Page 91 of 32 Days in May

I shake my head. “I knew that would happen—I knew if he knew I was sick, we wouldn’t have ever spent the last month the way we did—that he would feel different about me, fundamentally, as a person. And then . . . then he wouldn’t have ever pulled me out of myself.”

Dr. Antoniou makes a noise in the back of his throat. “You didn’t want him to see you the way everyone else has started to see you.”

I nod. “Weak. Incapable. Stalled.”

He draws his brows together, knitting them in a look of gentle admonishment. “Is that how you see yourself?”

I yank my gaze away and direct it toward the window. It’s pouring rain out, and I imagine poor Liv fighting against an edgy, soaking crowd on her hunt for a decent hoagie. “I really don’t need you to be my therapist right now.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” He stands to leave, smoothing his hand down his khaki-clad thighs. He turns back to me, one last time. “By the way, just because you feel something does not mean it’s true. Just because Marco thinks everyone sees him as a massive failure and embarrassment doesn’t mean he is. Would you agree?”

I nod again.

“Okay. So, when I tell you that just because you feel like your life is over, please consider . . .” He bobs his head side to side. “Please consider that maybe it’s not.”

January 6

Before everything

“You will get better.”

I’m beginning to believe I was put on Earth to single-handedly destroy Audrey’s patience.

“But I should be able to work by now,” I push back. I’m taking today’s session with a pillow held tight to my stomach. I’ve been gaining weight at a remarkably fast pace, and I’m afraid she might notice.

“Nadia.” Audrey leans forward, bringing her hands together in a prayer motion. Like she’s literally begging me to stop being such a dick. “You’re doing a lot of really hard things right now. You’re in and out of doctor appointments constantly, you’re here with me—”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I cut her off. “I should be doing all of it. I’m healthy.” Except I sleep thirteen hours a night and still wake up feeling like I spent hours treading water.

She reads the room. “Okay, even if there’s nothing wrong with you, can you admit that you haven’t been feeling like yourself?” Audrey leans back in her chair and takes a protracted sip of tea, giving me a second to think before I lash out. She got her bangs trimmed over the weekend, and I have to keep myself from telling her how pretty she looks. We’re at war. There’s no time for compliments.

“Why would I want to feel like me? I fucking suck. I’m an absolute embarrassment to what I told myself I would be by now. Everything I wanted to be when I was a kid, I’m the exact opposite. We won’t even get into the fact that I had my dream life. I had it, and I fucked it.” I pause to take a breath. Then, I start counting off on my fingers: “I’m running out of money. I’m running out of energy. I sleep thirteen hours a day. I don’t talk to anyone other than you. I’m running out of ways to lie to myself and say that this is all part of some bigger, better plan. It’s just . . . I’m nothing. I am a no one.” I end my rant with a heavy gulp.

Audrey watches me carefully, without any judgment. She watches me like I’m a caterpillar on a leaf. Then, after a moment of silence, she says: “Okay. You’re no one.”

I watch her, my chest heaving with the effort of expulsing all my trauma “Right.”

“If you’re no one, then . . . what does that make your work?”

I drop my eyes to the carpet between our feet. Was not expecting that. “I don’t know. What did I ever really do? Convince people to buy junk from brands that hated them? Nothing, I did nothing. My work was nothing.”

“And if your work was nothing, then what was your job?”

“Nothing,” I say quietly.

“And Kai firing you? Saying the terrible things he said to you?”

“Nothing.”

“And all that pressure you carry around? That sense of obligation you feel to do and to be? If you’re no one and your work is nothing, what is that?”

“Nothing,” I say with something that feels an awful lot like confidence. “It’s nothing. It’s total bullshit. It’s a fucking scam. It’s . . . it’s something I made up.”

I look up to find that Audrey is smiling at me. She holds up her hands and does a little razzle-dazzle.

“Nihilism. Kind of fun.”

Audrey has cracked open a door in my mind, with rusted hinges and moss grown over the frame; a door so long neglected that we spend our entire session just clearing away the debris that keeps me from reaching the handle.