“I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you on Friday,” I said.

“It’s fine,” she said, giving me a tight smile.

“It was my own impatience,” I continued, to convince her I was really and truly sorry and to win her admiration back, if she’d ever had any. I had the urge to prostrate myself before her and beg her to forgive me. “It wasn’t appropriate. I’m truly, truly sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she repeated, and again gave me that tight smile. Forgive me! And yet there was something in her taut expression that called to mind my mother’s the day before. She was judging me. She didn’t respect me—she didn’t even like me. I felt the desire to grab her—the same surge of emotion that had overcome me on Friday, when I’d spoken to her so sharply; the same surge that had compelled me to dig my fingernails into Jojo’s arm, that had made me shove Freud backward outside the bar—and made a fist, digging my nails into my own palm instead.

“Thank you,” I said, my heart pounding, “I appreciate that,” and turned away before I could do anything, grabbing an eraser and furiously wiping at the board. “See you tomorrow,” I called without turning around, my words bouncing off the chalkboard and back toward me.

I had made it.

And then, at lunch, there it was. She was booked all day, but could squeeze me in at four o’clock. School ended at three, which meant I had an hour to kill before my consultation. Sixty minutes for anxiety to pickle my insides. Was I really going to do this—really going to go see a psychoanalyst? And what was I planning to say? I had no idea. I should cancel. I took my phone out of my pocket, prepared to dial her number—and yet I didn’t even put in my passcode. I didn’t want to cancel the appointment. I just wanted it to be now. I didn’t want to have to think, I didn’t want to have to wait, I never wanted to wait, I wanted everything the second I thought it, I wanted to inhale the whole world.

3:05. I had put all my papers in my bag; I had tidied my desk. Fifty-five minutes to kill. She was across the park, on Riverside Drive, which meant I could spend a good half hour walking across town. Twenty-five minutes to kill, then. I would walk very slowly. To kill. It was a vicious expression, killing time, as if none of us really wanted to be alive at all.

And yet didn’t I? Would I have made the appointment if I didn’t? Didn’t I want to be alive so badly I was about to burst?