My palms grew sweaty as I tried to think. There were certain things in my life that others weren't supposed to know about. And yet, I found myself in front of Dr. Shruti, pulse racing, mind jumping, trying to think of how to correctly phrase the problem without revealing these things.
"Everything's fine," I finally answered.
What a stupid answer. But it was all I could manage to get out in the stress of the situation. I caught Dr. Shruti's gaze following my eyes to the floor in front of me. I tried to look back up at her and make eye contact like I had been taught to do. Her hazel eyes were large and seemed slightly out of place on her small, squarish face.
I thought about the question to come next. It always did, in the uncountable years I had been seeing Dr. Shruti. I knew it would come, but as always, I had no good way to answer. In the past, I had always scraped by with some uncomfortable muttered response, but something told me I wasn't going to get away with it this time.
"That's lovely, Jordan, but you and I both know that's not true. So tell me then, how has your family life been holding up?"
That was it?
Where was the question?
My mind was no longer worrying about how to answer the question but rather why it went unasked.
"Pretty good," I responded. "Mother has been gone a lot this week with job interviews. To be honest, I am not sure she will ever get another job as a private investigator at her age."
The conversation was back in more comfortable territory. I liked the taste of the pizza I was still tasting in my mouth from years ago. Those were the years when I didn't have a worry in the world. When my dad came home after work he would throw dingoes at me on his guitar which almost killed me on multiple occasions, and nobody even called the police on us, not once.
One day, everything changed when vitamin A men attacked, and my life sucked for the rest of my life.
And there was zombies. :(