“It’s hard, isn’t it?” She grins knowingly, crossing her legs at the ankles. “We’re used to giving the advice, not taking it.”
I nod slowly, my mind elsewhere. She brings the mug to her mouth, takes a long sip, savors it. “Do you have a journal, Sarah?”
I shake my head.
“You might find one useful,” she suggests, leaning back, settling the mug on her knee. “They can really help organize your thoughts.”
“Well, I have a website.” I tap my nail against the ceramic cup, thinking. “I use it to keep my followers updated…about the house, I mean.”My followers.God, I sound like a dickhead.
She says nothing, just lets me talk. Lets me find my own answers. And I find one.
“You know,” I say slowly, pressing my back against the couch, “it’s funny about my website. I never seem to end up writing about the house…”
“What do you write about?”
The truth, Emily. I write the truth. I write about the stubborn little stains of my life, the ones I can’t scrub out. But I don’t tell her this.
“Just random things,” I say vaguely and take a sip of the cooling coffee. “My feelings.”
She nods eagerly. “That’s good! That’s good.”
“No, it’s not,” I say.
“Don’t be afraid of the truth,” she says. “Be afraid of believing your lies.”
I tear my eyes away from her and focus on the rug again. “Lies aren’t so bad,” I whisper.
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘You repeat what you don’t repair’?”
“No.”
“Well,nowyou have.” She laughs. “Do you feel like it rings true to you?”
Yes, actually. I think of the dream I had about the forest. I was standing in the darkness, lost in the deepest part of the forest, and it didn’t even matter.
I’ve always been lost.
We fall silent for a long time. Emily doesn’t have a clock in her office, and there’s something calming about that. Like I can take my time in here and she won’t mind at all. In my own office, the wall clock ticks loudly.Tick, tick, tick.Time’s running out, it says.Spill your guts, and then fuck off. Tick, tick, tick.
“When you write down your feelings on your website,” she finally says, “do you ever refer back to them?”
“No,” I say, horrified. “I delete them all.”
“Maybe next time, don’t.”
Well, that sounds fucking terrifying. I shift in my seat, cradle the mug in my left hand.
“Sarah?”
Slowly, I raise my head. Emily’s blond plait falls softly over her stomach. It’s tied with a blueberry ribbon. It’s pretty. “What really brings you here today?”
My pulse throbs in my neck. I’ve used this on clients before too.Why are you really here?Dig deep. It’s never what you think it is.
I see therapy as layers of skin. The first level is what I call the epidermis-level shit. The “I’m in therapy because I hate my mum.”
Below it is the dermis. The meatier level. Then it’s “I hate my mum because she didn’t give me enough attention.”
Until, finally, we reach the subcutaneous level. The very bottom, where the truth has buried itself. Then it’s “I hatemyselfbecause my mum made me feel worthless.”
