The Trouble Toddler

Chapter 6: my body, my rules

The next day they started with our tests or whatever that meant. We, Nancy, Alice, and I, had to go together with another group of girls to a different part of the building where the hallway was filled with offices of the doctors who worked here.

Nancy was first to go of the three of us. When she was finally done after a half hour or so, she exited the office. "What did they do?" I asked curious. "Just a regular check-up, nothing too complicated." She answered. I nodded my head and went into the room.

The doctor behind the desk stood up and had a friendly smile on his face. "You must be Lexi, right?" I nodded my head and sat down in one of the two chairs in front of him.

"Let me get you file up the screen..." He was busy with clicking his computer mouse and then finally looked at me. "My name is Mark, and I will do you check-up today. First we will go over some information of your medical history and then we will do the physical exam."

I again nodded my head, unbothered of what he just told me.

"So, your full name is Lexi Miller and sixteen years old, born in 2027 on the 19th of July?" He asked me to confirm. "Yes, that is right."

"You have had all your vaccinations, that is good to hear. Your blood type is A. I see you have fractured your arm, only it does not elaborate the injury further. Did you need surgery or just a cast?" He asked me.

"Just a cast. I fell of my bike, nothing too concerning." I again said unbothered.

"Your file does not say you have had any severe injuries, is that right?"

"Nope," I answered. This was getting boring quick. I bounced my leg up and down and looked around in the doctor's office. I had only a few posters, but it was more entertaining than this dude.

"Oke last thing, I know this is not very exciting," he said with an apologetic look on his face. "It says you do not have any chronical illnesses and you do not take any medication on a regular basis, is this right?"

"Yes," I said with a sigh.

He clapped his hands and said, "That was it for checking up your medical history. Could you please sit over there on the bed," he pointed at the medical bed, which stood in the corner. I sat on the bed and Mark stood in front of me.

"I see you have your ears and eyebrow pierced, do you have anymore piercings?" He observed while pointing his fingers at my ears and face.

"Yes, through my belly button." He nodded his head. "Would you be so kind to put every piercing in this basket?" He asked me with a smile.

"What? like hell no. Do you know how expensive these were and some of them hurt quite bad when they set them?" I said with an angry expression on my face. It was my body, so I get to decide if they stay or not.

"I'm sorry but I am obligated to fix everybody modification before the procedure. Therefore, all your piercings have to come out." He explained with a guilty look on his face.

"No, I will not put my piercings in that basket." I crossed my arms and looked at the doctor with a daring expression. "Lexi, I understand this is difficult, but we can do this the easy or the hard way and the hard way is not a nice way. We will have to hold you down or worse sedate you. So please take them out?" His pleading look and his explanation made me take out my piercings. I hated I had to take them out. I liked them, some of them I were set together with another good friend of mine, Ashley.

"Thank you," was all he said. "So, do you have any other body modifications?"

"Does a tattoo count as a body modification too?" I asked, hoping he would tell me no. That tattoo meant everything to me.

"Yes, you have a tattoo?" He asked with a concerned face.

"Yes, but please do not take it away. It is very, very important to me," I stressed. Again, that guilty expression appeared on his face. "I'm sorry but we need to remove that too."

I started to hate this place more and more. They had no right to do this to me. My body, my rules. "Can I see it?" I rolled up my sleeve and showed him my right inner upper arm. There was a black rose with above the stem Always love yourself and under the stem, even when the world hates you.

Ashley had the same, on the same place. She went through a difficult time and she really wanted a tattoo but was scared to. I had told her I would get one too, the exact same on the same place. So, we both could feel the same pain and help each other. I was so glad we had them because two months later she died and getting a tattoo was the last thing on her bucket list.

When Mark saw the tattoo, his face was filled with sadness. "I'm sorry, but we have to remove this. It will take probably five treatments and it will be gone. We will start tomorrow so we can give your skin a break between the treatments."

The rest of the check-up I remained silent. I was angry, terribly angry. He said everything was fine with me after the check-up. I left the office feeling furious, only I did not want people seeing me like that. So, I put up my mask of an all-the-time annoyed teenager who hates the world.

When I came back into our dorm room, Nancy was already chilling on her bed. "Hey girl!" Nancy greeted me cheerfully. "Yo," I grumbled.

"You look grumpy, what happened?" She asked. I told her about the piercings and tattoo, only keeping the detail about Ashley to myself. She new about Ashley, she thought Ashley was a bad influence. Yes, she maybe was, but there were also others who dragged me onto the wrong path of life.

I could talk with Ashley about things I could not with Nancy. Nancy would always be my bestie, but there were still things I was not comfortable to talk about around her, like feeling depressed or my sexuality.

When we were done with exchanging our experiences of our check-ups, somebody called us for lunch. We made our way to the cafeteria and looked for a seat. We saw Alice was not here yet, so we kept the seat in front of us empty for her.

After lunch we had to take this personality test and then we finally could go outside again. Unfortunately, Alice did not want to join us. We had heard that she missed her home and I hoped that spending time with us would help to get her mind of things, but she would not.

After spending some well-deserved time outside, we were picked up by our guardians. Dennis took me to his office. "So, Lexi how are you doing?" He asked me. His eyes warm and welcoming and that friendly smile. Yesterday I would call it creepy, but now it was less creepy. Maybe I had never seen people smile that often to find it creepy.

"Fine," I muttered. "Are you sure? Because I heard from your doctor, he had to tell you some unsettling news." I remained silent. I did not want to talk about that nor about my feelings. "Lexi I am here for you. As your guardian I will not share anything you tell me. You can tell me anything I will not judge you, I will not tell you what to do, and you can rant as long as you want and I will be your comfortable ear, so to say."

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. "I'm fine."

A/N: As you may have seen I have made some changes with the former chapters. It has come to my attention that even though I already use google translate and word, I still make to much errors in my work. 

I apologize, but know that I really try hard to get as many errors out of my work as possible. English is not my first language so noticing these kind of errors are some times hard for me. 

So if you see a grammer mistake I do frequently please let me know in the comments. That way I can better my English and you do not have to see them anymore. 

I promise I will try better. 

Thanks for reading and stay safe!