I stared at the blank white paper and took a deep breath, trying to keep myself from groaning, screaming, or cursing out the art therapist. It wasn’t her fault I was being forced to participate in this horrific form of therapy.
No, it was Dr. Worblack’s. He was the one I should be cursing out.
“Still not a fan of art, are ya’?” I jumped slightly at the familiar voice and glared at Jonathan as he laughed. He was leaning forward with his arms crossed and on the table, his head way too far in my space. “Wow, you’re still so jumpy.”
I glared at him, and he looked up from my blank page to meet my eyes before grinning and leaning back with his hands raised in defense.
“And you still have no regard for personal space,” I said and grabbed a crayon box, contemplating if I should just draw a bunch of Teletubbies and that creepy sun before calling it a day.
Jonathan snickered before picking up a graphite pencil and staring down at his paper.
The art therapist began to lead the session, giving out a prompt or something that I didn’t listen to. There was no point in giving me a prompt because whatever it was, abstract or concrete, it would not get drawn well or comprehensively. Even if you told me to draw the word happiness, my smiley face would need a long and hard interpretation.
“Hey, P, wanna be the model for my sketch today?” Jonathan asked, apparently also having no interest in following the prompts.
“Knock yourself out,” I said sarcastically as I began to work on the first Teletubby, the purple one.
Stupid me for thinking I actually would like this kid.
“Cool, just keep drawing your purple blob,” he said.
I grumbled, “It’s a Teletubby,” and then instantly regretted it.
Jonathan laughed hysterically, to the point where he had to put his pencil down. “What? Damn, how old are you again?” he asked.
“I’m…”
The question shouldn’t have been that hard to answer. At least, not for a normal person. What I wanted to say was twenty-two. What I should have said was seventeen. But what was I going to say, without thinking, if I hadn’t paused?
Seventeen.
Yes, I should have said that, but I shouldn’t have believed that. So was I just that good of an actor, or was something going on inside me? I was tempted to believe the latter, that something was going on, without my permission and against my wishes. My allegiance was slowly changing, and I was convinced it was because of my medication. But it was a confusing conundrum. Dimitri told me I needed to take the medication and be patient, knowing it would weaken my connection to him and Elli. But I trusted him, and I trusted that this was the way to be with them again, even if it risked me ending up not wanting to be with them. I was toeing a fine line, and I was starting to lose my balance in the wrong direction.
“You good, P?” Johnathan’s question pulled me from my thoughts, and I nodded, going back to coloring in my purple… blob.
“Yeah, no, I’m good.”
That seemed to appease Jonathan enough for him to leave me alone until the art therapist called time on the session.
“So? What do you think, Miss. Model?”
I turned my head to glance at his sketch, and my jaw threatened to fall open.
The sketch was more of a rough outline with circles and lines inside of a barely there young woman, a teenager for sure. She had her head in her palm as she looked off into the distance somewhere. From her hooked nose to her long hair that curtained her face, she resembled me, but I couldn’t for sure say that it was me.
“That’s not me,” I said, looking at Jonathan. He looked at the paper, then at me, and shrugged.
“I mean, it’s a rough sketch. Not really an exact photograph, but definitely based on a true image.”
The woman on the paper was beautiful. I’m sure Jonathan went a little rogue with that part of the sketch, but what caught my eye the most was that he captured my pensiveness, and I could see in the sketch my own turmoil.
“See ya in group, P,” Jonathan said as he lifted himself from the chair. “Oh, and I’m keeping this.”
Jonathan’s sketch haunted me and left me desperate to walk off my thoughts and feelings, so I headed to the facility’s courtyard. I walked through the heavily vegetated courtyard, looking at the myriad of pink and purple flowers, green plants, yellow and brown weeds, and tall trees. I watched as the plants, leaves, and branches danced in the light breeze, losing myself in their rhythms.
My mind was racing with questions. Ever since that first day in the facility two days prior, I had been feeling holes in my resolve to fight. My brain felt like it was being picked at every day, with every interaction I had.
“I’m real, babe. I always have been, always will be.” Elli’s voice was a whisper, a subconscious echo from a memory of my first stay in the hospital.
It had been two days since I had last seen Elli, and a part of my brain made sense of her disappearance. She and Dimitri needed to lie low while I was in the Russians’ clutches. But there was another part of me that had been growing in the last two days, a part of me that grew in correlation to the poison I swallowed every night.
That part of me wondered if Elli had lied to me. Would she always be real? Was she still real? And was she being honest about why her clothes don’t change?
Even if that is true, why did Dimitri’s clothes never change? Was I in a dream then too? No, I couldn’t have been because my clothes changed.
I looked around at the others who were walking through or sitting in the courtyard. They all seemed to be enjoying the peace of the space, and I wished I weren’t in such growing turmoil. I wished I could find peace just by being in that garden under the sunlight, that I could press pause on all my worries, but I felt like I was beginning to be forced to pick between two worlds—forced to pick between what everyone else said was real and what I believed and wanted to be real. It felt like a life-or-death choice. And if I chose the wrong one, it literally was.
Do I even want that world to be real? Or do I just want Dimitri and Elli to be real?
The thought floated into my mind, seemingly out of nowhere, like a dandelion seed drifting through the air that caught in a crevice, settling, and immediately starting to grow roots in the soil of my brain. Maybe it was the medication taking effect, or maybe it was simply me being emotionally exhausted, but I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, aside from wanting to be okay. I just didn’t know which world I had to choose in order to be okay.
When I walked into the common area to meet Ms. Agarwal, the room was relatively quiet, as there weren’t many other patients or visitors chatting or bustling around. She was sitting at one of the tables looking at something on her phone. Her hair was up in its usual bun, and she wore her reading glasses. She was wearing dark jeans and a blue button-up blouse. As I neared the table, she looked up and stood before reaching out to give me a hug.
“Hi, chotu,” she said breathlessly. The hug was awkward, since I wasn’t really in the mood for it, but I let her hold on to me for as long as she needed, knowing the hug was meant to comfort her more than me.
When she released me, we sat down, and she put her phone aside.
“What were you reading?” I asked, looking between the phone and her.
“Oh, just some article on nuts. They say they’re really good for mental health, but I don’t know how much I believe that stuff.” She waved her hand, and I smirked, knowing my Indian mom was all about alternatives to Western medications. This was the woman who fed me almonds every day, doubling the amount on the day of my exams because they were good for my brain and would make me smarter. She was all in on the nuts craze.
Why do I have memories of Ms. Agarwal before meeting Dimitri?
“Okay.”
There was an awkward silence between us as Ms. Agarwal looked at me, expecting me to say something, but I didn’t know how to fill the silence and didn’t have the energy to hold a proper conversation.
“How is it this time?” she asked, eventually.
“What?”
She cleared her throat before asking again. “How is your stay here this time? Is it okay? Are you eating properly?”
I shrugged, looking around the room at the few other people in it.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s fine. Food is… meh,” I said. Although Ms. Agarwal’s eyes were on me, she wasn’t really seeing me, I thought. They seemed hooded, lost in thought. She opened her mouth a few times, but each time, she shut it before saying anything. Her hands were clasped in front of her on the table, one thumb rubbing the other.
“Was I a bad mother? Am I a bad mother?” she finally asked, continuing to gaze at me somewhere into the space between us.
“What? What kind of question is that?” I couldn’t think what else to ask in return. I was so taken aback by her question and unsure of why it had come up.
“No, it’s a valid question. Was I a bad mother? That I didn’t see the first signs of my child going through this… nightmare? This is the second time this has happened, and I was blind to what was happening to you both times. I almost lost you because of it this time.” Her eyes met mine. “So I want to know… do you think I’m a bad mom?”
I immediately shook my head without stopping to think through my answer.
I wanted to tell her she was superwoman.
The fact that my situation made Ms. Agarwal feel inadequate and the fact that this upset me, caused a thought to branch off the dandelion seed, turned seedling, that rooted in my brain earlier.
I don’t want her to be upset, but why would I care if she’s just a part of this dream? Maybe it’s because this woman is my mom, and she’s all I’ve ever known as a mother.
“I don’t think you’re a bad mom,” I said quietly before clearing my throat and looking at her with a fixed gaze. “You’re superwoman to me. You can’t shield me from all the horrors of life, but you do an amazing job of helping me get back up when they knock me down.” I hoped my words gave her some strength and cleared the distorted view she had of herself.
Ms. Agarwal looked at me for a few seconds, then smiled softly, nodding.
“Okay.” She cleared her throat and launched into more questions about what Avery and I discussed, how group therapy was going, and other aspects of my day-to-day life in the facility.
When visiting time was up, Ms. Agarwal left, telling me she would be back later that day with my sister for a family talk with Dr. Worblack about how to move forward. Since it was technically the last day of my stay in the facility, Dr. Worblack would talk to us about next steps. But as I walked to my room to get my blanket for my session with Avery, I wondered if I was ready to leave the facility.
I walked into Avery’s office and sat down on the couch, draping my blanket over my legs as I had become accustomed to doing.
“How are you doing today, Priya?” Avery asked.
“More confused than ever,” I said honestly, feeling a desire to actually talk to Avery that day.
“Really? Anything in particular that made things more confusing?” she asked and I nodded.
“I had a thought just before coming in, after my art therapy session. I don’t know if I want to believe in this world where Dimitri and Elli are real, or if I just want them to be real. The two ideas are very different, and… I think they have different implications and weight. I think… if I want the other world to be real, then I have to admit that my mom here is not real, that my sister isn’t real. I just saw my mom, and… she asked if she was a bad mom.” My eyes welled up, and I bit my lip to prevent myself from crying. “Now that I think about it, that makes me feel like I’ve been a bad daughter. I haven’t been… I don’t know… validating her efforts to support me, I guess you might say. Maybe I haven’t been the most grateful. Maybe I haven’t been the most attentive to her or the most… respectful? I don’t know. I just… I think… The fact that I’m so strongly affected by her feelings of inadequacy, that I feel so strongly about her, means that I want her to be real. If I want her to be real, then that means I have to want this world to be real, but… is wanting this world to be real enough for me to believe in it?” I said and leaned back against the couch.
Avery tilted her head. “I think I know what you mean. And that’s true. Your heart might want one thing, but your brain tells you to believe something completely different. And usually, in these cases, the brain wins,” Avery said, and I nodded slowly, lost and in the clustering of my thoughts.
I felt lightheaded as I tried to get a grip on my thoughts. “Like… right now, in this moment, I have no voices in my head. I can’t hear anyone from the US government, I don’t hear any white noise, I don’t hear any radio interceptions, and a part of me is thinking sure, that’s the medication keeping me under the Russians’ spell.” I paused, realizing that I was possibly telling a Russian that I knew about their plan. I swallowed and forced myself to continue. “But a voice in me—not like a voice, voice, but like my conscience, or whatever—is saying that’s not the case.” The idea solidified in my mind as I spoke it aloud. “This inner voice, which started out tiny, is growing, and it’s saying that this is the real world. This is how things should be—no voices in my head, no Russian conspiracy theories, no government tasks and identities and blah, blah, blah. But it’s not that easy to believe that. And I don’t know what I want to believe anymore. I just want to be… okay.”
“That’s a lot to process, Priya. I’m glad you’re coming to these ideas on your own and asking these questions. And I know your time is coming to an end here in the facility, but I would say more time is needed to sort through all that. Do you agree?” Avery asked, and I paused, thinking for a long time about what I needed. Frankly, I didn’t know what I needed at that moment.
There was a part of me screaming desperately to fight the Russians, fight their plan, go home, and try to wake up again. But the other voice was growing and telling me, calmly, that if I went home, I would die.
I wouldn’t wake up.
There was no other world.
Dimitri wasn’t real, and Elli was dead.
The voices were still very much warring inside me, and I needed more time to have a solidified, unified mindset. I couldn’t go home with this wishy-washy way of thinking, and I couldn’t trust myself to take care of myself while I was outside of the facility.
“I need more time here,” I told Dr. Worblack. I avoided looking at my mom and sister sitting in their usual spots across from me next to Dr. Worblack’s desk.
Dr. Worblack looked at me for a few seconds before nodding.
“After hearing from Avery how you’ve been progressing, I admit it’s great improvement, but I would agree—you need more time.” He looked back at my mom and sister. My mom was watching me, making sure this was what I wanted. I met her eyes and nodded. She nodded subtly in return and turned back to Dr. Worblack.
“So how much longer do you think she needs?” she asked.
“I would say another three days. I believe that after the medication has reintegrated back into her system completely, which shouldn’t take much longer, things will be much clearer to Priya. And then she should be able to return to the routine we established last year.”
“Will I be able to bring Priya’s homework and assignments to her while she’s here? I’m sure she has some catching up to do,” my mom asked, looking concerned.
I had to smile. Academics will always be top priority.
“I think that would be a good idea. We can ease her back into doing classwork. I can also put homework time in place of arts and crafts in her schedule for the next three days.” We all agreed—my mom because she was desperate for me to have homework, my sister because she respected Dr. Worblack’s recommendation, and me because of all my planned, meaningful daily activities, I hated arts and crafts time the most.
“On a scale of one to ten, how strong is your grip on reality right now?” Jasmine asked as we sat in the courtyard on one of the glossy wooden benches. I scoffed at her question and shook my head.
“That depends on which reality you’re asking about,” I said, looking down at my slippered feet. They were too hot, for once. The courtyard was the only warm place in the facility because it was far away from the God-awful, uncontrollable air conditioner.
“Okay, bad question. I’ll rephrase it. On a scale of one to ten, how real am I?”
I looked up at her.
My gaze traced her face, from her dark brown eyes, outlined with eyeliner and mascara, to the way her nose hooked slightly. I skimmed over the freckles and sunspots that formed shapes across her face like a connect-the-dots puzzle. My eyes fell to her pink-stained lips, then lifted back to her eyes. I tried to find a difference between the way she looked—the way she presented—and the way Dimitri or Elli presented or looked. I examined her tan cotton blazer and light blue blouse, which she had tucked into her black pants.
I looked down at her shoes and remembered Avery’s question about Dimitri’s shoes.
Did you ever notice if his shoes got dirty? Or did he have multiple pairs of the same shoes for years?
“Didi, how many pairs of shoes do you have? And when did you get these?” I asked as my eyes moved over the way the knitting on her slip-on sneakers crisscrossed in a woven pattern. I looked at the leather border lining the bottom part of her shoes, and I noticed how dirty her white shoes were—not pearly white, but not completely gray. They had little gray stains here and there, but they were more of an egg wash color now.
“Um, I think I have nine or ten pairs? I got these probably a year ago,” she said, and I nodded unconsciously, my eyes staying on her shoes.
“Do you ever buy the same pairs of shoes?”
“You mean at the same time? No. What’s the point in that?” she asked rhetorically. I nodded again.
What is the point in that? There is none. And Dimitri is not the Steve Jobs type. So why does he wear the same outfit all the time?
“Dimitri wears the same outfit every time I see him.” The words came out on their own. I heard them, but I couldn’t remember giving myself permission to say them out loud.
“What does he wear?” she asked. I looked into her eyes again, seeing the way she blinked repeatedly and looked into mine.
“Navy t-shirt, black ankle pants, and white sneakers,” I said, looking down again at her sneakers. “His sneakers were never dirty. They were always… pristine.” I tore my eyes away from her sneakers to look at the cement pathway leading away from our bench.
“So you think he has multiple pairs of the same shoe,” my sister said, her words an observation and not a question. Her voice wasn’t laced with any judgement or any concern. It was simply an observational statement, and I appreciated her for refraining from judging me or the situation.
“Yes. Does that sound crazy? I haven’t thought about this for a few days because it didn’t seem relevant, but seeing your shoes… it brought back Avery’s words. But even now, seeing you, and seeing your shoes, I still don’t know what’s real. My brain is telling me one thing, everyone else is saying something else, and I feel like I’m crazy either way.” I took a few deep breaths, trying to ground myself in the moment and not be carried off by my racing, incomprehensible thoughts.
“I don’t think it sounds crazy,” my sister said. “I think… when you’ve been through what you’ve been through, that sounds normal. It’s totally understandable why life is hard to figure out. But you don’t have to have it all figured out at once. I’m going to tell you this world is real, but you have to figure it out for yourself for it to sink in.” She turned to face me on the bench, laying her arm across the back of it.
I turned, too, then sighed. “What if I don’t ever believe in this world again? What if I’m constantly battling to figure out what’s real?”
My sister shrugged. “Priya, I have a feeling you’ll always have that thought in the back of your mind, wondering what’s real, but I think… that’s where the medication, therapy, and your support system comes into play. We’ll be here to help you, and… I feel like the more grounded you are in one reality, the more real it’ll feel. And that comes with the people who are grounding you in those realities. So you have to figure out which reality has you more grounded and has more reason to be real. Which reality do you feel, in your gut and in your heart, is the actual one?”
The immediate feeling of gratitude that swept over me was incomparable. She had always been a great person to turn to for comfort but had always been a backup to Elli because she was closer and was just… my person.
But Jasmine was right. I had to find my grounding in the people around me because I couldn’t be trusted to figure out reality alone.
Hopefully, for my sake, I’d be able to find it in the right people.