Archive of Our Own

You can handle the hot stone yoga and the Swedish massages and the free-range fingerpainting and the tai chi and the racquetball and the nasal passage dilation and the volcanic mineral baths and the reflexology and acupuncture and cooking lessons – you actually kind of groove on the cooking lessons – and the flights of kimchi and turmeric shots and exfoliating transdermal toxin depletions and another Swedish massage but you’re not doing anymore goddamn therapy. Rock hard pass. Too many years of too many white dudes with degrees and degrees in big glossy marquees on the walls. And then diverse persons of button-mash varietals. All trying to crack whatever code there was to get you to pat your skull and rub your tummy at the same time.

Yours is no head to shrink. Good fucking luck, pal. You were going to clock each session in this escape-room-looking office with your face humidifying the leather couch, curled up like a steel trap, fast a-snooze. The court reports were on them. Ought to be. They could open their mouth and ask. Their job. You were no one’s fucking mother. There was no one you were obliged to tenderly fucking breastfeed things like eye contact or information or greetings. Their job. Okay. Fucking earn it.

The whole first week, right after morning journaling, you wedge yourself into the couch cushions with the room empty; you wake up with it empty. Except for one of the ushers shaking you by the shoulder, cattleprodding you out the other door to group talk. Prick.

You wake up. You roll over (thhhhp - cheek unsticking) and blink until the light figures itself out. There’s twenty minutes left in the hour, and a girl in a wheelchair.

You cough; nothing stuck in your throat. Cough again. And push out: “What the fuck, man.”

– no, she’s old. Older. She looks younger with the big Easter Sunday eyes bugged wide, but she’s got that drawn old lady thing going. The waxy lines and starved hands. She is white, though. “I’m your therapist.”

Rosy knit blanket in the lap. Book lolled open. Two oxygen tanks hitched on the side of the wheelchair, like a giant pair of binoculars. She doesn’t have the nose thing in but, uh, chick is not doing well.

You suck your teeth: “Bullshit,” and watch her eyes winch up.

“Well, I'm a therapist.” They’re spooky blue and all over you. She has sprigs of silver scattered through her hair, thin and brown, loose around her shoulders. The kind of face that people see and fix their posture. A teacup mouth, wide and wondering. You watch her forehead smooth and that mouth take up a raw little grin. It nearly touches ‘prim’; it makes her look older again. “One can perform such a task while seated.”

Your ears prickle-pop. Fmoosh and scrape goes the leather as you roll back over. Eventually, you half-shout into the couch, “Not what I meant!” the leather fizzy-buzzing against your cheek. “Obviously.”

Your ears tickle cool as you wait for her to fire something back. But the door clicking shut is what wakes you.

After like, another week, you suddenly roll onto your back (fmoosh, the leather.) “You’re really gonna let me do this?” Ow – you block the stubbing pocket of sunlight that’s shifted through the windows. This little office overlooks a corner of the orchards. You saw a group out cherry-picking earlier. “For four months?”

When the black blotch in your vision clears, her eyes are big nightlights. Big bags underneath. Her mouth has pursed up prettily and she’s closed her book.

“Just sleep,” obviously. You ask because you’re wondering and because you’ve more or less adjusted to whatever they keep gumball-machining for med call. So napping every time is getting a little forced, a little boring. And you actually caught a lot of sleep at detox. Maybe they’re just sugar pills.

“‘Let you,’” this chick says. The nightlights pivot to the door and back. They aim over and past you, over your head at the guacamole-colored wall. At one of the screensavery landscape paintings. She doesn’t look any less dying, but she’s almost magazine-pretty in this light, at that angle. “Could I make you stop?”

What? “What? No.” No.

“Could I make you do something else?”

“Hilarious.”

Her eyebrows shrug. Her ribbony mouth, too. The hangnail shoulders don’t really manage it. “Doesn’t seem like it’s up to me, then. It’s your call.”

You roll your eyes hard enough to make the stringy parts creak and fart with your mouth and roll back over. “Neener-neener, suck a wiener.” Leather puke-warm against your cheek. “I hate logic freaks.”

And then the clout-slurping dumbass in your pod pours a cascade of balls over everything. Not even for good reason. And you don’t mind telling someone all that starfucker shit is so embarrassing. It was embarrassing in secondary. He started it up in group talk before the facilitator shut it down, but he valiantly took up his yappy torch in the dining room over crab cakes and creamed spinach. A twelve-year-old’s idea of a cool guy. And when the spirits of karmic justice rightfully worked through you to clown him, he managed to land a shitty arm-only punch that was still enough to black your eye. You naturally hit him back. His front teeth left an equal sign-shaped welt on your middle finger on their way out, after you busted his lips like old produce. The musician guy and the girl with the watercolor tatts saw the whole thing, said you didn’t start it, but they were probably just sick of him too. Some dipshit tech bro’s son.

The therapist’s already there when you are benevolently fucking squeegied into the room. “Oh – jeez,” she breathes, “Are you alright?” half-rising on Bambi legs from her wheelchair. And reaching out a hand! Fuck! Come on. She’s out of reach, but you yank away all the same.

From the door: “Take it easy.”

“Piss off!” You don’t need fucking three of them, fucking, frogmarching you everywhere, fucking – Hannibal Lecter style. Your neck pours maniac termites where their breath clung and clotted down the back.

Therapist is not happy. “That’ll be all,” she says, but it sounds like Seriously? Out. The usher orders you to sit and relax so you snake back around and bow your chest out and bug your eyes near to watering, fists high, “Hey dickweed, if I wanted a –”

“Close the door now.”

A flinch zaps through the rest of you. The sound does not go with the source. Maybe a weird acoustic quirk in the room. But it takes some heat out of you all.

Your therapist resettles in her chair. She adjusts the blanket around herself. Adjusts her hair. Her eyes are on the ushers. “We’ll be alright. Close the door now. Please.”

The little fuckers do, at least. But they’re probably hunched around it phonebooth-style on the other side. To eavesdrop. (“That’s alright.”) Goddamn breathing all over you. (“You stand if you like.”)

“Shitheads.” It feels like fleas are fucking on your skin. You pace a tightrope circuit beside the couch to the corner of the room, mugging the health food store art, flinging the feeling off and away from you in pieces. “Wannabe mallcop motherfuckers.” Like shucking off a cobweb you walked through and got burritoed by.

“They shouldn’t have touched you.” You pluck the collar of your fancy-soft rehab shirt and tug it open to puff air, get some circulation. You get two fresh sets every morning. “So inappropriate. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, whatever!” Scramble a hand through your hair. You sweated, a little. “You’re all like – coworkers. Whatever thin blue line you have going.”

You don’t have to look at her to hear the frown. “Pardon?”

“I’m not stupid! Good cop bad cop shit.” You squeeze your arms over your chest, and whip around to glare. “Aren't you all in the same union, or something?”

“Oh.” Her wrist twitches up her mouth. “Not at all. Oh,” and this lady laughs at you, she titters, “no!” A woman covers her dead-petal mouth with a waify hand and laughs at you with her eyes. “Excuse me. Stand or sit. Or walk… however you like. Did something happen to your eye?”

Your face stings. Your mouth. Tell her to cut the bullshit. Stop the – whatever this. She’s still moving her eyes all over you with that cramp of soft laughter.

So – you – assume the position. Shim into the couch with a cushion over your ear. The leather warms to burning. Brain, jangling; heart with the handbrakes cut. You cool. You slow. She might have said something. But. Hey: cushion.

Sleep straddles you sidesaddle. When your arm goes lax and slips loose to curl along your chest, the cushion drifts down to your cheek. You could hear pages turn.

“What are you sick with?”

That surprises her. She looks up from her book. Then over your head, to the wall again. Must be a fascinating crack in the plaster to catch her eye so often. She introduced herself at the end, last time, said you could call her ‘C.’ “That’s a pretty personal question.”

Oh, brother. “Then don’t answer it, damn.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t answer. I’d like to.” Her hair is back today. It’s not unflattering, but you think that when the wind blows right, her cheekbones must whistle. She’s in a pastel-y sundress today. “It's only that it’s a bit convoluted, and I’m a little leery of it getting out and around.” Her watered-down hands fold over her book in her lap like nesting things. “Why do you want to know?”

“Blackmail you. Obviously.” You swirl one fingernail over your eyelid. Still a little sore but the swelling’s gone. And most of the color stank. At least it got little king bitchbaby wetass out of your pod. But if it happens again you’re probably back in front of the judge. “It’s not that deep. Just a question. Just fucking wondering.”

“Nothing wrong with being curious. But it is private. I have to ask a couple things in exchange for peace of mind.” You snort and blow a raspberry and gag. She just adds, “You don’t have to.”

Disgusted, you roll over, elbow-blanket for your eyes. Scratch your hip beneath your shirt. Rummage around in your hair for awhile. “What. What is it.”

“Two things. One, please keep it a secret.”

“Is it a secret?” You lift your arm to look. “Is it contagious?”

That puts a funny pinch in her mouth. “Not at all.”

“Does your boss know?”

“That I’m sick, yes. How bad, no.”

You switch your legs: one propped and one folded on the couch. Already kicked your fair-trade prima pima-cotton facility slippers onto the floor like some new dipshit punctuation. The leather grumbles as you shift onto your hip. “Would they fire you?”

“Well, if they haven’t by now… it’s not the end of the world if it gets out.” Her eyebrows arch thoughtfully. “But I’ve found it awkward to explain. And, fair warning, it strikes people as something of a buzzkill.”

Your knee wags, making sundial shadows on the long lumpy back of the couch. Stretches the hip muscles in a way you like. You are fucking mid at racquetball. “Fine.” You zip your lip one-handed – and she lights up with a grin over it, mirrorring you. Like she’s never seen anyone do that before.

Fine. Fiiiine fine fine finefinefine. Not like anyone in here would listen to you, anyway.

“Second,” she says, “you have to promise not to feel sorry for me.”

You hadn’t noticed before, but after she speaks, she pulls in breath just a hair too deep. Collecting herself. It draws your eye, okay? You’re not looking (you’re not not looking) but snippets of blued-over veins in her collar and chest snag your eye like chickenwire. She is bird-thin. Almost painful to look at – and you’re an asshole for thinking it. You keep looking. She must be cold beneath the lumpy net of blanket.

“The cancer cure. As you know.” Your stomach freezes and seizes. “I threw a little hospital party after my in vivo treatment...” But she doesn’t mention him. “... certainly did the trick. Blood cancer,” she tacks, hasty, “a few different kinds. But I was sick from such a young age… and so all over… even on the way out, it left a mess of things. Not a surprise. I usually have terrible luck with roommates.” It shocks a half-harped laugh from you. “I suppose the best answer is ‘a little of everything.’”

She summarizes: a real clunker of an immune system, sugar wafer bones, overheated heart like it was pumping cough syrup. She waves herself off with a puff of breath. “It was never very interesting to hear about, and I’m afraid not very interesting to talk about. If it helps, think of me like… oh… some old beater that’s had a single oil change in forty years.”

And she smiles, wry. You don’t miss how it wilts at the corner.

Your mouth is gritty and dry. Oversized for itself. You scrub at the side; you clear your throat. “How long do you have?” Oh, that’s shitty. The question just kind of got away from you.

But she isn't even ruffled. “I was supposed to die years ago, actually.” Grinning all sheepish. What the hell. “Even after the cure. I keep missing my appointment. So, you know. Classic old biddy pep talk here. Seize the day. Don’t put off to tomorrow. Et cetera.” She catches her breath in a tender, steadying sip and feels around for her saucer and teacup. “Did I miss any?”

You stare. You wag your knee again (too far, hip twinge) – listing left, casting shadows on the leather. “‘Conceive, believe, achieve.’ All that,” you ribbit, hoarse.

“That’s the spirit! How responsible of me, lecturing you.” She smooths the grin into another mothy smile. She actually winks. “Thank you.”

You sit up. The leather grumbles underneath you. “Shouldn’t you… rest, or whatever?”

She hums; shakes her head. One silver-brown hank hangs looser for it, tickling a collarbone so prominent it’s like an x-ray of itself. “I think keeping active helps. No, that one’s for sure. Especially here.” Taps her graying temple. “I like to get out and about when I have the energy saved up, but steady work gives me more structure in the day-to-day. It really is a momentum game. Too much time off, and I may as well be on ice. Or mouldering in an iron lung in some beautiful, picturesque manse by the sea… am I talking too much?”

You don’t know how to react to that. You shrug; you hum; shake your head. Um. “What can you do when you go out?”

“Oh, a good museum always hits the spot. Music. Theater, I love a corny musical... I wanted to be a theater star when I was a little thing. But even just sitting outside somewhere and people-watching is relaxing.”

You always thought that sounded like a pretty stupid hobby. You watch everyone around you all the time. But you don’t want her to stop talking. “What do you like in museums?”

She shivers – ?! – in her seat, and tips forward in a pour of conspiracy. Her voice even drops in a low backscratch: “I love surprises.” (You shiver.) “I love when something makes me forget where I am. What I was doing, or thinking. Even if only for a moment.”

“Luh, uh, like what?”

She makes some cheekful of sound. “It doesn’t sound like much of a spot for surprises, does it? Painting, painting, painting… goose.” She settles back again cautiously, like sore. “I can’t lie; I’m an unfaithful, omnivorous geek. I browse around and like a little bit of everything but when I like it, I like it a lot. Honest. Last time I was there, I saw something that took my breath away. Not hard, right? Big yuk. No, joke, I’m goofing. It was this… I suppose you could call it a sculpture. Imagine a big mishmash of brown junk. Just garbage. Old plastic and fishing lures, candy wrappers, CDs – do you know about CDs? – all crunched up together. All hung…”

She pauses to take some water. She takes in air. The veins in her eyelids show plainly when she holds them closed. “... all… hung around. All these things. Some of them stuck to a pole, or pulled between strings. Things like that. Just a big mishmash. Now!” Her wan hands bracket out before her like a magician. “Now imagine. You move a few feet to the left…” She moves a little to the left and keeps going. Toward you. “And suddenly… you find… the perfect… angle.”

She tilts upward. Between the checkmarks her fingers make, she watches the wall above your head. “And you see a bird.” You watch her expression page-flip back to the memory of the thing. “A lyrebird.” Her eyes soften like talc. “All those things you’d find in a landfill, a big rummage sale of a mess… I thought it was so wonderful. I just wish it wasn't so much hubbub to get a good look for myself.”

“What do you mean?”

She raises a hand above her head, sleeve sloughing back like a frog gagging. “Your eyeline had to be…about here. I can go without the chair for pieces at a time, but it was a bad day for it. I had to ask museum staff if they had crutches. Well, they didn't have them. So… I had to lean on one of them. He was very generous about it, but I could tell he was uncomfortable. So it was only a minute or two I could look. But, oh. It was really something.”

“What was he made of, penne? You weigh half-nothing.”

She gives you a funny smile. “No, no penne. Not as nicely built as you, but he was sturdy enough. The discomfort wasn’t physical. I don't think.” Her lips moved, dry. “And, you know… he isn't alone. It's part of the pain of going out. It’s as if people suddenly remember how everything is built, all at once, and feel embarrassed. As I said, I can go without the chair for a time… but if anything, that confuses them more. Makes them anxious, I think, if they aren’t sure how to respond. It’s nothing personal.”

Some kind of warmth in your stomach brews as she talks. Not quite queasy. “What a crock of shit. Don’t let them off the hook that fast.” You want her to keep talking.

“I don’t hold it against them when they think it’s contagious, either.”

The warmth bricks thick in your gut. Now it’s queasy. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Your hand drops from behind your neck to the back of the couch. You find yourself sitting up.

“Ah,” she says, smiling – one finger upright. It’s a real bullshit of a smile. “You promised.”

She misses a couple days. Sick. You’re asked if you want a replacement session with someone on-call, or other supervised no-money-down low-low-price-of-locked-up-anyway opportunities. You take the gym. It’s one of the few places where you can reliably go at least ten minutes with no one trying to talk to you. And, like… you haven’t gone in awhile. Can’t let the build fall off too much.

Ms. C listens to you about the stupid fucking tests you just finished. Stupid fucking tests. The last was the worst. “This guy had me hold this stick connected to a tube,” you air-doodle the cord to an invisible machine, “and I had to poke my nailbeds with this other thing. He said it would detect allergies and intolerances.”

Her oxygen tanks are out today. Hooked up to the nose, but she’s otherwise chipper. Color’s a little better than day-old porridge. She hangs onto every word like you’re a frontline reporter. “Did they find any?”

“‘North Atlantic haddock, buckwheat, dustmites, rutabaga.’” Her eyes widen and her hand covers her mouth, but you just blow a half raz. “Total crock. I’ve eaten all of those before. No problem.” You’re pretty sure you’ve eaten rutabaga.

“Oh, no! Not dustmites?”

“... like, statistically? Right? Look, try not eating some. Point is. It’s a waste of time. It’s been a month and they’re already just making up shit. I think I’m gonna get cupped after this.” Which was a little dumb and left you looking like a beef waffle, but actually felt kind of good. The massages left you a little too loosey-goosey for the gym. “I'm not doing the woo-woo brain scan thing. Nothing above the neck.”

She perked all around, oh no. “Is that finally up and running? The neuromapping? Oh, that’s exciting. I’ve been hearing about it all year, but it’s been delayed and delayed.”

“Feel free to take my spot.” No way you're getting in the little fucking tube.

She’s excited now. Sitting up straighter in her chair. “Imagine if you could line up your whole life like a bookshelf, and flip through a few pages.”

“No thanks.”

“You wouldn’t be curious? Just to try it? Well, that’s alright. I’ve forgotten so many things I would love to stumble onto again… the first time I heard a favorite song. Or the last I spoke with a loved one. I could hear a line of poetry,” her fingertips touch, unsteady, “and see what associations it’s attached to. People, memories, sensations…”

“‘Sit, speak, roll over.’”

She laughs, silvery. Your neck cramps. “It is a lot of to-do. With maybe wildly variable degrees of uselessness. Would you rather opt into something else?” You grunt; she hums sympathy. “I’m sorry if the tests feel like drudgery. But the idea is to keep your time here very structured.” She thought. “Boredom is the real humbug. Are you feeling bored here?”

Fuck. You realize you’re being tricked into therapy. Fuck! You make a barnyard squelch of a sound and donner kebab roll the fuck over (“Oh…”) and for the first time that week, you sleep.

She looks up from her book when you ask, “What happens if I don't do therapy?”

You’re hungry. You got too annoyed by the tearful nervous breakdown of the infomercial guy over lunch and ditched your plate to pace tigerish around the tennis court, ushers waiting in the wings. Always supervised. Absolute balls. “Like, the whole four months.”

She studies you, chlorine-blue. And nods at something down in the carpet. “My schedule is blocked out for you for this time each day, for the duration of your stay. What we do with it is up to you. I have to report to a court liaison about your attendance and general progress, but other than that…”

“You telling them I’m sleeping?”

She looks up from the carpet. Her eyes on you. The roof of your mouth goes chilly. “I’ve reported that your attendance is spotless, and that you’re progressing well. I'm not obliged to give much in the way of detail.” She carefully folds her book closed and manages a sip of tea. You declined her offer of a cup. “I don’t mind paid reading time if you want to sleep.” Her voice lowers, “It’s been kind of nice, actually. I’m normally too tired by the evening.”

“I know you’re not actually reading them.” She blinks. Ha. “It’s a different one every day.” Almost.

That tickles her. She giggles like a spilled teapot, air gurgling out in a warm rush. Your hands itch. “Oh! You’ve been looking at the covers… aren’t you clever. I promise you I am reading them. They’re not very difficult, so they’re quick to get through. I don’t think I’ll finish this one by tomorrow, but you can keep me honest about it from here on out.”

Clever leaves an indent in your ear canal. “What is it?”

“Oh… nothing brainy.” Embarrassment bubbles up, crowding her face. Her voice scratches lower again. “Nothing I should be reading at work, if I'm honest.”

You latch on with talons. “Porn?” (You had sat up at some point.)

“No. Oh, um – no. There’s an erotic subplot, admittedly, but really it’s an inheritance melodrama. Literary junk food.” Quickly, “Do you like to read?”

Your tuck one hand behind your head and lean back again with a long, heeing hawwwww. “My therapist is reading porn.”

C furrows up every furrow available to her for furrowing purposes and dusts at the air, like clearing gnats. “Oh, let's be – no, please, this isn’t appropriate. I can answer any other questions if you have them.”

You scoff and roll over to face her fully, one hand elbow-propping you upright by the cheek. A TV watcher’s contrapposto. “You think I don’t look at porn?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

A pause that made your face tighten. “You know I’ve had sex, right?”

A pause that made your mouth itch. “I do now.” She says, “I’m afraid I don’t know much about you, Gideon.”

Quiet. You watch each other in the warm slant of afternoon. The window is cracked open a few indecisive inches; muffled, sawdust voices drift up from the orchard.

She says, “Are people using your name correctly here?”

You don’t say anything. Then you say something: “I have. I’ve fuuuucked out looooud!” The leather cushions wheeze in emphysematic chorus beneath the virility of your double-pumpin’ powerthrust to the ceiling, performed for purposes both educational and expressionistic. You watch her face for a wince. You watch. You keep watching and point and maestro-wiggle one finger at her notebook on the sidetable, untouched thus far today. “Record in your little notes that I’ve fucked hardcore.”

No wince, but something flickers around her mouth. Doesn't match her tone. “I don't see how it matters either way.”

“I’m an adult. Okay? I’m legal. If we’re gonna be here forrrrr,” you make of show of checking your bare wrist, “two months and change, let’s get that straight.”

“I believe you.” Her face is cool and wooden. Fucking, whatever. “You’re right. You're not a child. And this is your time. If what you’d like to talk about is your love life, we can do that.” Her legs shift as she resettles. “Where would you like to start?”

Your ears must have sunburned during volleyball. They suddenly singe. “I didn’t mean to talk about it, doesn’t mean we should talk about it. Jesus.” You scratch. Itch them. “I just want you to know.”

“Now I know.”

Another cramped pause. Too abrupt to retreat back into sleep. She tells you, “We don’t have to discuss anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

“Lady.” You cross your arms and sit up. Spread your legs. One heel begins to bounce. “The world is my comfort zone.”

“The whole world? All of it?”

“I’ve been on TV shows. I’ve been to ‘Animaniacs song’ amount of countries. Yes, comfort zone, all of it.”

“Except for therapy.”

Your foot cramps; you jerkily stop it from bouncing and stretch, fucking ow. Switch to bouncing the other. “Oh, hardy har. That’s different. I don’t do things that I don’t want to do.”

“I can see that.”

“Don’t be a wiseass with me,” you tell her. Her eyes flash like a chemical reaction.

“If I can’t be a wiseass, you can’t be a wiseass,” she says. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

“I’m a wiseass in self-defense. You’re holding all the leverage here. Hey! That’s already –” you slap the back of the couch with one hand and point with the other – “not fucking fair!”

“Alright. Alright, Gideon. I’m sorry.”

“The world, minus the twenty-by-eighteen-by-however tall this room is of therapy, is still basically ‘the world.’”

“Yes. We both knew that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s still a big fucking comfort zone. It’s sizeable. I bet it’s bigger than yours.” You feel your face make a… face. You don’t look at her. Yes you do. You can’t tell what that pursed mouth on her means. It’s like she’s watching someone else’s car get towed. “I mean. Look. Here. At me. Don’t try to get all therapy-talk about this. You’re not going to say anything ‘inappropriate.’ I’m saying this to you with my adult, human mouth. I am one worldly little buccaneer. I have seen some top shelf shit. Little kid I am not. Okay.”

“You’ve seen a lot of things,” she agrees.

“Right. So let’s move on from that.”

“We can move on.”

Right. You could move on. “I’m not doing therapy.”

“Alright.”

“I’m serious!”

“I believe you. I do. No therapy.” Your foot is still bouncing. “We can talk about whatever you like.”

Your foot is still bouncing. “They almost made a movie,” you tell her.

She nods, lashes long, blinking. A little too slow with the blinking. “Why ‘almost’?”

Your foot stops bouncing.

You explode upright – “Stop fucking with me!” – lunge to the sidetable with her notebook and her tea and flip it, one-handed – it scatters across the space and tea flying and notepad scatter-flapping like shot game. You could stomp the drawer in, crack the wood – the thought clamps a hand over your shoulder and evaporates. You step back to look at her.

Her hands have gone to the armrests like she means to push upright. Eyes wide. About 90 pounds of woman, and she’s terrified of you.

“I’m not –”

You’re not – you aren’t.

You step back.

You look to the capsized table. Most of its tiny drawers were still closed, somehow. A few more inches and it might have left chewmarks on the wall.

Her book on the floor. You step back from it. Title: Executrix on Trial.

The knob rattles – pounding on the door. “What’s going on in there?”

You feel wide eyes on you. “We’re fine,” she says. Her voice cracks on it, hairline. She raises it: “We’re alright. Everything’s fine.” For good measure, “You can leave.”

After a held breath, the usher’s foot steps retreat back down the hall. You…

… you go right the table. Stick back the drawer that popped out crazy-style like a tongue. Collect her notepad. Uncrease a couple pages. The tea was a done-for splotch on the carpet but at least the cup and saucer were in one piece each. Your hands tingle. Head muffled. You’re listening to the universe through a few inches of Fuck. You put it all right again.

Kick her book by mistake when you step back too fast – you bend to pick it up. And hand it to her. You don’t meet her eyes. Her hands are knotted in her lap. The pad of her thumb strokes her other fingertips. You don’t know why seeing that makes you shudder.

And you retreat. To your seat. Elbows to knees, wringing at the back of your neck. Glancing out the window.

“So…” Clear your throat. “Um.” You scrub your neck until the skin burns. Pluck at a hair on your neck. You flick a finger, and bob your chin at her book. “What’s it about?”

You’re just not doing any therapy. You are super, duper, cherry-on-top polite about it. You’re not lying: it isn’t personal. She seems chill for your run-of-the-mill, older, infirm, eccentric-ish professional white lady. With an unclear but distant position of authority in this nicey nice rehab.

(“Are you a boss here?”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh my Godddd you know how I mean. How would I even therapy-speak that.”)

She kind of is but kind of isn’t. Says it feels more like a consulting position. This isn’t even her regular office – could you imagine? All these dentist office, muzak paintings? Yikes. She does coordinate with all the bigwigs for Serenity Eastern. Meetings and such. She does still answer to the court. She’s been here nine years, she says, if you count sabbaticals. You say that’s a long time to still end up stuck with all the hot cases. (“I select my own,” she tells you, halfway to a wink.)

And almost three months is a lot of time leftover. Gotta burn it somehow.

Your rules are: no childhood, no Dad, no substances. The no-go list. You’re not talking about those things. Which, hey, incidentally takes a lot of prospective therapy talk off the table. You explain more than once that it’s not personal. You’re just not a therapy guy. You can still sleep whenever you want. And you do a little, sometimes. While she reads.

But mostly C lets you educate her on culture. She’s missed a ton. Lots of movies. She didn’t get your Good Will Hunting joke. TV. She’s barely seen any. She’s interested when you describe the plot and the really quotable parts. Like Fight Club, Ocean’s 11. All the Marvel stuff. You tell her the whole thing – you’ve seen them enough times. Partway through Pulp Fiction she gets this weird look on her face. Kind of drawn back, back into herself. Like she’s figured out something wrong. Like she left the oven on. But then she’s laughing again, and you need a second to remember where you left off.

So you’re very, very nice. You’re polite. It’s not personal. She’s doing her job the least shitty way for you, so. And she's mostly fine with it.

You’re telling her about Thanos when the door opens.

“Oh.” She looks up for the clock – on the wrong wall, at first. “We’re over time. Sorry about that,” she tells the usher, wheels already in motion towards him. “I can sign off on a tardy, if you have any –”

Squeak: the blanket shifts wrong as she pivots, and snags in the wheel. “Oh – shit.” It’s the first you hear her curse.

“She’s late for group,” says the usher.

“Fucking chill.” You’re up, hands reaching – hesitate when she aims her eyes up at you. Uh. “I can… ” You reach down and… it’s a crochet thing, so it’s full of grabby little holes to get caught on everything. Yay. You, um, reach down between the wheel and the chair (pinches, but you don’t react) and try to feel around and jimmy wherever it… yeah. Doesn’t give. “Here, I can…” You actually properly crouch to try and peek into where the fabric stops.

“Wait outside, please. Gideon will be ready soon.” You feel eyes on the side of your face, the back of your neck. “I’ll text Hannah myself.” You don’t look up. But she has to say, again, “Wait outside, please.”

The door shuts and you’re getting outfoxed by a fucking blanket. You’re trying not to tear anything. “Uh, it needs…” She lets you press the chair to make it pivot, and roll the wheel back. Your elbow is very close to her knee. You smell garden smells. The blanket. Warmly lived-in, not the powdery, out-of-the-box clean like some of the clinic linens. Most of the laundry in this place smells the same, but this one’s from her home. In a kind of code blue burst of distraction, you wonder what her house is like. If she keeps the blanket on her bed.

Fuck! – you hear pop-pop of some of the yarn. She makes a noise and you hiss, “Oh, shit.”

“That’s alright.” You steal a glance and her eyebrows are a little scrunched. Shit. “Thank you.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright. It’s fixable… I think I can fix this.”

You’re up. Like this, full height, you tower. You haven’t been this close to her or seen her below the bellybutton but it shouldn’t shock you that she is wasted thin all over. You wouldn’t need to stretch your hands all the way to swallow up a thigh.

She catches you thinking. And holds up a finger.

“I’ll fix it.” She taps the back of your hand hanging at your side. Cool and dry. “Don’t worry.” You watch her tuck the blanket back around her lap; she lets you down easy you with a wink. “Thanks for the movie.” That’s what she’s been calling it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry about the blanket.”

“You can help me fix it if you like. Oh – Hannah. My phone… over on the table, would you mind…”

You fetch it for her.

Mostly you just hold where she tells you to hold. Mostly the blanket. But the hook thing too and the yarn, some, yeah. The table would strain her arms with a quickness. So the blanket's in her lap. Her chair is nosed up close to the couch. Angle’s a little weird. To get close enough, you have to work not to knock-knee into her. She asks: can you hold there? And you can. You hold two torn roses of the blanket together.

She pulls a big blunt needle in through the gaps and asks if you’ve done this before. You say you’ve sewed stuff a couple times. She asks if you liked it? Not really. She pulls the needle through the gaps. The connected line of yarn tickles along your elbow as she pulls and you twitch a little, bump her knee. Sorry. She laughs, you’re fine. Can you hold there? You hold there. And you say, for some dipshit reason, that you’ve always been better with paper stuff. Like mache, she wants to know? You say something.

Can you hold there? You hold there.

She asks if you play any instruments. You say something about the last album you listened to. But it was actually a few albums before that – it's just the only one you actually liked lately. She used to sing, if you could believe it. You could believe it. Hold there. You hold there. She pulls the needle through the gaps and laughs about something. The yarn comes together beneath her fingers. Your hands. Hold there. You hold there. She asks if you like to sing. You’re focused, you’re still holding, but you squirm a little and she says oh, that’s okay. Says she played pranks on her music teacher as a child. Before she got too sick. Glue in the drawer, dead bug in the sheet music. That type of thing. Hold there. She says when she used to tell stories about it, that she added on a bunch of terrible things he had done to deserve it. But he didn’t, really. Says she’s felt sorry over it for years, now, though he’s probably forgotten it if he was still up and around. Hold. She asks you something. Hold. You answer something.

Later, not much, over lunch, you drop your fork and knife so many times that a server offers you wet-naps. Unsolicited. For the “roll grease.”

It’s a good day. Her color is up. She tells you she’s begun some kind of aquatic physiotherapy, something easy on her joints. And she brought stuff. She even moved the tiny sidetable on her own, and angled it near where you normally sit. It’s topped with a neon buffet of origami paper.

“You mentioned you were better at paper crafts. I was hoping you could show me.” You aren’t even that good at it. You were just kind of whatever. It just popped out. “And, if you’ll let me be an old biddy… you pick at your nails in here.” She’s settled her chair close enough to reach the table. To watch. “I wanted you to have something else to futz with.”

You stop scratching at your thumbnail and look down at the selection. Green and pink and blue and yellow, all candy colors. You reach for green and start one. Her eyes are on you.

“Were you a teacher?” you ask.

Bird-tip of the head. “Never. Is this a teacher thing?”

“You know. Props.” You finish one. “Fidgets.” You start on another. “For the obnoxious kids. Give them something to do, so they don’t distract the others.” It’s been years but you find the rhythm again. You’ve already pumped out a few. “Starburst wrappers are good for like, little ninja stars. Not as big as these.” One time you surreptitiously filled up your deskmate’s water bottle with the things while the whole class was hunched and hushed with test-taking. Ackerly started seating you in the farthest empty row after that. “But they stopped selling them after a few years. Sione could still…”

The words wither and your mouth snaps shut. You fucked up the crease. Shit.

Ms. C’s looked off to the side. You wait for her to ask, Who? But all she says is, “You’re very good at that.”

Relief. “Yeah. Well.” Your shrug off a neck itch. Fish-flop a hand out, and roll your eyes. “Obnoxious.” The topic jabs like keys in your pocket. Next, please. Get a move on. We’re not getting any younger, Ackerly loved to smugly smug. “Do you know about the girl with the cranes?” you blurt. Fuck. C’s eyebrows hoist high. Fuck. “Um, when we – learning about it.” Her. “We watched a…”

Green and pink and blue and yellow. You take a yellow. You rotate it on the cool surface of the table like an idiot gear.

“Can I hear more?”

You don’t know why you mentioned it. You were just saying stuff. “I’m not being shitty.”

“Of course not,” she says, and there’s another bubble of relief. “Why would I think that?”

You peel up the corner, not enough to crease. To curl. “Saying stupid stuff.”

“You haven’t.” (You grunt.) “We’re just talking.”

“When you’re too nice to people,” you convince the paper to maintain a curl in your cupped hand, “it makes it look like you think they can’t handle anything. Like you have to lower the standards. Lower the bar.”

“Is that why you’ve been so nice to me?”

Your finger slips; your fold scattershots crooked. “What? No?” and “What?”

“You think everyone sees the little old crippled lady and wants to wait on her hand and foot?” She shakes her head. “Not everyone is like you.” She smiles at you, that dry, dredged up smile, like the fold on an overdue bill.

You shift an inch forward on the couch, knees to elbows, ready. “What, people fuck with you?”

“Sometimes.”

You think of the ushers. “People here?”

Her laughter glitters and clings to your shirt, your arms. You cross them. “Oh, don’t go getting kicked out! I would miss you. No, they treat me like gold here. But out in the world… out in the wild… I have to be quite direct at times.”

You watch her for a moment. She selects a sheet of bubblegum pink. You wait for her to begin to fold to ask, “Do you have a super bitchy side?”

Her eyes widen and she laughs; she laughs; the lines around her eyes deepen; she’s so charmed by you. “Please describe your vision of bitchy me.”

You’re warm to the voicebox. Your cheek cramps – alright, okay, tone down the cheese. “Bitchy, but like. Classy bitchy. Miranda Priestley bitchy. That's a good thing,” you make sure to add.

She hums. Watching your fingers as you return to folding. “I only hope it doesn’t come across as needy.”

“No way. I think you’re pretty badass.”

“Thank you.” Watching your fingers. They fumble. “Can you show me how to make one?” She holds up her aimless start. “I got a little gung-ho.”

“Yeah.” You take another sheet of pink and lay it down. “So, you wanna start with… um…” On the table, your hands are inches apart. The veins in the back of hers. The engine burn on the back of yours, from that night with the Ducati.

Like a cool draft on your neck. Your mouth dries. Your fingers…

You pull your hands back from the table.

“Gideon?”

“Actually. Actually, I uh.” You feel yourself lumber to your feet. In your slippers. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

You pick up the sidetable in one ill-advised scoop. You carry – waddle – walk it awkwardly back to where it normally sits. Have to angle it so the legs don’t hit her. The stack of lime green paper spills, fanning out, and sliding off like 52-card pickup.

She watches you and says, “That's alright.”

You place the table back down as gently as reasonable. You leave the paper tipped around. You feel drained suddenly. Leave the paper a mess. Don’t look at her. You’re back on the couch and scooting down. Away.

She masks the disappointment of you lying down. “You can take a nap. That’s always been part of the deal.”

“What I want is to stop talking.”

You hear your blood in your ears for a long while.

“That’s fine, too,” she says. She waits. “I don’t want you uncomfortable for the time you’re stuck here.” Stuck is right. “If there’s anything you want from me, you can ask. There’s a lot that you’ve done for me lately.”

“Yeah. Okay. Tell me something.” You drop your voice. “Why are you fucking with me still?”

She doesn’t answer. For a long, gravel road minute, you both sit in kidney stone silence. She doesn’t say shit.

So you generously fucking elucidate. “This whole thing. The whole thing. Oh sticking up for me, oh look how cool and understanding I am. Oh, look what happened by accident, I relaaated to you! Just a chill, understanding, accidental therapist. Give me a break. I know mindgames.” You hail from Chez Mindgames. “You want to play house –” hands flap out, hit me! “fine, whatever. People want to play house and think I don't notice stuff. I notice. Just because I haven't mentioned something doesn't mean I didn't notice.”

You hear her breathe. Somehow your eyes closed. When you force them open to look, something in your chest pinches. Her face is one long ache.

“What do you want me to say?” Her hands are out, too. “I can’t keep from wanting to help you. I’m not trying to hit you with my shrink ray. We can discuss only what you want to discuss. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you, Gideon… but when you choose to talk to me, I’ll be doing it as the voice of a friend. I don’t have any other approach. I don’t know why I would want one.”

“Because. You’re half-dead and fucking rotting by the day.” By the minute. “You’ve spent six weeks watching me fuck around with my thumb up my ass, pretending like you don’t want me to walk in front of traffic. Like I don’t piss you off for wasting your time. Wasting everyone’s time.” This whole thing was just lock-up with a facelift. With asspats. You’re a tall child to these people. “You keep pretending like you don’t think I’m just another jerkoff spoiled brat that is too expensive to tell, ‘No, you little shit. Shut the fuck up and do it. Fly straight.’ So, tell me that! Say it! I want to hear you say it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s honest. Be fucking honest.”

She’s too sad to look at. “We’re both dying, Gideon.”

“Oh barf, don’t get all fucking semantic about it!” You’re up. On your feet. On the tightrope again. Stomping that stupid tightrope. “Nyeh nyeh technically, if you think of it like mehmehmeh –” you jerked off the air. “Whatever!”

“They pulled you from a smoking wreck in a ditch,” voice firmer now. “They pulled you from –”

“I did that!” You spear a finger to your chest – “That was me! My fault!” You whip back and turn again. “Tell me I’m an idiotic nepo baby. A – a victimizing, whinging little prick leech. Not my fault they didn't leave me there.” You buried a dead kid in gravel to become a rich kid and then buried that kid in bottlecaps to become this kid who’s gonna bury herself into this fucking couch, natch. Overgrown dead kid all up in her couch. “You, you’re actually dying. So tell me to listen! Say, stop killing yourself, dickhead. Look, be nice to your liver! You need it to live! Hence the fucking name. Here’s what you get when you aren’t! Why don’t you just cut the nicey-nice horseshit and say what you’re really thinking?”

Only part of her that’s moved is her eyes. Tracking you across the room. She takes in a cooling breath. Bird-tip of the head. “You want to hear what I really think of you?”

“Yes! Here! Alright.” The leather cushion whoomfs under you when you retake your seat with a tailcoat flourish. And throw in a clap-clap. “Here we go. Let’s go. Let’s hear it.”

She breathes a moment longer. You can hear the rasp on the backend, like cloth cut uncleanly. Her hands sift over each other. “The truth is,” she breathes, “I don’t think you’re any of those things, Gideon. I think you’re very funny, and very frustrated.” She looks to the paper stars that spilled to the floor. You left one crushed underfoot. “I think you’re far kinder than you’ve been led to believe. Much shier than you’d like to think about. I think you like people, but don’t understand them well… and that makes it easy to feel unsafe around them. I think you’d like to feel closer to others than you manage to. That that’s hard to admit to yourself. And that no matter how much you want those connections, it’s nonetheless frightening when you feel that you’re close to succeeding –”

You’re up. Air bullies past your ears in a skydive rush – no – that’s the blood. In them. Hammering like an inmate. Ms. C hasn’t flinched.

You want to tell her to shut the fuck up. You want to tell her to never open her mouth around you or look at you again. You want her to fix it.

“We can stop if you want,” she says.

Feel like you’re. Wearing, fucking, moonshoes. Stalk to the door and open it – fumble to unlock it first – open it. Open the door. The ushers must have heard you down the hall. One was halfway there to meet you. Other two looking up gormlessly from their phones at one of the lounge tables.

“We’ve finished early today,” she says, calm. “Let her back to her room, please.”

The judge peered down and asked, do you want to get better? Do you actually want to get better?

You want to. But you can't imagine what that even looks like. That's some other guy. That's not you.

Why not try it. Why not. Maybe it could actually work this time. Or do something. At least do something. Bury as many dead kids as you can.

It feels right to say sorry.

She doesn’t want it. You did nothing wrong, she says. It’s only natural to want information. You say it anyway. Okay.

You still won’t talk about Dad. Or childhood. But with the other stuff, yeah. Okay, yeah. You’ll try.

She says you don’t need to lie down for it but in for a penny. And you started off like that, anyway. First day. Not that different. Not that different. Saves time if you end up rolling over and sleeping. If you want to. If you end up with that. It’s hard to keep your eyes open. Too bright. Yeah. “Like this?”

“However you like.”

You stick to the middle of the couch. Easier on your neck. You can’t turn to see her as easy. She asks you a few softballs. Just for form’s sake, she says. Your birthday. Height and weight. List ethnicity? Whatever. Actual allergies. Current medications. Past medications. Last period.

“Your endometriosis,” she says, when you ask why. “It can be a very debilitating condition if not treated. And if there’s some potential pattern in what you would like to discuss… pain can affect everything.” Right. That made sense. “And your hormones,” she said.

The three words feel like a hand on your thigh. You shift a little on the leather, find the cooler patches.

She asks, “How do you handle the pain?”

You jack it stupid style until six percocets kick in. And then pass out under a vibrator, usually. You still get random little ripples of agony here and there but really it only hits by the time you’re bleeding. And you’re irregular enough for it to stay a fun and exciting surprise. Yay. So far at Serenity Eastern you haven’t needed to hole up, but you should probably make a plan. If they haven’t already secretly decided that already. You shift on the couch. “Painkillers. Normal – you know, normal. Uh, hot water bottle.”

“Is that enough?” Yeah. Yes. “That’s good. I could prescribe something to help, if you wanted to try.” Yes. Okay. “When was your last period?”

You tell her. Her eyes widen. “That long? No chance of pregnancy?”

You splutter a wet laundry sack of a laugh. Oh, that felt good. To laugh. The pressure gone. A little. But you crane your neck to look at her and the squeeze is back. “Um, no. Hard no.”

She nods slowly, thinking. “If you still want to start with your love life, has it affected you there?” Uh, you don’t know. “Caused any tension in relationships? Have partners been understanding?”

You can’t find a comfortable position. You wet your lips. Your head is hot. “No. It, no. It’s fine,” you add.

“It’s understandable to feel unsafe, if your comfort isn’t a given. Endometriosis can be incredibly uncomfortable.” You’re incredibly uncomfortable. “Especially if partners insist on penetration.”

You find yourself electrified upright. Sitting up. That’s not comfortable either. “It – uh, it’s not a… intimacy thing.” Stomach in a bouncehouse. “That’s not the problem. It’s all the other stuff.”

“What kinds of ‘stuff’?”

She lets you collect yourself. You try to make good on it. Focus. Try it. Actually try it. “Like being… good at people. Understanding them. Like you said.”

“That has an awful lot to do with intimacy.”

“You know what I mean. When I say intimacy, I mean… like… sexual.” Your voice softens before you can help it. “Intimacy. I have experience,” you remind her, and scrub at your mouth.

“Yes, I know. I can’t imagine you'd be unpopular.”

Some kind of sound happens behind your hand, some mmmff. Tongue fat in your mouth like a sleeping bag.

“But you want to work on the things outside of that.” Yes. Yeah. “Intimacy spans so much more than sexuality.”

You don’t pick your fingernails. You collect yourself. “It’s easier with strangers. Like, pure strangers. I’m fine with them. I’ve stripped down for massages like fifty times here.”

“True. But there’s nothing expected of you, there. I wonder if it’s frightening to have to decide.” Paused. “When we don’t know what’s expected, that can be more stressful. Do you find it stressful?” You don’t answer. “What about it is most stressful?”

Your foot wants to bounce. You don’t. You’re lying down, again.

You fold up your knees, make a wall before yourself. You think.

“Like... okay.” You open your eyes and watch the ceiling. “I don’t want to get super in the weeds on details. But like, I went to a concert. With this girl. She was nice. But she wanted to… hold hands the whole time?” You risk a glance and look away again. “So I would hold it, and… she just kept going back for it.”

“What did you do?”

“I mean. I held it.” Of course you held it. “But I couldn’t think about anything else. The whole… whole time. She was still enjoying and shouting and, you know, woohoo!” But you just couldn’t. “I don’t even remember what songs were in the set.”

“Why couldn’t you think about anything else?”

“I don’t know.” Ow – you picked a hangnail bloody. “I didn’t know what would happen if I stopped thinking about it.”

“What were you worried would happen?”

You don’t know, fuck. Crush her hand without thinking? Yank away without meaning to? That would be such a dick move. She might cry. So you just held it. Whenever she wanted. The whole concert. When they finally finished the second encore and she let go to check her phone, you were cramped to your elbow with a hyper-aware rigor mortis that ached into the afterparty. You didn’t talk to her again after that.

Ms. C lets loose a quiet, careful hum. You wait.

“I’d like to try something,” she says. “Just to see.”

“Try what?”

“Just to see.”

You look over and watch her do something odd. Ms. C approaches you in her chair, and stops right next to you on the couch.

“We could try it now,” she says.

You heart thuds in your mouth like a boot in the ass. “H, uh, hold hands?”

The quiet hangs and ripens. She just watches you with those eyes, swamplight blue, solemn at the corners. They feel like merciful, breeze-easing pinpricks in the penitentiary wall some days. Now they feel like acupuncture.

The quiet starts to rot.

No therapist had ever asked to touch you. With good fucking reason. Only one of you would have walked out of there. But this… she’s done more in a couple months than they did combined, in years and years of poking and prodding. And she actually wants to help. And you have some kind of M.C. Escher ass ‘problems disorder.’

You wipe your hands over your knees three, four times.

She says it’s alright. “It's just us here.” You know that. “But it’s a little scary, isn’t it? That's okay.”

Okay. Okay. “A little scary.”

“Brave girl.” Crush of warm in your chest, like an angel stepped there. You grunt. Mouth is useless. “Let's try.” Every hair on your body comes to attention. Hair stands, pins you in place.

She breathes: “Here.”

Her skin is cool as glass. Softer than you thought. About as long as yours but worn and wan. Your hand, which you’ve used every day of your life, feels like some creature separate from you with her fingers wrapped around your four. Your thumb brushes her wrist. You hold it away.

“Not so bad,” she says. You make some sort of noise. “It’s alright. You won't hurt me, Gideon.”

Relief that you didn’t know you needed unplugs something in your head. You neck relaxes. Shoulders. Your hand relaxes.

Her thumb pets the back of yours in calligraphic dips. Your stomach cramps full-color. Your eyes close. You just – you, um.

“Good?”

You nod once. You don't want to talk. You’re feeling that thumb do some kind of Morse code to the back of your hand.

“Some people say your hands are your second face. That they say some very personal things about you.” You feel your thumb on her wrist, you hallucinate her pulse, thready. “A way to look without looking.” Mmmf. Your eyes are still closed. “Oh, feel there. Relax, again.” You relax. Her hand shifts in yours, shifting so she comes up under your thumb: you’re wrist-to wrist, now, her hideworn fingers still coiled around yours. Skin is touching and all your focus settles there. “That's it. Very good.”

Your throat clears to cover a sound. It tries to.

“Not so bad,” she murmurs. “Right?”

“... not so bad.”

“How else is it?”

You don’t want to talk. You sound too loud to yourself. “Um, m-my hand’s sweating.”

“You want to let go? That’s alright.” The smile in her voice blankets around you. Your face is hot. “That was good, Gideon.”

The second she says that you think you can hold a little longer. You don’t let go. She doesn’t, either. Doesn’t mention it. She sits next to you in the quiet. “How does it feel?”

“... like you can tell what I’m thinking.”

She takes long enough to answer that you peek up at her through your eyelashes. She’s smiling. “I promise I can’t,” she whispers.

And that’s your moment of clarity.

Ding ding ding. More asspats.

Slowly, you pull your hand away. You mean to fold it over your chest with the other one. But it… “This is fucking stupid.” What a nothingburger of a problem. “Teach me to tie my shoes next.”

A beat. You hear her sigh as she shuffles hair behind her shoulder. “You think this isn’t a good use of time?”

Your other hand wavers. You bring it to your chest. Tight chest. “It’s a minor thing. Let’s focus on the bigger things.” It’s good you’re lying down – you’re dizzy.

“When most people hold hands, they don’t count down until they can let go.”

“So say I'm a freak and let’s move on.”

She does something she’s never done before. Not in front of you. She sighs with – exasperation. Dim shock buzzes you at how much it hurts.

“You’re… Look at me, Gideon.”

She takes your hand again. Takes it. In both of her cool, worn-down, stubborn hands. You can’t move. Instant paralysis to your shoulder. You would never get that hand back. She’s spent thirty-odd years armwrestling death, you’re not getting that back.

She squeezes. The tendons tremble. “You’re a human being. And you’re in pain.” Something in your chest gives way like iced-over water. “You’re in pain. This isn’t some failure of yours. It’s not. No. You’re in pain, and you don’t know how to make it stop.” Her hands tighten. Your lungs tighten. “We do… breath-taking, treacherous things to get clear of pain, Gideon. Shameful things. And hide it from ourselves and dress it up as something else that can hurt us. That doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you – spoiled, or ungrateful, or any of those things. My God, Gideon! – it only makes you another living creature knocking around on this damned rock.”

Cramping. Hitching, in your chest. Some quick-acting poison starting in your chest and radiating outward in razoring whorls.

“Oh – I'm so sorry, Gideon.” Her eyes are terrible this close. Little pockets of cosmos. Beautiful, and bright, and alien. Lights at the end of the tunnel. “So many people have let you down.”

Scorching, shrapneling pressure bullies into your lungs, piece by jabbing piece. It hurts. Hurts. Fucking hurts.

You turn to her for – answer. Guidance. Something. Her eyes pull you in. “What do I,” you gasp. You gasp again. You can’t get enough air in you suddenly. You feel like you’ll fall, flat on your back.

She looks so sad. At you, pitying you, that’s so – and her hands wrap around yours and hold you. She tries to smile, tries to comfort you. “You have to feel it.”

You’re in the dark. Leather whimpers under your head and your body jerks once, like being shocked from sleep, like hitting a divider doing 80. And she says it again and then it’s on you in waves.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts. Oh, fuck, it hurts.

You curl in on yourself. Pain floods in from every angle. Something’s hissing, like a release valve – it’s you – sucking air – you bark in shock. Your hands clawing at the leather. You capsize. Turn yourself, over, gravity grating, groan and hiccup – “God!” – your body begs and buckles to fit around whatever this is, coming for you like a cave-in.

Through the haze you feel her move next to you (“Here, shhh, here, here…”) blanket in lap. Like when you stand up and suddenly feel how drunk you are – but you’re already down, you’re already – coughing. Some phantom reaches in your stomach and yanks your guts like stuck Christmas lights, you shout. You’re muffled. You're facedown in her lap and you smell flowers, your head moves. Your mouth moves. You’re in her lap. Touching you. She’s touching your cheek. You flinch from her hand and she says oh, sweet, don’t.

“Relax – here. Head down. Relax. You won’t hurt me. I know. Brave girl. Oh, brave girl. Look, look at me…” Touch on your face, wet, turn you to the light and you taste concussion in your mouth. She breathes, “Oh, marvelous.” Hand on your face your body won’t pull you from. Your insides are trying to trade places. “Shhh, here… here… I know. Yes. You perfect thing.”

You can’t tell where it’s all coming from. Like you woke up in the belly of a pestle and ground, ground, ground. You want to shout. You can’t shout – or cough – you’ll crack her femurs like pretzel sticks. Have to get up. Get up. Get up and go. You have to get out of this room. Scrape a swipe over your face, sobbing, fuck you’re actually – “Sorry –” you pull away an inch.

But her hand tightens on the back of your neck: “Stay.”

Couldn’t hold open a screen door on a windless day. But the touch unplugs your power cord. The voice. You don’t want to hurt her hand. You sink back onto the blanket. Onto her.

“There.” Face back in her lap. Eyelashes brush the yarn, you’re crying. Hushing you. Brush of her voice and the garden smell fills up your whole head like foam. Pressure on you. Good pressure. Her hand. She strokes an anesthetic stripe from your crown down the back of your neck while your body chews itself. “That’s good, Gideon.”

Something was happening, even if it hurt, even if – but maybe this is how it works. Waves like radiation through the body, cleaning you. Maybe this is how it works. She’s clearing the way. She’s cleaning you out.

Time crumbles awhile. Quieter. You’re quieter. Pain softens. Passes. Becomes some neighbor to seasick. The tears have stopped. But she keeps stroking your hair. So it isn’t time to move. You stay.

Even you know crying releases happy stuff. In the brain. You feel stretched out. Emptied. Gross but good-tired. Humid. Sleepy. The body. Ticking cool. Like an engine. Like gently wiping out, in a lazy wave. Or cheekdown, on the tile, after a night of puking. It kind of feels like you just got fucked.

And she’s stroking your hair. Stroking your hair. Like peeling something, something from you. Peeling something off of you. Peeling, something, you, until you’re this warm, shaking, golden thing on the blanket.

She calls you brave girl. Knows you’re trying. She can see it. Says you’re being so good. Oh, God. You want to be good.

She touches along the back of your neck and the bowl of bone beneath your ear, she touches the fine baby hairs along your temple. Touches the gap between your eyebrows, touches you, touching you. She could touch you anywhere and anywhere and you wouldn’t even flinch.

“Now. Brave girl.” Stroking your hair. You are butterflied backwards, a chrysalis undressed. You are some soft thing of hers. “Listen closely: