"How come you're outside then?"
"I like being alone now," he said. "Out here."
"Why do you like being alone?"
He shrugged.
"I always have," he said. "Well, not always. I used to be afraid to be alone," he confessed. "That's why they think I'm improving."
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I asked.
"No." He smiled and looked away.
"What's so funny?" I asked. He didn't reply. "Well?"
"I was going to ask you if you did and then I remembered you don't remember anything," he said.
"That's funny?"
He looked down. I was angry at first and then, I suddenly laughed. He looked up, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Maybe it is funny," I said. "I do feel
ridiculous." He held his gaze on me for the longest time yet and then he drew closer.
"Doctor Thomas told me sometimes it's better to laugh than cry," he said. "If you have more of a sense of humor about yourself[you don't take things as seriously and you don't worry as much," he explained. "I try to follow his advice, but I still don't laugh all that much."
"Sounds like good advice though," I said. "How long have you been here?"
"Two years," he replied. "It seems like forever."
"Two years! You didn't go home and come back?" He shook his head. "Why can't you go home? You seem fine to me," I said. I wanted to add, "unless shyness is now considered an illness."
"I have these spells. I get chest pain, dizziness, and I start to shake uncontrollably."
"Why?"
"It's what Megan told you. I have a panic disorder," he admitted. "I have very low self-esteem, but as I told you, I'm getting better," he added quickly, as if he were afraid I would be frightened away. "At least now I can take walks by myself. It used to be, I never left the building. However," he continued, "every time I think about leaving the clinic, I break out in a cold sweat and feel faint."
"You want to leave though, don't you?"
"Yes. I'm trying. I really am now. I wasn't trying so much in the beginning. I didn't care as much."
"Did you always have this . . . panic disorder?" "No," he said.
The whole time he spoke to me, he kept squeezing his right hand with his left and nibbling on his cheek.
"Why don't you sit here for a while," I suggested. "Relax. Tell me what it's like here. I've only been here one night," I explained.
He looked at the space beside me on the bench as if it were a high hurdle he could never reach.
"I don't bite," I said. "Or, at least I don't think I do. I don't remember biting people, but maybe I did," I added, tilting my head and pretending to think about it. "Since I can't remember, I can't swear I didn't. I might even be a killer." He smiled. "See, I have a sense of humor," I told him.
He widened his smile and then, with a sudden, abrupt, and definite move, like someone charging into a fire, he sat beside me.
"You really can't remember anything? Nothing?" he asked. When he spoke, he avoided looking directly at me for more than a fleeting second.
When he did look at me, I could see the sensitivity in his dark eyes. His pupils looked like two shiny black pearls. They made me think of another face, but I saw only the eyes in my memory, and then, when I saw the mouth, the eyes faded.