Soul Storm by Kate Harrison

approach, it won’t take any time at all to get you fixed.’
    Olav beams when he comes into reception, his swollen lips pouting like a puffer fish’s. Finally he’s got his two fiercest opponents into his soft pastel
territory.
    OK, maybe I
am
being paranoid now. If everyone watches you for signs of insanity, after a while you start showing them.
    ‘Alice. Glen.’ He shakes our hands in turn. ‘So pleased you could make it.’
    ‘I’m off,’ Dad blurts out, as though he’s worried he’ll be frog-marched to a padded cell and forced to reveal his feelings. ‘I’m going to run some
errands.’
    Like buying himself more three-for-two wine gums?
    ‘Shall we?’ Olav says to me, dismissing Dad with a nod and showing me upstairs.
    The therapy room is painted lemon yellow, but when Olav pulls the blind to stop the sun shining in my eyes, the colour seems muddier. There are two chairs facing each other, and a table with a
box of tissues in the middle.
    Whatever happens, I won’t cry for him.
    ‘So, Alice, shall we start by looking at how it feels to be here, right now?’
    The fifty minutes go faster than I expected. It’s a game. Every question he asks, I try to think of the most evasive and confusing answer.
    By the end of our treatment, I want him to be doubting his
own
sanity.
    ‘Right, Alice, time to leave it there, OK? But I do want to say something about getting the most out of our sessions together.’
    ‘Hmm.’ This is my default answer for when I can’t think of anything cleverer: I learned it from Olav himself. It’s the ultimate in noncommittal mumbles. Says nothing,
gives no clues.
    ‘Alice, I can tell you’re resisting. That’s normal.’
    ‘I’m glad something about me is normal.’
    His eyebrows dart up. Funny, I was sure he’d had too much Botox to manage that. ‘But the sooner you commit to working with me, the sooner we can make things better. We could easily
spend the next four weeks playing games—’
    ‘Four weeks?’
    ‘That’s the minimum that your mother and I agreed would give me a chance to help you. Individual sessions twice-weekly, plus we’re hoping your father will agree to a family
discussion or two.’
    So much for offering me ‘alternatives’.
    ‘Alice, I’m not your enemy, OK? It’s pretty common to resist change.’
    Now I’m
common
as well as crazy.
    As he walks me back down to reception, I wonder what would have happened if I
had
told him the truth. The Beach, Triti, Javier, my theories about Meggie and Tim and Zoe. My certainty
that Sahara is stalking me. My fear that Lewis, my only ally, might now run away as fast as his long legs can carry him.
    I can’t help smiling. If I’d ’fessed to all that, I’d have made Olav’s day.
    Dad doesn’t ask what happened. He just hands me a warm doughnut in a bag, the oil oozing through the brown paper.
    ‘What are your plans for the rest of the day, then, Alice?’
    ‘More of the same, I suppose.’
    My father gives me a sympathetic look. ‘I guess these aren’t turning out to be the most exciting summer holidays you’ve ever had.’
    ‘You can say that again.’
    All weekend I sat in the living room, trying to find a book I wanted to read, a movie I wanted to watch on Sky. I couldn’t focus on anything. What I really wanted, of course, was to be on
the Beach. But Mum locked the broadband router in the garage and announced that if we went out at all, it would be ‘as a family’ – she made it sound like a threat.
    I kept remembering what Sam had said about how hard Meggie was finding things. And of course I miss Danny’s kisses, even though . . .
    It seems disloyal to admit it to myself, but his words keep coming back to me:
I won’t ask you to sacrifice yourself for this limbo.
    He meant the Beach, of course. But I’m in limbo here too, aren’t I? Trapped between his world and mine. The kisses always close that awful gap, but is it possible they’re a
distraction from the reality? That