Thought Farm | Chapter 8
Cognitive Dissonance: The psychological discomfort experienced when holding contradictory ideas simultaneously.
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Again, I found myself in Scott’s study staring down at the locked desk drawer. Don’t ask questions. The words replayed in my mind. This was followed by the image of Jason Leroux on the floor, in tears, in a pool of vomit. I knew his secret—once his voice shrieked in my head. And what was it that sometimes pinched at the hairs on the back of my neck? Late at night in the hypnosis between wake and dream, I’d wonder—What is Scott hiding?
‘Get a hold of yourself, Chlo, I could hear him say.
I tried to push away my thoughts, but like Dostoyevsky’s white bears, they only grew larger, more insistent on being heard.
I wanted Scott to envelop me, seal against my skin. I wanted to lose myself in his frantic thrusts, followed by his tender kisses on my closed eyelids. And I wanted Jason Leroux to be in H-2, safe and alive.
I lifted the letter opener off the desk and fell to my knees. With the point in the drawer lock, I needled it from side to side to no effect. I wedged it between the lip of the drawer and the desk and pried up on the handle. A sound like teeth grinding on pencil was followed by splintered rosewood. A chip of the drawer spiraled to the rug and flipped beneath the desk.
“Damn.” I had to yank hard to loosen the letter opener. I held up the freed blade, now bent in a gleaming letter C. The light hit the bend of the arc, so it reflected a glint of the late-day sun.
I flung the blade from my hand and lowered my cheek against the rug to search for the wood scab. Just inches from the flake of rosewood, I saw a yellow strip of paper, edges torn. I grabbed the paper and sat on my heels with it squirreled to my chest. Flush it, now, I told myself, as Scott had done this morning. Don’t ask questions
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