Out With It by Katherine Preston

Author:Katherine Preston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

CHAPTER 7

MISSION FOR A CURE

Henley, February 2008

I THINK THAT I know what speech therapists are meant to look like. In my mind they are limp-wristed, soft-spoken women who are barely out of puberty and barely strong enough to carry their weighty promises of fluency. They are not meant to be manicured, formidable creatures with strong opinions and easy laughs. Anne defies my expectations.

I had first met the woman who would change my life when I was sixteen. It was the year that university interviews started to loom, the year that I realized my success rested on something less tangible than getting good grades. I knew that if I was going to be accepted at a great university, I was going to need to impress them with my verbal aptitude.

I suspect it was pretty obvious how much the thought petrified me. My mum had seen a documentary showing a new three-day speech therapy course called the Starfish program. They had talked about “costal breathing,” something she had never heard of, and the show had depicted one boy’s journey before, during, and after the life-altering course. Mum had been impressed enough by the program director, Anne, to brave the subject one evening. After years of angrily silencing her whenever she brought up the subject, I bit my lip and nodded. I told her that it sounded alright, that I wouldn’t mind giving them I call.

However nonchalant I wanted to come across, I had gone on her intensive course full of hope, praying that it would work. It did help, for a short time. I was the only kid on the course and it was the first time I had met adult stutterers, the first time I had mentors in my life who knew what it was like. I watched in awe as deliberate and fluent words came spilling out of their mouths. It was easy to be fluent with them on the course, but in the aftermath it all got a bit more tricky. I couldn’t bring myself to use the new speaking techniques that she taught me. I was still desperate to fit in, and talking in a voice akin to Darth Vader’s did not look like the ticket to winning any popularity contests. So I didn’t change, not in the end, and I believed, yet again, that it was my fault. I believed that I didn’t work hard enough, that I hadn’t wanted it badly enough.

However, by the age of twenty-three, I am desperate again. I suspect that Anne is my best bet. She is the most determined and passionate speech therapist I know. I’m ready to follow her blindly.

A deep red blush pricks at my cheeks as I pick up the phone. It is like calling up an ex-boyfriend whom I’ve heartlessly dumped and then wantonly ignored for seven years. I fully expect her to hang up on me, but I have no choice. If I don’t call I’m quite likely to lose my job as well as my sanity.

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