“Do you think you can think something into being?”

Patricia smiles. “That’s the only way anything is,” she says. “It has to be thought of first. Then? Then it comes.”

Kit looks to the rug. The candle flames upon the dark bookshelves flicker, have her thinking of the impermanence of life.

“But you can’t imagine nothing into something, right?” she says, with hope and fear both.

“Sure you can.”

“Like what?”

“Like relationships. Right? Love isn’t visible. No emotion is. In fact, your entire worldview is unseen. Even by you.”

“But I see the world.”

“Yes, you see the world, but you don’t see how you see the world. The lens.”

Tears well in Kit’s eyes. She can’t stop them and she doesn’t want to bring her hands to her face. Doesn’t want to underscore how scared she is.

“Wait,” Patricia says. “I don’t mean to pry, but are you trying to get away from a specific person?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“There’s an actual person you’re trying not to think about. And it isn’t one of your friends.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Okay. Is it the person who hurt them? You don’t have to answer that. But I think it will help in terms of discussing what to do. How not to think about him.”

“Her.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

In this place, the answer feels like irrefutable fact.

“Listen,” Kit says. “I need to…erase this person from my head. Whatever that takes. Even if I was standing next to someone who knows her. Even if someone said her name. I need to not think about her…at all.”

“That’s next-level stuff. You’re talking hardcore compartmentalization.”

“What?”

“I’m not even sure monks can do that. The mission shouldn’t necessarily be to forget the person, it’s more—”

“Yes. That is the mission.”

Kit knows how desperate she must look. She sees the concern in Patricia’s face. She’s gonna stand up, she thinks. She’s gonna say, hey give me one sec, will ya? Then she’s gonna go back behind that curtain and call the cops.

The same police she snuck past to get downtown today.

“The problem with that,” Patricia says, “is that it’s literally impossible not to think of something if you’re told not to. So…don’t think of a cross-eyed bull.”

“Oh, I know. I wrote about this in my journal.”

“You keep a journal?”

“I do.”

“I love that. And also…you thought about a cross-eyed bull, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” But…kind of. What she really thought about was Daphne.

Patricia smiles.

“Now, I’m not saying the cross-eyed bull is your spirit animal, but if you found room for the bull in your head, then you’ve just proven to yourself it can be done.”

“How?”

“Because, like any thoughts we have, the bull can take up more room. If you want him to.”

“I want him to.”

“And you didn’t cover up what’s worrying you. You simply…thought of something else.”

Kit feels momentarily defeated. What Patricia says might’ve been interesting before Natasha told her story. But not now.