Why am I here? Where am I going? Not long ago Michael had answers to these questions. Clear-cut, no fuss. But Mars has slowly eroded away; where it was there’s now a void, and he’s collapsing in on himself. Maybe, he thinks, everyone ends up in the same place they begin.
He’s silent for a stretch. Making these concepts solid in his mind has always been nearly impossible for him. He’s never once spoken in any detail about his life before New York, even to Morris. No one had ever pushed past everything else that surrounded him. It’s hard to know how to shape any of it into words after so many years, and he’s so exhausted. But Lee wants him to. Lee says he should. She wants to help, and he trusts her.
Michael trusts her, so he focuses everything on that.
“Okay.” He takes a slow breath through his nose and rubs his forehead with his free hand, eyes closed. “Okay. I, uh…” An uneasy pause, then a sigh erupts in a burst.
“Fuck, I—Lee, I need—there’s a million things at once and it’s like nothing, it doesn’t sound like anything, I don’t know where to start.” His hand is tight around hers now. He’s not yelling, but it’s obvious he’s frustrated with himself.