Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104657 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 523(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104657 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 523(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
I step aside to let her into the kitchen for a glass of water. As she fills it from the faucet, she pulls her hair out of a hair tie and shakes her head.
“Speaking of help. Do you think you need some? You know, beyond running.”
She drinks the water, her breath still labored as she sets the empty glass onto the counter. “Because I’m here, working at a café? Or because I make up stories about my life that aren’t real? A father who sends me kites. Growing up on two different continents. Attending medical school because my father wanted me to when in reality, I’m a psychiatrist because he took his own life. Or do I need help because I turned down the job at Johns Hopkins and lied to my mom about them giving me an extension? Oh, maybe I need help because I watched your father die, and I pretended it was my father, whom I’ve never met. And I thought by doing so, it would help me deal with reality. But how ridiculous is that? I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to see how fucked up that is.”
I sip my coffee, buying time to formulate a response because I’m in over my head. “Sounds like a multiple choice, but is there an all-of-the-above option?”
Her shoulders sag. “What you said last night about having me? I’ll let you take that back. I wouldn’t blame you. Things were intense in the moment. I was an emotional mess. So you can go. No hard feelings.”
“Everleigh”—I shake my head and squint—“I don’t want to take back anything. I said I’ve got you, and I meant it. But I don’t think I can do this alone. I think it’s my job to make sure you get the help you need.”
“No one wants to be my psychiatrist or therapist. I will micromanage everything. It will piss me off when they try to act like they know more than I do, and I’ll quickly discover they don’t because they are normal people with real lives, not prodigies like me who consume case studies and the latest research for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They have kids and significant others who require their time. I have gaming. I used to have Marie Curie, but I killed her because I didn’t unplug my curling iron.”
She gives me a toothy grin. “See how I’ve taken responsibility for that and no longer blame you? And I did it all by myself. This ‘help’ you speak of? I will be diagnosed with delusional disorder, but it won’t fit nicely into one category, which makes treatment more complicated. So I’ll be prescribed antipsychotic medications and maybe mood stabilizers and antidepressants. Then I’ll go through therapy, probably CBT and maybe DBT. If I don’t respond to that, there’s always hospitalization and ECT, which involves an electric current through my brain to intentionally cause a seizure. And that’s the goal, not a side effect. The side effects include confusion, headaches, nausea, and memory loss. Now do you want out? Because I don’t want you to play the hero without full disclosure.”
I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t fit the words past my heart that’s lodged in my throat.
“Will”—she rubs her temples—“I’m a liar. A good liar. A convincing liar. That’s my crime. That’s my disorder. And my lies are about one thing. One person. Was it triggered or exacerbated by skipping pivotal moments in my psychological and emotional development because I was bestowed this gift? Absolutely. But I don’t want to dissect it. I don’t want to spend the foreseeable future rehashing the past. And I know how mind-blowing that might sound coming from a psychiatrist, but it’s because I’ve spent my entire adult life digging, dissecting, analyzing, separating correlation from causation, lumping every single fucking human action into the proper category so I can diagnose and treat what might just be one of a million variants of normal human behavior. So the help I need is called time.”
Where is Jamie? I can’t do this. Everleigh is infinitely smarter. She can debate anyone and win. What am I supposed to say?
“Time for what?” I ask for lack of a better response.
Her shoulders slump, and I don’t mean to sound stupid, like I’m missing the whole point, but maybe I am.
“Why do you think I’m here?” she asks.
“I think you’re running away.”
“Running from what?”
Pulling a long breath through my nose, I set my coffee on the counter and cross my arms over my chest. “Your past? The lies? I don’t know.”
“Physician, heal thyself. What am I to learn from this? Humility? Hypocrisy? Self-care?”
I wait, in case it’s a rhetorical question. But she doesn’t continue, so I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Until I’m better, I can’t help anyone else. And maybe that means I need help. But I don’t work that way. If I can’t solve this problem, then how am I supposed to feel qualified to help others? So I’m taking a step back. I’m working for minimum wage at a place where I’m overqualified, and where my boss laughs out loud at the idea of my being a prodigy.”