Katabasis

by R.F. Kuang

What Alice needed most then was a nice long holiday, and then perhaps institutionalization at some remote facility near the sea.

It used to be they could quarrel, and that quarrelling was fun. It used to be they could speak frankly with each other. But that was a very long time ago.

she only had to rub the sleep from her eyes and take a deep breath and survive every day and ignore every inconvenient truth

She had missed Peter’s mind. It was like wearing a parachute—she could trust that he’d catch any mistakes she’d made.

She was so tired of the contents of her mind. Her thoughts were so loud; they pounded her skull, it never stopped, it was all too much. For a long time now it had been all too much.

She spoke as if in a dream, half-unaware of the words coming out her own mouth. “I feel sometimes it is so difficult to be conscious.” “I know,” said Peter.

I want that, she remembered thinking. I want that so badly—but what was that?

He gave her the same kind attentiveness that he would to any stranger. But this hurt, for she had thought they were anything but.

She could not understand how you could open your mind to someone so completely, for so long, and then slam it shut again.

He was not interested in merely keeping up with everyone else; in doing what someone without Crohn’s could. He wanted to do what people without Crohn’s could not.

She would have liked the luxury of having a mental breakdown but unfortunately, now time mattered again.

The problem wasn’t a lack of what to say, it was where to begin. How dizzying was this feeling—to have someone look at you, really look, patiently trying to understand you. But there was so much she needed him to know, and it was all so tangled and thorny and full of feelings good and bad, and when she did find her tongue, the best she could get out was, “I wanted to say, I’m sorry.”