to the fabric.

What time was it?

Her phone lay on the vanity, and she tapped it.

The screen lit up:

4:43 a.m.

A deep breath later she pulled her hands through her hair, her fingers catching on a twig, which she flicked away. Then she got up and walked to the kitchen, filled a water glass and chugged it, killing the fire in her throat. From the kitchen window she could see the front yard, short spikes of grass dusted with porous yellow light, and a reassuringly empty driveway.

Her Jetta was still in the garage.

Her hunched shoulders eased into a more natural position.

So this wasn’t a repeat of the last “incident”—though she’d have to check the gas gauge on her car to be sure.

About three years ago, Mia had gotten up in the middle of the night, dressed, and driven downtown. Aunt Misty heard the car grinding out of the driveway, and when Mia didn’t answer her cell, Aunt Misty used find my phone to locate Mia and then sent the police to check on her welfare. The cops founding her astride a carousel horse at Seaport Village, seemingly awake, but unresponsive to their questions until they brought her around by splashing water in her face.

There had been two previous, less troubling, incidents. One in which Mia cooked bacon and eggs in her sleep and another where she’d cleaned the bathroom; but the Seaport Village excursion was the last straw for Aunt Misty who’d insisted Mia seek help before she killed herself or someone else while sleep-driving. Considering the fact that Mia was afraid to drive, at least while awake, and, at the time, didn’t have a license, she’d readily conceded.

That’s when she’d started up with her former psychiatrist, Dr. Alessandra Baquero.

After a battery of tests, including an MRI of the head and an EEG, Dr. Baquero announced that Mia did not appear to have any organic problems with her brain. No tumor, no seizure disorder, etc. The sleep disturbances were probably related to a combination of post-traumatic stress and the sleeping pills Mia’s primary care doctor had prescribed. Dr. Baquero changed her medication, initiated weekly therapy sessions, and that had put an end to the sleepwalking—until now.

It was only last week that Dr. Baquero pronounced Mia mentally safe and sound and released her from therapy. She was going to be disappointed when she found out about this. Sleep problems were nothing to be ashamed of—Mia knew that. Still, when you can’t remember where you’ve been or what you’ve done, it’s easy to imagine it might have been something awful.

Mia checked her phone.

4:49 a.m.

She’d wait until 7 o’clock before calling Dr. Baquero’s service.

“Thanks for seeing me on short notice.” Mia met Dr. Baquero’s steady eyes.

“Of course, that’s why I keep Saturday hours open. I want to be there for my patients if an urgent matter comes up.”

Mia felt her cheeks flush. As relieved as she’d been when the answering service told her Dr. Baquero could fit her in, Mia worried, now, that she’d taken a slot from someone who might need it more. Her own problems seemed far less urgent once she’d discovered, just half an hour ago, the three-year-old bottle of sleeping tablets spilled open in her nightstand drawer.

Though she didn’t recall doing so, it seemed obvious that after tossing and turning for hours over taking Celeste’s keys last night, she’d resorted to swallowing one of her old pills. She wasn’t sure which was worse—what she’d done to Celeste or keeping an old prescription that had been considered a prime suspect in her sleep disturbances. Nor did she care to admit she might have driven her car in an altered state. This morning the needle on her gas gauge hovered just under the half-full mark, and though she couldn’t be certain, she thought it had read slightly over half-full when she’d returned from the Piano Man last night.

“What’s going on?”

“I know last week was supposed to be our final session.”

“Let’s circle back to that, okay?” Dr. Baquero said. “You told the service you needed to see me right away, so how about you fill me in?”

Mia’s gaze traveled the lilac-colored walls of Dr. Baquero’s office, littered with diplomas and awards, then paused to linger on her desk, crafted from polished walnut and adorned with a computer and oversized mug proclaiming Keep Calm and Kick Ass.

A framed picture faced away from Mia.

Many times, she’d paced the office just to get herself in position to look at that photograph. It was of Dr. Baquero’s daughter—a teen with cropped, silken black hair framing a round face, flawless skin and intense dark eyes that promised to keep your secrets—a young, shorter-haired version of her mother.

She fell back into the depths of the sofa she’d sat upon almost every Wednesday afternoon for the past three years. Her fingers stroked the supple leather. She inhaled its familiar scent, considering. What would Dr. Baquero think of her when she found out Mia had taken a prescription