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“No,“ I say. “I don’t think we’re going to go back to the way things were, but is that necessarily a bad thing?“
“Are you saying I should sleep with Rei after this is all done?“
“No, but I’m really interested to explore how you jumped to that conclusion,“ I say.
He laughs. “And you’re not upset by that?“
“What you do with your life is your business,“ I say. “It sounds confusing because he’s, you know, your coworker. And also you’re his boss. This might be wild, but have you spoken to him about it?“
He shakes his head. “How do I even broach this?“ he asks. “Rei is so private. I feel like we’ve worked with him for years and we still hardly know anything about him.“
He’s right, of course. Rei isn’t exactly closed off, but what he shares about himself is usually incidental. We know a lot about him by virtue of being around him and little else. I’m struggling to listen to Misha, though, because I’m mostly only thinking about Trine.
I’m angry. Jealous. I don’t know why. She’s not–we’re not anything. Still, there’s part of me that feels like I should’ve been there, and that’s a part of me I’m really trying to ignore.
“You might as well ask him,“ I say. “I’m sure he needs to process it too.“
“Or maybe he doesn’t, and he just thinks it’s a thing that happened, and I’m just going to make him super uncomfortable,“ he says. “Which, I get it, I am his boss. And we need him. He’s the most qualified person I know.“
“We could replace him,“ I say.
“Yeah, let’s not instead,“ he says, a smile on his face. “I really should’ve thought this through better. To be honest with you, something about being around Trine makes me crazy.“
“Crazy?“
“Yeah,“ he says. “Like I don’t think about consequences crazy. Like I’m…like I have no impulse control. I feel like a teenager around her and it’s not good.“
Okay, so maybe it’s not just me. And maybe it’s better if I tell him. I don’t think he’s going to judge me. I can confess later when I go to mass, but it might be easier if I have these two to keep me accountable.
That’s when I decide. No more secrets.
“I know what you mean,“ I say. “And, uh, there’s something I need to tell you.“
TRINE
Ihave never been institutionalized before, and I definitely don’t want to do it again.
I don’t have my clothes, and when I get there, I’m given what I assume are clothes from the lost and found. None of them fit me quite right and I don’t have any bras. I notice that all the tags are cut and the fabric is surprisingly soft. Not that this is the kind of thing I want to be wearing. They smell like very strong detergent, and I don’t want to think about where the clothes have been before they were handed to me.
The facility itself is surprisingly nice. From the outside, it looks like an older house with a wraparound porch and a tall, expensive-looking fence. Guess these are the perks of my mom having me on her insurance, I think as I look out the window. There might be bars on it, but the view is impressively pretty.
To the point where I’m just really glad I won’t be the person who has to pay for this stay.
They’re supposed to have me see a doctor, but this is intake, and I don’t think I’m going to see anyone for quite a bit. I wasn’t searched because I had come right from the hospital, but I assume that, if I hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have spared me.
I sit in a large room that looks like it’s out of a design magazine that might be found at a dentist’s office, the windows wrapping around the office. The woman doing my intake looks like she’s in her mid-forties, with straight raven black hair and dark eyeshadow. She smiles a lot, which I find slightly surprising. I guess she does it to set patients at ease, but it’s definitely not working.
My gaze flits down to her chest to see if I can find out her name, but she’s not wearing a name tag. She never introduced herself, or maybe she did and I just didn’t retain it in my working memory.
Whatever it was, I’m clearly at a disadvantage. And I absolutely don’t appreciate it.
“Meal times are at seven in the morning, twelve midday, and seven o’clock at night. You get a snack at four in the afternoon. Are you allergic to nuts or shellfish?“
“Not as far as I know.“
“Do you have any other allergies we need to be aware of?“
I shake my head. “No, I don’t think so.“
