"You heard me right," I say. "I was just…I was desperate. I couldn’t get rid of these overwhelming thoughts, and they were all fucking scary, and I tried to go to like a crisis center but that didn’t work at all. So I did the one thing I told myself I’d never do."
"Got an exorcism?" he asks.
"No," I say. "I called my mom."
"Shit."
"Right," I say. Dev doesn’t know much about my mom—none of my friends know much about my mom except that I don’t talk to her. Not if I can help it. "She told me she’d been down this road before and she was going to get me help, and then, a few days later, there were these three men in my living room telling me they were going to help. But there are these…"
"What?"
"Gaps," I say, closing my eyes tightly. "There are all these gaps in my memory, like I can’t remember what the conversation with my mom was actually about. I don’t remember saying they could do the exorcism. I do remember waking up, shackled to a bed, and I remember thinking it was like, a sex thing?"
"Was it?"
I shrug. "I don’t think so," I say. "But maybe. It’s hard to know."
"That sounds incredibly intense, holy shit," he says. "Are you in therapy for it?"
"I’ve thought about it, but how do I even bring this to a therapist?" I reply. "This is silly but I feel like no one would ever understand. I mean, yeah, all the trauma from my mom or whatever, they might get. But the exorcism? I don’t know, dude. Just doesn’t feel like a super smart idea."
"I get that. So…did the guy in the bomber jacket remind you of one of them or something?"
I shake my head. "No, Dev," I say. "The guy in the bomber jacket? Hewasone of them. He was one of the exorcists. And incidentally, last night? That was the best sex I’ve ever had."
"Shit," Dev says, his hand on my shoulder.
"So," I say. "What do you think? Do you think I’m crazy?"
"Yeah, but like, no changes there," he says. "What I think is that I need to get you really, really fucking drunk today."