MONICA
Monica stared at the sign on the generic office door in front of her: J. T. Higgins,
Ph.D., Psychotherapist. Her body went rigid for a moment, and then wavered like a
balloon slowly losing air. Am I going to faint again? No. No. No, she whispered to
herself.
For several moments, Monica stood immobile. Finally she reached out her right hand,
touched the doorknob, and then jerked it back as though she’d been shocked with an
electric current. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself cross the
threshold into the therapist’s office. She was like a piece of gum on the wall at
Pike Place Market: shiny, sticky, chewed up, spit out, and going nowhere. She couldn’t
imagine that anyone could really help her, or for that matter, that anyone would
want to. Slowly, she t
