Alive: The Ghost of Cambria - Book One

Chapter One

"Was Josh your first boyfriend? Your first real boyfriend?" Kristen continued.

The girl nodded her head silently.

"The two of you separated on bad terms?"

Again, the girl nodded her reply.

"Did he cheat on you?"

Mona didn't answer, but the silence was a louder confirmation than her voice could ever produce.

"And he was the first guy you had sex with?"

Tears broke on Mona's face as she looked to Kristen through a forced smile. She brought a crumpled tissue to her eyes to catch them before they fell. The girl had begun the session with tears of fear, but now they came from the miserable embarrassment of sharing intimacies with a stranger.

Kristen had learned how not to cry in front of her patients, which was an accomplishment few professionals could understand or appreciate. After the training she'd undergone in graduate school focused on the skill of empathy, it was a test of will for the psychologist to avoid weeping during a counseling session. Kristen had been trained to place herself into a patient's mind, to experience the same emotions as the patient—all as a method to achieve increased psychological understanding. This focused training meant that Kristen's empathy muscle was so over-developed, she was doomed to feel a patient's emotions even more sharply than she could feel her own. And Mona's tears now cut through Kristen like a hot knife, forcing the woman to recall how painful her own first breakup had been.

But that was not something she could share with the girl.

"I want you to understand that no one is ever going to know about this conversation," Kristen told the girl softly. "I am completely on your side here, and my only desire is to help you through this. I will not betray your confidence in me."

"I feel like an idiot," the girl wept.

"God no," said Kristen, her eyebrows furrowed sharply. "Getting out of your first love unscathed is almost unheard of. Most of us land pretty hard. What concerns me is how you get up from the fall.

"Let me tell you a story," Kristen began.

"This happened to you?" asked Mona.

"Yes, but that story won't do much for you," said Kristen. "I want to tell you a little story about neurotransmitters."

Mona stared in confusion.

"We have a brain, and we have a mind, and the two are different. The brain is the large spongy grey thing behind our eyeballs. You've seen a picture of it in Biology. It's our main computer, and it regulates every part of our body, from our heartbeat to our breathing. The mind is something else, but it's unquestionably linked to the brain. When we stub our toe, our feet send information to the brain, and the brain warns our mind that we hurt ourselves. Do you know how it does that? The brain sends neurotransmitters that result in the sensation of pain. It does this so we will stop and pay attention to our toe. It wants us to baby our foot for a minute and make sure it's not broken. The brain is trying to keep us healthy and safe, so it focuses our mind's attention toward something potentially threatening, like breaking a toe.

"We don't know very much about it, but essentially the mind is... Mona, or Kristen," she said, bringing her hand to her chest, "or Beyoncé, or your mom—our mind is us. All our thoughts, dreams, fears, knowledge—everything we feel or know—that's what the mind is. Some people will tell you the mind is your spirit or soul. Others think it's something extraordinary the brain creates to increase our ability to survive in our environment. What we know for sure is that the mind is dependent upon and influenced by the brain. Are you with me?"