"Emily," Dr. Melinda's voice called out from one end of the room. Emily's head was somewhere else, by a river, replaying the scenes and watching herself interact with the world. For some reason, she couldn't clearly see her face. "Do you know what dissociation is?"

Emily hummed. She traced back to the office to engage in the conversation. "Not really."

"It's a state of being disconnected from thoughts, feelings, memories or identity." Dr. Melinda expounded. On this particular day, she had no notebook. Just a click pen that worked as a prop for her idle hands.

"Okay," came Emily's response.

"The symptoms include feeling disconnected from one self, like a ghostly feeling or rather zoning out." Dr. Melinda gave Emily a pointed look. "Difficulty in handling intense emotions, sudden and expected shifts in mood for no reason, feeling like the world is distorted and not real–"

"It's not real." Emily interjected. Dr. Melinda's eyebrows arched. "Not in the way you think I might be sick but like, it is so real which just makes it a game in the end." Dr. Melinda acknowledged Emily's response with a thoughtful nod. "Don't mind me, go on."

"The other symptoms include identity confusion, difficulty in concentrating for extended periods of time and the major one; memory lapses."

Emily pursed her lips out of anything else to say or add on.

"You might be familiar with some of the reasons a person chooses to dissociate," Dr. Melinda went on. "To protect ourselves from overwhelming trauma," Emily rolled her eyes but kept quiet. "To erase trauma memories through dissociative amnesia, or simply boredom just to name but a few. Are you familiar with any of this?"

"I mean," Emily shrugged. "Just because someone is going through something, doesn't mean you have to psychoanalyse it."

"And what are you going through Emily?"

Emily paused to take a breath. There was no need to use all that energy to prove a point. She shut her eyes for a brief second before voicing her response. "Trauma, grief."

"I'm glad that we're at a point where you are acknowledging your position."

"It's whatever."

"No it's not." Dr. Melinda affirmed. "If it were then we wouldn't be here, would we?"

"Okay." Emily muttered dismissively. "So what now?"

"You're suffering from dissociative identity disorder, Emily. Now that we've established that, we have to work together to try and fix this."

Emily let out a small laugh. In the evening, she had to drop by the police station for her first official questioning. That was all she knew Monday held. On Tuesday, she might be behind bars with a bunch of felons. This was as well her last therapy session in life.

"Oh look, our time is up," Emily pointed at the wall clock and gathered her feet together. Ignoring all protests from Dr. Melinda about squeezing in some more time, Emily adorned her denim jacket and offered her therapist a farewell smile.
  

Mickey was outside waiting when Emily exited the hospital building. The weather was unbearably hot and he had two ice lollies in a clear, polythene bag.

"Any issues with your checkup?"

Emily offered the boy a bright smile. She hated lying to him. "Nop. I'm in good shape."

"In shape for artificial fruit water?" Mickey asked lifting the bag of frozen ice pops. Emily grabbed a lime flavoured one and thanked him.