Page 65 of Pretty Nightmare

“No.” I cut her off and her head juts back a little. She’s not quite startled—women like Ana don’t startle easily—but she’s definitely taken by surprise. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. You know I trust you, right? It’s just… it’s very personal.”

“OK. So you’re looking for a technique?”

“Yes.” The word comes out rushed and filled with relief. “A technique. Because, as I’m sure you’re aware, this is kinda”—I bob my head back and forth and suck some air—“unscientific.”

“I wouldn’t call it unscientific, Donovan. It’s just outside the realm of typical.”

Like her healing center.

“Exactly. This is my point. The information I have access to, on how to do this in a… scientific way, well, it’s sparse. At best. I need something I can track.”

“You’re going to record the sessions? Video them?”

“Both. Probably.”

“Hmmm. This is very interesting.”

“How so?”

“Well, you’re a psychiatrist.”

“Not really.”

“Stop it. You are a medical doctor who specializes in the art of minds, Donovan. And you did a PhD in psychoanalysis.”

“I never finished.”

She waves a hand in the air. “Neither here nor there.”

“Ana, I’m not saying all this to… be propped up.” If she raises that eyebrow any higher it’s going to disappear into her hair. “I am quite aware of my limitations.”

“Well. I’m not propping you up. So you can let that go. I don’t feed egos. Not even for friends. I’m telling you that a psychiatrist—which you are, like it or not—performing analysis on himself…” She shrugs and throws up her hands. “It’s not recommended.”

“I understand that. And again, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m a reconstructive surgeon.”

“So this is self-help?”

I see where she’s going. Anabelle Avery is the most ethical person I have ever met. She dots the i’s and crosses the t’s. And then she dots the t’s and crosses the i’s just to be double sure she’s walking the line. She is not going to teach me self-hypnosis if I’m going to hurt myself in the process.

But. If I tell her that I’m looking for some techniques to aspire to a higher realm of… what’s the word she used to use? Enlightenment. Yeah. She would be on board with that.

So I say, “That’s right. Self-help.”

“OK.” She pauses for a moment to smile at me from behind her cup as she takes another sip of tea. Then she lowers the cup, her smile gone. “But I get to do a baseline.”

“Fine.”

“Because you said you wanted to know if it was a bad idea. So we do a full session. One on one. And I get to record it.”

“OK.”

“Really?” She cocks her head at me.

“I’m fine with it. And I trust you. Whatever you need to feel comfortable with this. I just need… some truth, Ana. So say what you need to say.”

“But you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do in the end, aren’t you?”

I don’t answer. I don’t need to.