July:Sure.
July:
Therapist:
Therapist:Okay. Let’s keep going. Did you happen to try the mock interview exercise I recommended?
July:I’m sorry. The what?
Therapist:The exercise where you imagine you’re sitting with everyone you’d like to talk to, and you’re asking them all the questions you want to ask? And letting them answer?
July:Oh. Right. Yes, I tried it.
Therapist:What did you think?
July:It was nice.
Therapist:Can you help me understand what you mean by “nice”?
July:I don’t know.
Therapist:
July:
Therapist:Okay. Let me try another question. Were you able to picture those conversations in a way that was helpful for you?
July:I mean, that’s the problem, right? That’s what makes it impossible to trust the conversations. The interviews. Because it’s all there.
Therapist:Where?
July:In my head.
13.
now
I’m pushing through the forest, and at last I break into a clearing. Not even a clearing, really, but a small space without any undergrowth. Just a spot of long grass starred with a few flowers and something... else. I point my phone’s light down so I can see better in the dusk.
A... notebook?
It’s open. I reach down to touch it and pull my hand back as if it’s been bitten by a snake.
It’s myjournal.
How did it get here?
I threw it into the water.
No one saw me do it.
And I’m not anywhere near where I threw it. I’m clear on the other side of town.
I reach out again and pick up the journal.
It’s swollen, ruined, all of the pages illegible. Waterlogged, then dried out, now damp again from the grass.
It’s fallen open to a certain spot. A sprig of leaves has been stuck inside like a bookmark.
