The condition had been with her for eight months, and by now Meln had learned its texture well enough to navigate most situations. She could not produce falsehood, not social untruths, not comfort statements she didn't mean, not the ordinary pleasantness that kept most conversations at a manageable surface. If someone asked how she was and she was not fine, she said so. If something was said to her that she disagreed with, she said that too. She could stay silent; that had always been available. It was specifically the production of the untrue thing that had become impossible.
In eight months she had lost two acquaintances who found the condition intolerable and gained, in some way she couldn't fully account for, a different quality of relationship with most of the people who stayed. They asked her questions they didn't ask anyone else.
She had dinner with Forn on a Friday, as they had done for years. The restaurant was loud and they had a table near the back, which was better. At the end of the meal Forn set down her glass and looked at her directly and asked: do you want to get the treatment?
The treatment window was six months. She had not scheduled anything.
Meln said: not yet.
Forn said: okay. And then: what are you waiting for?
Meln thought about this. What she was waiting for was an understanding of what she would lose when the condition cleared. She had learned things about herself in eight months that she was not sure she would have arrived at otherwise, things the condition had surfaced by making the normal evasions unavailable. She could not have said, before, whether those evasions had been protecting her from something or protecting her from herself.
She said: I'm not done with it.
Forn nodded. The restaurant was loud around them and they sat in the quiet of it for a while.