So you see, in other words, the more one focused on how weird they felt, how out of it, how they didn’t exist and the world around them wasn’t real . . . the more attention they brought on it. The more they couldn’t escape themselves.
And the crazy part? The more I read about it, staring at the screen, the more involved and focused I was. And the more focused I was, the more focused I was on something besides what I was feeling. Even though that thing was reading about what I was feeling and why, in those moments, the less I experienced it.
For example, when thinking about my book—or that “big event” I had been searching for—I hadn’t felt out of my body. Because I wasn’t thinking about my body, or the feeling of not existing. And that was the key to overcoming derealization, essentially . . . don’t think about the pink balloon! only makes you think about the pink balloon.
All in all, in the hours and hours of looking this stuff up, the one thing that made me feel better was learning that feeling that way couldn’t hurt me. It was scary, it made me feel uneasy . . . it was annoying and really fucked with me . . . but it wouldn’t hurt me! And it couldn’t kill me.
Ring!
During one of these deep-dive research sessions, my old-school phone went off. I looked at it, puzzled.
Ring! it went again. I reached out and pulled the phone to my ear.
“Hey, man, how you feeling? Ted said you wigged out or something.”
It was Frank; before I could even answer, he continued, “So, yeah, buzz around the store is you saw Cara’s tits.”
“Who told you that?” I said.
“Doesn’t matter who, just tell me about them. Haha, they’re nice, right?”
“I . . . yeah. I mean, I, I guess,” I said, wrinkling my brow while recalling the event. Since it had happened, I hadn’t thought a minute more about how beautiful her body was. But, of course, leave it to Frank to remind me of a woman’s naked upper body. As Frank chewed over the phone on what I’m sure was a banana, my mind was thrown back into that instant where I walked in and saw Cara topless. That moment where I froze before either of us frantically reacted. Standing there, back at the supermarket in my mind, I could picture it all—her breasts were so supple, her skin smooth and pale, seeming to have no imperfections. No necklace, no markings, no . . . tattoos.
No tattoos? I thought.
In a fraction of a second I had both realized something insane, and . . . forced myself to forget it for the sake of my book. Frank had said Cara had a cupcake tattoo on her rib.
Ever since I met him, Frank had droned on and on about himself, telling me about the girls he’d been with. His pseudophilosophies and his take on life. I’d been so fascinated by the sharp edges of his personality. So fascinated that I had based my book on him. But this entire time he had just been another phony. Frank wasn’t real like he claimed to be. He was a liar, and a goddamn good one.
At that moment, I realized what he was. Or what he wasn’t. I could see right through him. I was struck with panic at the thought of what this would do to my book. Upset that creating my main character around him was now pointless because there was no authenticity to Frank’s words. I no longer knew what was false and what was true.
I almost called it off. Right there in that moment. I was on the edge of scrapping the whole book. Until those words echoed again in my head, just as they had the night in my bathroom. That night before I set foot in Muldoon’s to fill out that application.
Finish the book! Finish the book! Instantly, a maddening vision of failure boiled up inside me. Finish the book! Finish the book! Let nothing stop you!
Right then, I got that feeling again, as if I were split in two. Just as I had that night in front of the mirror. In that moment of frozen time, a new me had emerged, filled with determination to complete the task and prove Lola wrong. In that moment, ignorance was bliss.
Talking to Frank, my mind just blanked itself to the event. I forced myself to forget his fallacy, instead