by Alicia Black

Created on: November 11, 2008   Last Updated: November 26, 2011

The office was an art exhibit. Rebecca looked all around her, staring at the Indian artifacts and African masks. The furniture was leather, very cold and uninviting. How had she allowed her mother to arrange a meeting with this man? What was Rebecca thinking when she agreed to see a psychiatrist?

His name was Dr. Penowlski. He was in his fifties. The man made a lot of money off of Beverly Hills and other neighboring zip codes. He was well known to listen for an hour then hand out the Zanex. What a miracle worker!

Rebecca's mother had seen the same doctor. She had gone once a week for quite some time. Her mother was a drama queen, but more importantly she was a drug addict. If it wasn't Zanex then it was Ambien. When the pills were all gone she went downstairs to the parlor to make herself one mean martini.

It was Rebecca who watched her mother from the side lines. Every day Rebecca thought to herself how she would one day be the very same way. There were expectations to uphold. She was born with a noble last name and had to prove herself worthy. Since she was a little girl, it was all she trained for.

Now she was seventeen and almost ready to take on the world. But first she had to see a shrink. She would have to tell this man all her problems so he could cure her.

The doctor sat across from her with a pen to his lips. There had been quite a few minutes of silence since Rebecca first walked in. Penowski straightened up, "I have treated a lot of teenagers in my career. Many of them have the same social and income status as you. Most of them came here because they didn't want that privilege. They would have rather been born on a farm where it was ludicrous to buy a thousand dollar hand purse. It has to be hard to live up to such expectations. Families like yours expect so much from their young."

Rebecca rolled her eyes. He had the same family no doubt. She could picture him giving his wife money for plastic surgery while his children attended boarding school to ensure they would not be trouble for him or his darling wife.

It reminded her of a story so she decided to tell it out loud, "I remember the first time I was sent away to school. It was a small Catholic boarding house for ages three to six. I was three years old. I was away for the whole school year. I did not want to go. I kicked and screamed and was so scared that I would never see my parents again. I just thought to myself, how could they do this to me? Don't they want me?'. Funny how you remember things

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