We are told to use the journals to write stray thoughts and observations between sessions. It’s a vague assignment that I find more irritating than liberating. And though I make a few genuine attempts, all I can ever bring myself to write about is how punishingly tired I feel.
‘It’s as if someone is cutting into me while I sleep and gradually stitching weights into the muscles and tendons of my body. And though it’s not debilitating I find it harder each day to fight to the surface. To re-become myself,’ I read aloud during our next session.
‘And is that what you want?’ the therapist asks. ‘To re-become yourself?’
I think about that in the dark on the way home, my car illuminated every so often by passing headlights. And when I see the house approaching I consider blowing straight past it. Just disappearing into the night.
When I pull into the driveway Simone is sat on the doorstep waiting for me. She palms up a fistful of snow and rubs it into her cheeks. When she pulls her hands away her face is shot red with the shock, her skin alive and screaming, and I am almost relieved.