16Troubled Mind || Dan Mangan
ROXANNE
The bus isdim and quiet when my alarm goes off beside me in my bunk. I set the volume as quiet as possible, but I still lunge to shut it off before the second ring has even sounded. I lay there in silence for a few seconds to make sure I haven’t woken anyone up.
For some reason, it feels imperative that nobody knows I’m sneaking off the bus at seven in the morning.
I guess ‘sneaking’ isn’t the right term; I’m allowed to get off the damn bus whenever I want, and I’m not going any farther than the edge of the parking lot, but I don’t want to have to explain myself to anyone. I’m nervous enough as it is; I don’t need the entire tour team wondering what I’m up to.
I slip out of my bunk and into the aisle as quietly as I can. At least three people are snoring, which helps to cover up any accidental creaking noises I might make. I clutch my phone and a pair of sandals to my chest, making my way towards the door in just an old band shirt and some sleep shorts.
I can’t help glancing at Cole’s bunk as I pass. There’s a gap in the curtains, and I can just make out his forearm resting along the side of his pillow. I fight the urge to reach out and trace the lines of his tattoos.
I’ve been giving in to the urge to touch him for the past few days now. His skin on my skin is always enough to erase everything else, if only for a few moments. No matter what else is going on, the heat of him always feels like home, but I recognize the danger in that, the weakness.
I can see myself hurtling down our old path, but for the first time, I don’t feel powerless to stop it. Not completely, at least. I keep chanting ‘one week’ like it’s a mantra in my head, but soon enough that week will be up, and I have to be ready for it.
It took me a while to find a French therapist who does sessions over the phone. It took me even longer to work up the nerve to actually contact her, but I’ve got my first chat with Hélène Dubois scheduled for exactly five minutes from now.
Once I’ve shut the door behind me, I step into my sandals and grab one of the camping chairs sitting on the pavement beside the bus. We played a festival on the edge of Minneapolis last night, and all the tour buses are parked in a lot together. I make my way over to a patch of grass far enough that I won’t be disturbing anybody and set my chair up.
The phone rings right on time, and I only realize just how nervous I am when my fingers feel too shaky to press the accept button. I get it on the second try and bring the phone up to my ear.
“Um,salut.”
Talking to Kay was one thing, but this is a complete stranger I intend to spill the most intimate details of my life to.
“Bonjour,Roxanne.”
My discomfort gets the better of me, and I end up awkwardly asking Hélène how she’s doing. Then I realize that it’s probably her job to ask me howI’mdoing, not the other way around, and we both start laughing when I say that out loud.
“I do appreciate getting asked how my day is going from time to time,” she tells me, “and the answer is: very well. It sounds windy where you are. Are you outside?”
“Yes,” I admit, “I’m, um, kind of living on a bus with fourteen other people at the moment.”
That, of course, launches us into a discussion about the current unorthodox situation that is my life. I find myself skirting around certain topics, scared that she’s going to dive right into the hardcore psychoanalysis, but for a while we just chat like two people who aren’t doing anything more than get to know each other. I finally realize thatiswhat we’re doing and start to relax.
In the end, it’s me that turns the conversation more serious.
“So the reason I wanted to talk to you,” I begin, “is because I have this job interview coming up, and if I take the job, it’s going to have a serious effect on my...on Cole, who I mentioned earlier, and I just want to...to...”
I trail off when I realize that my sentence isn’t going anywhere. I planned out what I was going to say earlier, but it’s just an excuse. It’s just an attempt to make myself sound more collected than I actually am. The reason I called Hélène is bigger than making a choice about Toronto. It’s even bigger than making any choice about Cole at all.
“I just...I want to know what’s wrong with me,” I blurt. “I want to know what’s wrong with me, and I want to fix it.”
A second or two of silence follows.
“What makes you say there’s something wrong with you?” Hélène asks, her voice calm and compassionate.
“I...there has to be,” I find myself saying, my voice coming out hoarse as my throat tightens. “There just has to.”
“When did you first start believing that?”
And that’s how it all comes out. Everything. I start with one of my earliest memories—one ofMamanshowing up late and hungover at church, tugging me into the pew on my preschooler-sized legs while everyone stared—and I just keep talking and talking. I bring my knees up so I can rest my chin on them as the sun slips higher into the sky and the asphalt starts to heat up around me. Hélène encourages me to go on every time I try to stop until I well and truly have nothing left to say.
I feel like I just threw up.
“I’m sorry,” I offer. “That was a lot.”
