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But she sat still as a statue, emitting nothing but kindness and acceptance.
“Would you like to tell me what’s on your mind right now?”
Noah. Noah picking up his jacket yesterday. Noah asking me out this weekend.
“Guilt.”
“Could you expand on that?”
“I’ve realized that under my anxiety, there’s a lot of guilt at the core.”
Dr. Silk brightened. “Guilt is often the seed of it, yes.”
“And my anxiety. This week it’s been…”out of my head. Following me around. Disgrace took on the form of my ex. I’m losing my mind.“It’s been easier to deal with.”
“You seem calmer,” Dr. Silk said with a twinkle in her eye.
Oh, right. She was perceptive.“I feel calmer,” I said, crossing my arms protectively.
Her eyes flicked down, then returned to mine, but she did not comment.
I continued. “I feel like… a lot of layers of my anxiety are put on hold, for some reason. It feels weird, but freeing.”
“On hold means you expect them to resume at some point.”
“I guess part of me does,” I said, thinking what I’d thought for the past few days. Wondering about what Bo said, about “making peace” with all the ink-people. If I made peace with what Grayson was now—this Ink-Grayson, did that mean I’d have to deal with Disgrace in my head again? Because honestly, I didn’t agree with Bo.
Your demons are way easier to deal with when they aren’t in your head.
But then again, Bo had different demons.
“Anyway. It’s easier now to think about what happened with my mother. I don’t feel the same things in my body as I used to when I’d start thinking about it—”
“The trembling sensation?” she asked.
I looked down at my hands. “Yeah. In my stomach.” I paused. “I don’t feel that now.”
“Your hands are still, too,” she pointed out.
“Yeah—yeah!Huh, I didn’t even realize that I haven’t been… doing that. But yes, for the past few days, it’s felt safe enough to think about it. So I figure it’ll feel safe enough to try talking about it.”
Dr. Silk waited patiently. I wondered how it was possible to be so chill. The only time I’d ever been anywhere close to that relaxed was after I took a puff from Grayson’s blunt last week.
Which was a risk in and of itself—
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Dr. Silk offered.
“No, I’m sorry, I know I’m stalling. My mind is just all over the place this week. But ironically, I feel the best I’ve felt since my mom died.”
I closed my eyes so I could shut off the lights. So that I wouldn’t have to see Dr. Silk’s face and try to scan her for a reaction. I clutched the edge of the couch, reminding myself that I still had something to hold onto.
I drew in a shaky breath. “The only person I’ve ever told this to was Grayson. And he’s… he’s used it against me. Before.”
“This is a safe space, Grace. Anything you tell me will not leave this room.”
“I killed my mom,” I blurted out, running my hands through my hair.
The silence pressed in on my ears. I could hear a high-pitched buzzing noise. Here it was again, that weird magnetism thing that Dr. Silk always did where she created space for me to fill up with my words…
