The following afternoon at Mahjoub’s office, I noticed she’d acquired a new elephant: a three-foot rust-colored wire statue thing by the door. I was grateful that she was willing to see me on a Saturday, but the fact that she could fit me in so quickly made me suspicious of her skills, as usual.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” she said, flipping through my file. “I used the last of the Theraputticals for some trauma work with another patient last week. But it should be easy enough for you to order online. Or maybe you want to consider taking ceramics classes—”
“Whatever,” I said. “You should just know that your little art therapy exercise has totally destroyed my life.”
“Do you want to talk about how or why you feel that it has been… less than beneficial?”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how many binges deep I was. This was what she’d wanted, right? I wondered if she could see it on me: 13.5 pounds of challah and egg rolls and cholent and noodles. We stared at each other silently.
Finally, I blurted out: “I was doing such a good job with my mother! I’m still doing a good job. It’s been thirty-seven days of total boundary holding.”
My mother’s texts had stopped entirely. If she was trying to smoke me out, it was working. The absence of contact made me want to reach out to her more than when she stalked me every day. I was scared she’d given up on me. All I’d ever wanted was to be left alone. Now I wanted to reach out and say, Wait!
“That’s amazing,” said Dr. Mahjoub. “I’m so pleased.”
“I know! But you had to push it. You had to push it with the body stuff. I told you I was well enough. What does it even mean to be well anyway? Is there some plateau of wellness—some place we are supposed to get to where we are, like, fine forever? Because to me that sounds like death!”
“Well—”
“Is death the best we can aim for? I’m starting to think it might be.”
I was feeling reckless. I wanted to fuck with her. But also, I was curious.
“Rachel, if you’re thinking of harming yourself or someone else, I’m required by law to report it. Are you thinking of harming yourself or someone else?”
I thought about how I wanted to take a knife and cut myself out of me. I thought about how I’d been praying for a truck to just hit me. I thought about death and truth and how, in some languages, they were just one letter apart. I wanted to ask her if she knew that.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not thinking of harming myself or someone else.”