AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re right,” Aaron says. “It’s not the time to discuss this. I’m only here to offer my advice. To help you however I can. But…”
“But what?”
“These days, it seems impossible for us to find time to talk.”
Holly stares at him with a look of affection, maybe even love, but that doesn’t diminish the growing distance he senses between them. “The last few months have been out of control,” she says. “I’ve barely had a minute to myself.”
“Not easy being a celebrity, is it?”
“Hardly,” she snorts. “But ever since Simon Lowry—an actual celebrity—publicized my involvement in his treatment, my practice has gone wild. It’s too much. I’m pulled in a hundred directions. I never asked for that, Aaron.”
“And I never asked you to leave,” he blurts, regretting the words as soon as they pass his lips.
Holly brushes her hand over his arm again. “Thank you, Aaron, for your support and your wisdom,” she says as she rises to her feet.
CHAPTER 8
Friday, April 5
Seven recliners, but only six occupants. Sitting across from her clients, Holly scans the semicircle of chairs and bites back her disappointment over the one empty seat, the second-last from the right, where Elaine usually sits.
JJ is dressed, as always, to the nines, in a colorful spring dress, with multiple gold bracelets that jangle every time she moves her arm, her glow no doubt a result of high-end Korean skin care. Baljit looks uncharacteristically casual in jeans and sneakers, although Holly assumes the CEO is wearing designer labels. Liisa wears one of her typical neutral, shapeless maxi dresses. Reese has on her usual lawyer uniform—dark blazer and slacks—complemented by that familiar no-time-to-waste expression of hers. Salvador has paired his ubiquitous ball cap with a chunky silver chain today. And Simon wears tight white pants and a black T-shirt which strains to hold in his gut.
“Can we talk about the elephant in the room?” Reese asks, as she sits up in her chair. “Or, more specifically, the one not in the room.”
“Elephant? Elaine?” Baljit grunts. “More like an emaciated gazelle, if you ask me.”
“Elaine isn’t feeling well,” Holly says, misleading with the truth.
Liisa turns to Holly with a knowing look. “She had a serious reaction to the dual psychedelics, didn’t she?”
There it is again. But Holly takes a breath and pushes away the reflex defensiveness. She’s never certain whether she reads more skepticism into Liisa’s comments than the psychologist intends. After all, if Holly were in group therapy, she would probably also question her therapist’s approach more than anyone else in the room. Ignoring the question, Holly says, “While we are a group—”
“A tribe!” Salvador cries.
“Hey, colonizer,” Baljit says, “you sure that whole cultural appropriation thing still holds water?”
“Colonizer?” Salvador rolls his wrists over to expose his forearms. “Check your prescription, chica. No one this brown ever colonized squat! At least not on this continent.”
“Look, it’s wonderful you see each other as a community,” Holly says. “But I still have to respect your individual privacy. Elaine isn’t here today. We’ll just have to leave it at that and move on.”
“Actually, she’s more like a sight hound,” Baljit says.
“What are you talking about?” Reese asks, frowning.
“If we’re coming up with animal metaphors for Elaine, then I’m going with a whippet or a greyhound.”
“No one is doing that.” Reese’s tone signals that she has had it.
“How about we focus on each of your experiences under dual therapy instead?” Holly asks, ending the speculation. “I’ve had a chance to discuss it with you individually. But who’s willing to share their experience with the group?”
“I used to read tons of sci-fi when I was a kid,” JJ pipes up, beaming with a look of wonderment. “Books about traveling to new dimensions. That kind of stuff. And to me, that’s exactly what it felt like! A new dimension. Lights I’d never seen before with colors that made their own sounds. Both eerie and beautiful at the same time.”
Reese shakes her head. “For me, it was more like… I don’t know… the afterlife.”
JJ’s eyes go wide. “As in heaven?”
“Heaven, hell, purgatory… all at once.” Reese frowns again, as though skeptical of the words coming from her own mouth. “I was in the presence of spirits. Too many to even comprehend. As if I was with the entire human collective at once. Not so much with, but a part of. If that makes any sense?”
