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“You think I would have shot myself?”
“There were times when I thought you were capable of that, yes.” He sits down on the rolling stool by the bed and lays his notebook on his lap. He pulls a pen from his pocket and opens up a blank page. “It’s been a long time since we talked, though. You’re going to have to catch me up.”
I look at him for a long moment as I remember all the sessions I’d had with him in the past. We always talked about my experiences while I was deployed because there was nothing in the present I either could talk about or was willing to talk about. He’d occasionally offer me some insight, but I’d never gotten much out of it.
“No,” I say as I shake my head.
“No?” Mark cocks his head and looks at me quizzically. “You don’t want to talk?”
“I don’t want to talk about the past,” I tell him. “I want…I want…”
I can’t find the right words. I lick my lips and concentrate, but I don’t know what I want to say.
“I have a girl,” I finally tell him. “Alina. I want to make things right with her.”
“Are you fighting?” he asks.
“No, not at all.” I’m not saying the right things. “The last girl dumped me, and I don’t want that to happen again. I don’t want to fuck this one up.”
“All right, Evan,” Mark says as he holds up his notebook. “I have to get a few things out of the way first so I can complete your assessment. Then let’s focus on the new relationship. Does that sound okay?”
“Yeah.”
We go over everything I remember and everything I don’t. We talk about how I feel physically and how I feel about being out of it for nearly two months. I tell him that I don’t seem to feel the same now as I did before.
“How do you feel different?”
“I just…I don’t think of things the same way.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Things that used to get me really upset just…well, they don’t anymore. I don’t care.”
“An example would help me understand.”
“Like, I’ve got all these businesses, right?”
“I understand you had quite an inheritance, yes.”
“I don’t even want them. I don’t want anything to do with them. I’m supposed to care. I’m supposed to run them like Rinaldo did. I told him I would. That promise wasn’t made lightly or anything. I mean…I meant it when I told him I would do it. But now…”
“Your priorities have changed?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Priorities. That’s the word I wanted. Those things that were important just aren’t on the priority list anymore. It’s not even that they moved down—they aren’t there at all. I keep waiting for Ralph to show up and tell me how screwed up I am, but he hasn’t.”
“Who’s Ralph?”
I pause, realizing I slipped up. I never should have mentioned him.
How is he going to help me if I don’t tell him?
“Ralph is kind of hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“I dunno.” I shrug and look at Mark. “He’s my imaginary friend, I suppose. He’s usually around when I haven’t slept and I’m stressed out or having a panic attack. I know he isn’t real, but I see him anyway.”
“Did this start after you woke up here?” Mark asks. He’s doing his best not to look concerned, but it’s not working. His fingers tense around his pen.
