The Last Time We Say Goodbye Read Online Free PDF

must have snapped under all the emotional strain. I’ve officially lost my grip on reality.
    Because Ty is dead.
    He’s gone. He’s never coming back.
    What I saw the other night had to have been a hallucination or part of a mental breakdown or a waking dream.
    It felt real.
    But it couldn’t have been real.
    Anyway, the smart thing to do would be to tell Dave about it. After all, he’s paid to listen to me. Rationally speaking he’s the perfect person to talk to—impartial, unemotional, practical. This is what therapy is supposed to be good for: to air out yourcrazy. To get better. To deal.
    But what can I say? Um, yes, I saw the ghost of my dead brother in my basement four nights ago.
    To which Dave will say: Oh, that’s very interesting, Alexis; let’s get you some nice pills.
    So Dave asks me how I am and I say I’m fine. Which I am not. He asks me how my week was and I say it was okay. Which it, very definitely, was not.
    Then it’s quiet while Dave pins me with those kind blue eyes of his and I use the toe of my sneaker to fiddle with the edge of the rug.
    Dave finally says: “I hope you’re not still upset about last week.”
    I stare at him blankly for a few seconds before I remember. Oh. Last week.
    Right. We had a bit of a disagreement last week.
    Because I told him about the hole in my chest. About how I feel like I’m going to die while it’s happening. How I’m terrified that these moments will come more and more often, and they’ll last longer and longer, until all I feel is the hole, and then maybe it will swallow me up for good.
    I thought that was brave of me to confess. I was attempting to open up to him. I was trying to do what you’re supposed to do.
    What I wanted Dave to tell me was that the hole is horrible, yes, absolutely, but that it’s normal, and that it will get better, not worse, and that I’m not going to die, at least not for a long, long time. It will hurt for a while, but I’m going to live.
    And then I would try to believe him.
    But what he said was, “There’s a medication we can get you for that.”
    Then he went on about SSRIs and the wonders of Xanax or maybe starting with Valium, which is nicely non-habit-forming, and I stared at him mutely until he was finished waxing poetically about drugs. Then he said, “What do you think?”
    I said, “You want to put me on antidepressants?”
    He said that antidepressants with traditional therapy made a very effective combination.
    I said, “Do you think I’m depressed?”
    He coughed. “I think you’ve been through something really hard, and medication might make it a little easier.”
    â€œI see. Have you ever read the book Brave New World ?” I asked.
    He blinked a few times. “No. I don’t think so.”
    â€œIt’s about this society in the future where they have a drug called soma that makes everybody feel happy,” I explained. “It’s supposed to fix everything. You’re not content at work? No problem. You take soma, and nothing bothers you. Your mom dies? Take some soma, and everything will feel hunky-dory.”
    â€œAlexis,” Dave said. “I’m trying to help you. What you’re talking about with this hole sounds like a classic description of a panic attack—”
    â€œBut here’s the thing,” I pushed on. “That futuristic society where everybody is drugged to be happy, all the time, no matter what happens, it’s horrible—monstrous, even—it’s like the end of humanity. Because we are supposed to feel things, Dave. My brotherdied, and I’m supposed to feel it.”
    I stopped myself, suddenly out of breath. I wanted to say more. I wanted to scream about how Ty had taken antidepressants too, had been taking them for more than two years up until his death, and a fat lot of good it did him. I wanted to tell Dave my