Therapist N − 5
“That’s not unusual for a high school student, Tess, even a senior. Plenty of people your age feel like they don’t fit in. Adolescence is hard for everyone.”
“It’s not just that. It’s not just that I don’t have friends or that boys ignore me or that I suck at sports. Yes, I have all the normal high school outcast stuff but it’s more than that. Reality feels skewed to me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Like everyone else is looking at the world from straight on and I’m seeing it five degrees off.”
“I’m not sure I understand you, but there’s nothing unusual about seeing the world differently from others. You are your own person, Tess.”
“Okay, let me explain it another way. You know how mass warps space-time? It feels like my space-time is just a little more warped than everyone else’s.”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
“It’s general relativity. You didn’t take physics?”
“No. And I thought you were in AP Chemistry?”
“I’m not taking the class. I don’t need to. Harry taught me.”
“Your father?”
“That’s right.”
“Your father, who died when you were twelve, taught you about warping space-time.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever considered the possibility, Tess, that the reason you see the world differently from others is because you’re brilliant? Maybe this skewed reality you perceive is more real than what the rest of us see. Maybe you just understand the universe better than we do.”
“Sometimes the voices are the only things that feel one hundred percent real to me.”
“Because the voices are a part of you. It’s perfectly natural for us to perceive ourselves as more real than the world around us.”
“It doesn’t bother you that sometimes I wonder if you actually exist?”
“Have you thought about studying philosophy in college?”
“Philosophy is just questions; physics is answers.”
“And does physics give you the answers you’re looking for? Answers about why the world doesn’t always seem real to you?”
“It will. Someday it will.”