The moment that Jon walked out the door, Karyn came back to herself and all of Other Karyn’s rage that was keeping her upright just drained out of her. She collapsed onto the sofa, curled up right in the spot that Jon had occupied just a few minutes before. It was a stark contrast: instead of one large form spread out and alone, occupying as much space as he could, Karyn was small, vulnerable, and in a fetal position, with every other guest crowding around her to offer sympathy.
Every other guest except for one.
Sarah McMillan stared out the front window, gears turning in her head, as her eyes fell upon the purple blossoms of a jacaranda tree. It’s not that she was ignoring Karyn. It’s that something wasn’t sitting right with her.
Slowly, the crowd around Karyn began to disperse as people retreated to the back yard. But Sarah stayed. And she waited until it was just her and Karyn. And she sat down next to her best friend on the sofa.
“Tell me what’s really going on,” she said softly.
Karyn looked up at Sarah with red eyes puffy from tears. “I just hate him.”
“But yesterday you loved him. Sure he was a jerk this morning, what you did was an over-reaction. Something else is going on.”
“Sarah, I don’t know why I hate him. I mean, when you told me what he did I was mad at him. Like, I knew I was mad at him, and I knew it was just temporary. Like I needed to hash things out, and then it would be okay. But I hate him now. Right now. Different from out in the back yard. I don’t want to hate him. I just– there’s a voice inside my head telling me that I need to hate him.”
That voice was Other Karyn. It was the emotional residue that stuck, the thoughts that were in Other Karyn’s mind at the moment that they swapped. Karyn had hoisted herself on her own petard: by trying to artificially influence Other Karyn to be kind to Jon, she set up this scenario where Other Karyn’s hatred of Jon was artificially influencing her.
“You don’t want to hate him,” Sarah said slowly, “there’s just a voice in your head.” She put a gentle hand on Karyn’s shoulder. “Something happened last night, and I don’t know what it was. But both of you are acting weird this morning. You’re telling me that you don’t want to hate Jon, so I’m going to go out there and see if he doesn’t want to hate you, too. Is that okay?”
Karyn nodded, because intellectually she knew that Sarah was trying to help. But agreeing to something that might help Jon gave her a slight queasiness inside.
