I sat on my bed and watched the big hand on the plastic travel-size clock tick-tick past ten. At ten-oh-eight the floor nurse comes in asking did I forget. I didn’t. Individual therapy is not voluntary, she says. She walks me down the hall. “What’s the matter with you?” She thought I was over this refusal. I’ve been in ten weeks now. One month in I played possum with the flu and skipped two sessions. I needed time to think. Time to accept my change of address. To decide I was worth the work, the sacrifice, the walking through quicksand. “I thought you liked Dr. Dearborn,” she says. Not today. “What’s so special about today?” she wants to know. Why the sudden change of heart. “It usually takes a girl to the three-month mark before she realizes the road ahead is almost too much.” “I’m a fast learner,” I say. It’s true. I thought a lot about our last visit and how I was held prisoner inside my own mind, and I don’t know if I can live up to expectations. I don’t know if I want to try.
