I feel torn at his words, but I’m also running late, so I force myself to turn around and keep walking. When I steal a glance back at my car, just before entering the school building, he’s gone.
All day I fight the urge to tell Katy about my Overton appointment. To ask her to go with me. But she has been acting weird for the last few days—irritable and distant, always preoccupied with something or someone.
I told her I’ve stopped seeing the boy, but whether she believes me or not, she doesn’t seem to want to hear more about it. I wonder if she thinks Crazy is contagious.
So after school, I check my phone for directions and climb alone into my car. Apart from a few dustings here and there, we’re not supposed to get any major snow today, or my mother wouldn’t have let me take my car this morning. Still, I go slowly for the entire fifteen miles out of Lyndale and am constantly passed by impatient drivers.
Finally I come upon a cluster of nondescript gray buildings, a giantOin front of each of them. I’m so busy trying to figure out which of these buildings I need that I don’t see the massive green gate blocking me from them until I’m right in front of it.
A bearded security officer sticks his head out the window of a small booth. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Um, yes,” I say, looking from him to the buildings again.
“Name?” he asks.
“Addison Sullivan.” I swallow as he types something into his computer screen and then nods. The huge green gate slides left so I can drive through. The whole thing suddenly seems a little ominous. Maybe seeing my family doctor or the school nurse should have been my first step, even if they would go straight to my mom.
“Thank you,” I say, and drive my car into the complex. Immediately I spot a green arrow sign that points me to the clinic. I follow other signs like it until I enter the parking lot. Then I climb out of my car and walk toward the entrance, feeling anxious. Maybe I should have done more research before coming.
Different from the gray, impenetrable concrete of the surrounding buildings, the clinic is mostly glass. Inviting. I can make out a reception desk from here, and a woman is sitting behind it, holding a phone to her ear.
My fingers are tingling from the cold, with uncertainty, but the automatic glass doors slide open, beckoning me in, before I’ve come to a stop.
Inside, the clinic is exactly like any doctor’s office I’ve ever been in. Chairs against the walls, a table of outdated magazines in the center. A man and a woman sit beside each other, the woman on her phone, the man flipping through a sports magazine.
Still, there’s a difference in the air, an edge I can’t quite put my finger on.
The receptionist behind the desk is a friendly middle-aged woman with the same vague European accent I heard over the phone. Beside her is a man in his twenties. He must be new here, because she’s explaining what she’s doing as she enters my name. After a few seconds, she passes me a clipboard with two forms. Standing off to the side, I fill out questions about my contact information, medical history, and health insurance. Thankfully, she doesn’t mention anything about payment.
I hand the forms back to the receptionist. She tells me to take a seat and Dr. Overton will be with me in just a minute.
As I sit, I still feel nervous. A baroque piece by a composer I don’t know plays through the speakers in the corners of the room. I don’t understand why classical music is used for waiting-room music, elevator music, hold music. It makes me restless, makes me want to do something, and since there’s nothing to do, I tap my fingers on my knees, imagining I’m playing this concerto.
I hope this appointment is actually useful. That the doctor doesn’t just tell me to take my vitamins or exercise, the types of clichés you normally hear to help strengthen your mind.
A nurse dressed in scrubs, a purple streak in her dark brown hair, comes to get the couple. She smiles at me while she waits for them to stand and then leads them down a hallway.
On the table beside me, next to a pile of magazines, is a stack of booklets, all with the same ovalOs as those on the buildings. For the first time, I notice the tagline underneath the company logo:Because Your Past Should Never Stand in the Way of Your Future.
I flip to the second page.
Ask Your Doctor About Limbic Shaving!it says in bold letters, the way pamphlets at my family doctor say things likeAsk Your Doctor About Cholesterol Management!Or at the eye doctor:Ask Your Doctor About Lubricating Eye Drops!
I turn to the back of the booklet and read the title on the last page:A Brief History of Overton.Two men in their sixties are pictured, smiling and wearing lab coats.
It was more than three decades ago when two highly revered neurobiologists formerly employed by the University of Maine conceived of a cure for military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. They researched, experimented, and conducted longitudinal studies. By the time the Gulf War ended in the early 1990s, it was more than an idea. The theory: that the soldiers were held captive not by PTSD itself, but by memory. The cure: memory splicing, a technique that could wipe clean the worst of their memories, while preserving the best. After years of thorough trials, the Overton technique, as miraculous as it was exact, was made available to the general public. A number of refinements to the Overton technique have since been implemented, including limbic shaving—a tweaking of the emotional components of memories, the feeling and connotations of certain memories.
A chill runs down my spine. They can change the way your memories feel?
What is this place?
I thought they’d give me memory exercises or teach me techniques, that they’d make recommendations to improve my concentration. Wasn’t that what it said online? Something about improving your memory and sleep?
I glance up, and the receptionist smiles at me. Feeling weirdly like I’ve been caught doing something bad, I quickly look away and keep reading.
Since its development, the Overton technique has saved and improved countless lives, and it continues to do so. Since 2013, a team of highly qualified doctors led by Dr.Stephan Overton has maintained the private clinic cofounded by his father.
I skim to the bottom of the page.
