“I’ll help you, Erik,” she said calmly. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Do you feel like you’re going to hurt yourself?”
“I can’t stop hurting.”
“Talk to me. Tell me.”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Where are you?”
“Janey, I lied to you about so many things. I never got help in college. I never went to a support group or was on meds or anything. And I let you think my girlfriend was killed but she wasn’t, she’s alive. She’s with someone else now. She’s alive and I feel like I’m dying and—“
“Erik, slow down, I will—“
“I need to talk to someone. And I can’t find the card you gave me.”
“Erik. Where are you?”
“Home. And I can’t do this anymore.”
“Erik, listen to me, I’m going to make a call. Two calls. You sit tight right there, don’t move. Don’t move a muscle until I call you back, do you understand?”
“All right.”
“I will call you back. I promise. I’m going to get you help.”
“All right.”
“We’ll find you, Erik. We’ll get through it. I will call you back.”
Disconnected, he sat on the cold floor, dead center in a ring of wolves. Their eyes glowed green and malevolent as they watched him open the blade of his Swiss Army knife. He touched the tip to the inside of his left wrist, tracing the daisy petals.
I have set you in my presence forever.
He had done this to himself.
He had to cut her out of him or he would die.
Shaking his head hard, he took the blade off his wrist, closed the knife again. “You don’t have to do this,” he whispered. “You can stop.”
I am the alpha male.
I lead this pack.
And John lives with Daisy.
The wolves took a step closer, tightening the circle.
I am the omega. A stray out in the rain.
Like James.
The wolves nodded. Erik opened the blade again.
Janey sent a friend, a man Erik vaguely remembered from the Kellys’ house parties. He was kind. He didn’t ask questions or probe. He made gentle talk as he took the knife away, closed the blade and slipped it into his pocket. Then he drove Erik downtown, to the office of Dr. Diane Erskine, who was waiting for him.
So it started.
The Defining Moment
At first glance, when he was trembling and disoriented, Erik thought Diane Erskine was old, maybe in her sixties. More lucid at his next visit, he realized she was one of those women who go grey early, eventually becoming silver-haired while still in their prime. She wore her silver hair short, in a pixie cut. Her eyes were grey as well and she tended to dress in neutral tones. She exuded a sleek, expensive class, but she was oddly colorless.
Therapy perplexed Erik. He went into his first session assuming they’d talk about the shooting. He took up the entire hour talking about his job at the playhouse and the student theater program. He didn’t even touch the subject of college, let alone the shooting. He walked out with a confused dissatisfaction, certain he’d botched it out of the gate and accomplished nothing.
He started going in with an agenda, a comprehensive list of things to talk about, in order of importance. Yet half the time, the plan was forgotten, the list went untouched, and he would be babbling on a tangent of the most pointless, inconsequential crap.
It was nervous babble, partly because Diane would never direct the session. She responded to whatever he brought up, but if he had nothing to talk about, she didn’t help him by prompting a topic or line of discussion. Not a baited hook dropped. Not a bone thrown. She simply sat. And waited. The silence would stretch past awkward into agonizing, until Erik reached for anything and started rambling.