Liza feared she was becoming worse as time passed.
Even though she had calls with Doctor Whitney at least once every two weeks, she didn't feel better. She felt the opposite of better. She'd used the computer with Whitney the previous week to do a video call, and now the phone seemed useless. It was like Whitney had first described—it was easier to determine one's true feelings and intentions when you could see their face and every poorly-hidden tick of their features.
As a result, Liza no longer wanted to use the phone. The phone was scary. The phone was just a voice—it could be the voice of anyone—and it was so much harder to tell what someone was really thinking or planning when she couldn't see their face.
What if it was a reporter? She'd had that happen even more recently, as the court trial of the airline approached and overeager, money-hungry assholes tried to get information out of her, uncaring how they were affecting her mental state.
Additionally, where she had previously been able to go outside and make short trips in her car to the grocery store, she was no longer capable of such acts. When she'd started her car two days previous, the sound of the engine had startled her, like a mini explosion, which reminded her of larger explosions, which made her recall the sound of screams as people died, then the smell as their flesh burnt off, then—
No!
She sucked in a sharp breath, bringing up shaky fingers to rub at her exhausted eyes. She hadn't been able to sleep since the incident with her car—every time she closed her eyes, she thought about all those noises, and then she started to hear them, and smell things, and then she could swear she was free-falling, towards the ground, towards death—
"Shit," she breathed. "Shit. God. Shit." The thought of the store was beginning to become even scarier, too. Whitney had encouraged her to continue making the short trips, but Liza couldn't do it.
The thought of leaving, hearing the sound of her car, then facing all those damn strangers with all their selfish thoughts and intentions . . . She had used the online, delivery feature the prior day, with explicit instructions in the note for the bags to be left outside her front door.
She was definitely becoming worse. Perhaps it was a delayed reaction to the trauma—she had no idea. There was only one thing that Liza knew with absolute certainty: She was going insane.
There was no other explanation.