Page 49 of Notorious

She nods and scribbles something on a paper. “How long have you been feeling numb and shitty?”

“Months,” I say. “Maybe years.”

Kurt goes still.

“Has the level of numbness and shittiness been the same over that whole time span, or has it changed?” Christian asks.

I clear my throat. “It got really bad the past few weeks.”

“How so?” There’s no judgment in her eyes. She doesn’t know me. She’s a professional. This is confidential.

I’m safe.

Kurt is here and already knows.

“I was planning on killing myself.”

Christian maintains a professional demeanor and doesn’t react. Kurt takes my hand and squeezes it.

“Did you have a plan in place as far as how and when?” Christian asks, putting down her notepad and studying me.

“Over the weekend. Yesterday or the night before.”

Christian asks me more about what I meant to do … and I tell her. How sick Mama is. How crushed I was when I found out May Ella and I weren’t good matches to donate a kidney to her. And then how her insurance denied coverage for the surgery anyway. I’d remembered I had life insurance and checked to make sure that Mama was the beneficiary and would get the money. Since I’d had the insurance more than ten years, the suicide clause didn’t apply. I’d checked around and found some unsavory people who said they could get her a kidney without having to wait. I’d worked everything out to the last detail, including what I should be dressed in for my funeral: my favorite jeans and boots. How I’d collected pills for months—more than enough to go to sleep and never wake up. But maybe I’d been putting it off until this last setback with my mama’s care. When it all got to be too much.

When I’m done talking, I look over at Kurt, and his eyes are welling up. Like the therapist, his expression holds no judgment. Just sadness.

I’m sad, too, I realize. My throat and lungs are sore, my body’s cold, and I have no energy. My chest aches, and my nose is running.

I hadn’t been sad for months—just numb—and it almost seems like an improvement to feel anything. Even something uncomfortable.

Huh.

“That’s a lot to go through,” Christian says. “We’ll have plenty to talk about in upcoming sessions. For now, are you still having thoughts of killing yourself?”

I shrug. “I mean … yeah. All the time. I’m not gonna do it today. Kurt tossed my pills and took away my gun.” I pause. “And he’s talked some sense into me.”

“It’s good you have him,” she says, “although I might not characterize what he did as talking ‘sense,’ since our feelings aren’t necessarily driven by logic. How present is the desire to kill yourself right now?”

“Um. On a level of one to ten, it’s like a four or five. Or six, maybe.”

She nods. “That’s still higher than I’d like. What was it two days ago?”

“Ten.”

“Last week?”

“Eleven.”

“Are you on any medication?”

“Other than PrEP, no. Nothing for my head.”

“Okay, let’s talk about your mood. Do you ever feel hopeless?”

“All the time,” I admit.

“Have you lost interest in things you used to enjoy?” Christian’s eyes are intelligent and assessing, but I still don’t feel like she’s judging me. More like evaluating. Which I guess makes sense.

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