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“Dr. Modorovic mentioned you’ve had trouble sleeping?”
“If I could sleep, I would.”
“Are you familiar with the concept that neural pathways form while we sleep, that when learning a new skill, like thepiano for example, it’s recommended to practice every day, so that every night your brain can connect the dots?”
Alek nodded. During the countless hours he had spent scouring the internet for a way to find the music he lost, he’d stumbled upon the science behind the promise he’d made to his uncle.
“I wonder what might happen with your music if you get a few weeks of solid sleep under your belt…” she mused.
Probably nothing more than make him look a little less haggard.
Ian cleared his throat. “He started trazodone yesterday and slept through the night. Right, Alek?”
Alek resented his sleeping schedule being monitored like a colicky infant, but nodded once in agreement.
As if sensing Alek’s irritation with the line of questioning, Dr. Dhawan said, “Why don’t you tell me what you’d like to get out of our partnership?” She gave a lazy flick of her wrist. “If I could wave a wand and give you exactly what you want, what would it be?”
Music was the obvious answer, but it wasn’t what he wanted most of all. In a rare moment of honesty born from desperation, he admitted, “I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”
She frowned, lifting her hand to her chin. “How do you hurt people?”
“How long do you have?”
Dr. Dhawan smiled and inclined her head.
Alek cast a glance at Ian. His eyes were glued to the page of his book, but Alek would eat his piano if he wasn’t eavesdropping.
“I say things even though they hurt, even though they might not be true. I’ve done unforgivable things?—”
“Let me stop you there,” she said.
How unexpected. Weren’t psychiatrists supposed to listen inbenevolent silence while their patients espoused a lifetime of trauma?
“What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.
River rocks knocking against each other, the rough scrape of a piano bench over parquet floors, the warmth of his uncle’s arm against his shoulder, initials carved into the side of a piano, ash over keys that cut like broken glass beneath his fingers.
Breaking Ian’s heart was a very close second.
“Let me pose a question,” Dr. Dhawan prodded. “What if Ian did the things you’ve done? Would you say he was a bad person?”
“Ian wouldn’t.”
“But if he did,” she pressed. “Would you still love him? Think highly of him?”
Alek pulled his hand free from Ian and crossed his arms. “No. It would change who he is. It would make him a coward.”
With a wry smile, the psychiatrist said, “Ian, I apologize in advance.”
“Do what you have to do,” Ian said, flipping to the next page of his book—rather exaggeratedly, in Alek’s opinion.
“So Alek, you’re saying Ian has never made a mistake? He’s never done something that hurt someone, even inadvertently? He’s perfect, all of the time? No flaws?”
“This exercise might work on your other patients, but I'm afraid it won’t work on me. The things I’m guilty of aren’t on the same level as Ian’s inability to cook anything remotely edible and his neurotic fanaticism for house cleaning.”
Undeterred, Dr. Dhawan asked, “Have you ever heard of cognitive distortions?”
Cognitive distortions sounded like a fitting name for a band, or perhaps a strain of weed.
