“I see someone very smart, very sad, and very…” She pauses.
A long pause.
“…lonely,” she concludes.
I don’t know what to say to that. Can’t meet her eyes. Just watch as she flicks through her notes.
“You haven’t had a visitor in...over a month.”
I shift in my seat. “My mom’s a partner in her firm. She’s slammed.”
That’s the truth. But that’s always been the truth. My mom doesn’t visit because she doesn’t want to visit. She’s seeing someone now, I think—Max, a name I glimpsed on her contacts list.
“Any friends?”
How do I even answer that? “School,” I reply, a one-word explanation that actually explains nothing. “This is kind of out of the way.”
“Mm.” Jessie closes her notes, and the silence between us turns into the kind of evaluative silence I can’t stand.
“So that’s your diagnosis?” I ask. “Smart, sad, and lonely?”
“It’s not a diagnosis,” Jessie says. “Except by elimination. It’s more of a…therapeutic observation. Make of it what you will. But that’s my opinion as a professional based on what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen.” She pauses. “I’m not saying you don’t belong here. You can stay here as long as?—”
“—the check clears?” I mutter.
“—as you need,” Jessie finishes. Again, she rolls her red lips together. “Sometimes a retreat from…everything is good. To get clarity. To be alone with your thoughts.”
“Like an anchoress,” I say without thinking.
Jessie quirks an eyebrow. I rub the back of my neck.
“It’s…they were women in the Middle Ages,” I explain, stupidly. “Who’d give up their worldly goods and go live a life of contemplation in a…cell, basically.”
Julian of Norwich’s words echo in my head.All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Will they, though?
“I see,” Jessie says. “So…right. It can be helpful, to a point. But for you, Gwenna…” She stops herself. “Unless there’s anything youhaven’ttold me?—”
No.
I try not to visibly stiffen.
Even now, I can’t tell anyone the secret I know.
That Kai told me. That they all kept from me.
It’s all real. Magic. Miracles. The holy spirit. Whatever the fuck you want to call it.
I’m not stupid. I know that nattering on to my Renfrew therapist about the Holy Grail is a one-way ticket to PC.
So I shake my head at Jessie.
“No.”
She nods. “Then I don’t think youneedto be here any longer than you want to be.” She gets up and opens the door, releasing me to the hallway. “Take some time to think it over, okay?”
“Sure.”
