This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,113

answer. “Yes!”

Jocelyn closes her eyes and slumps. “Thank God.” When she opens her eyes they’re brimming with tears again. “Do you think we could talk, then? About what your therapist said? Please?”

I groan and rub my hands over my face. “Ugh. It’s nothing personal, I swear. It’s just…” My heart rate’s going up. “You know that confidentiality’s, like, the basis of the whole therapeutic relationship, right?”

Jocelyn nods, then shakes her head. “But I’m not your therapist.”

“Exactly! But Dr. Rifkin is, and he’s heard everything, all my screwups, my soft spots, every embarrassing thing that’s riled me up or turned me inside out. But he’s my therapist, so by definition he’s a vault. Unless I say I’m suicidal or homicidal, anyway.”

“So you don’t trust me to keep a secret,” Jocelyn says, her voice flat.

“No, it’s not that.…”

“Then what is it?”

“Dr. Rifkin’s a nice enough guy, but when it comes down to it, I don’t really care what he thinks of me. You, on the other hand?”

“Oh,” Jocelyn says. She grabs another tissue and blows her nose. “All right, I get it, but let me tell you a story. I had a heart-to-heart with my mom today.” She shakes her head and laughs. “You’re not going to believe it. She’s been on antidepressants since Alan was born. And guess what? My dad doesn’t even know. She’s been hiding it from him for over a decade. He thinks they’re vitamins that she takes every day.”

“That’s weird,” I say, but what I think is, that is so horribly sad.

“Anyway.” Jocelyn taps my ankle with her foot. “You see?”

“Yeah,” I say after a second. “I see.”

I lay my palm up between us, and after a second, she takes it. But I don’t just hold hands with her. Instead, I take her index and middle fingers and put them on the inside of my wrist. I take a deep breath and begin.

“So, Dr. Rifkin brought up meds again today. And on the one hand, yeah, I’m getting sick of this panic attack business. I’m also afraid of how medications might affect my personality. Plus there’s all the controversy about meds increasing suicide risk.”

“Can you just get a prescription so you can have it on hand, if things get worse?” she asks.

“That’s what I did, but I haven’t filled it yet. I mean, what’s the point? I feel better now, and it can take six to eight weeks for it to work.”

“What?” Jocelyn fakes a clutch at her chest. “Pills aren’t a quick fix? What a rip-off.” Then, after a pause, more seriously: “I talked to my mom and I’m going to try to get a therapist.”

She looks almost frightened about it. I take her hand away from my wrist and wrap it up in mine. “That’s great. That’s really great. I think it’ll help. And it definitely won’t hurt.”

Jocelyn shrugs. “I guess the only thing it can hurt is my pocketbook.”

There’s truth to that. It’s completely screwed up that mental health care in the United States costs what it does. “There’s a clinic attached to the college where you can get therapy on a sliding scale, and a lot of therapists accept insurance these days.”

Jocelyn looks up to me again, wonderingly. “You really do have the answer to everything, don’t you?”

“Hardly,” I snort. “Isn’t that obvious?”

She snakes her other hand around my waist and leans into me. “Okay, you don’t always have the answer, but you almost always have an answer. Which isn’t bad.”

“That’s usually a good first step,” I agree.

This Is My Brain on Moving Pictures

JOCELYN

“Alan, Amah! Come on, it’s all set up.”

“Aiyo, dengyixia. Kuaiyao wanle.” My grandmother doesn’t budge from where she’s watching the electrifying end of this week’s episode of Single Ladies Senior.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Alan says. “Lemme just finish this practice test. I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

“I’m giving you guys ten minutes,” I say. “Jin-Jin has somewhere he needs to be. I think it’s a date with one of the waitresses at the Vietnamese place.”

I go back downstairs, where the whole A-Plus staff is finishing up their evening meal. Will and I have set up his dad’s portable projector against the side wall of the dining area. I had to take down a couple of framed TRAVEL CHINA posters from the wall, and seeing the empty space gives me ideas. What if we replaced the decor with canvas enlargements of some of Priya’s shots? I file the thought away and double-check that Will’s Bluetooth speakers are still connected