Page 13 of Love Undecided
Chapter 7
Kat
Even though I was in the shower by six forty-five am, I'm five minutes late to my therapist appointment. Her office is located in a little strip mall with nondescript frontage. If you didn't know it was there, well, you'd never know it was there.
But the inside is very calming: soft gray-blue painted walls, a waterfall in the corner that is always running, and extremely cushy and comfortable furniture. Her office has a way of making me want to sink down in that furniture, go to sleep, and never wake up again.
I look at her now and see that she's waiting, pencil poised, for me to start talking. She's already asked me how I'm feeling.
I wait to see if she'll do the thing. It only took me a couple visits to figure out what her thing is: double tap of the pencil eraser on her shoulder. I’m pretty sure she does it whenever she's agitated. Clearly, I agitate her.
Tap. Tap.
Satisfied, I start talking,
"It's been a good week, I think. In fact, I don't even think I have anything to talk about."
"Really?" she asks.
"Yep,” I say, putting unnecessary emphasis on the 'p' to make a popping sound.
"So, you've stopped drinking, you aren't taking random strangers home to have sex, and your cancer is cured?"
"Nope, nope, and nope,” I say, still popping the ‘p’ with each nope.
Tap. Tap.
"Well then, start talking," she says. “Tell me about the drinking."
"Ok, I'm still drinking."
"How much?"
"Um . . . a lot," I say.
"Why?" she asks.
Tap. Tap.
"Same reasons as before. I like it. It feels good. It tastes good. It blurs the lines of reality, makes everything that much more tolerable. It dulls the sharp edges. Helps me sleep."
"Are you still mixing the sleeping pills with the alcohol?"
"Sometimes."
She writes something down in her little notebook. So I add, “But not every time, definitely not every night. Just when I know it's going to be a rough night."
“How do you know when it's going to be a rough night?"
"I don't know, when I can't shut my brain off, can't get my body to stop buzzing, can't shake that sense that I've forgotten something, that I'm missing something. Can't get the pain to go away."
"Are you in more pain than before? Or having more anxiety than before? Have you spoken with your Meds Counselor about this?"
Tap. Tap.
"I have. And, before you ask, I tell him pretty much everything about how much I drink too. For the most part."
"What does 'for the most part' mean?"
