“Lee, try and relax,” Dr. Terra says, speaking from behind us.
I close my eyes at the sound of the doctor’s voice. He needs to shut up. He shouldn’t be here. I told him that. Told him that this is a private moment. That it will go over better if there isn’t a party to Lee’s rejection. Especially not a party who feels the need to interject. But they—the doctor and Brant—worried about my safety. Thought the doctor and his sedative should be present, in case it needs to be used. In case Lee gets violent. He won’t. I know he won’t, not to me. But they wouldn’t listen. So now it is Lee and I… and the doctor. A doctor Lee just turned his full attention to.
“I’m sorry, who the fuck are you?” In three steps Lee has his throat in his hand, the doctor on his feet and backed against the wall. His face close to the doctor’s, his entire body trembles as he glances over at me, unmindful of the delicate throat grasped by his hand. “Are you fucking serious, Lana? You’re breaking up with me? For that rich dick?”
I stare into Lee’s eyes the whole time. During the fumbling moment when the doc reaches into his pocket. The instance when his hand withdraws and the syringe stabs through the thin cotton of Lee’s shirt. I hold the stare when Lee’s eyes flinch. When betrayal seeps through them and he glares at me like he hates me and loves me and misses me, all at the same time. I stare at him and watch as his eyes close and he slumps to the floor.
Chapter 69
Brant
Ever since finding out my condition, I have read everything I can find on Dissociative Identity Disorder, my research hampered by the fact that there is little available on the subject. But what I have read is troubling, made more so by the apparent omission that my mind will not reveal.
DID is typically caused by emotional trauma of some sort. Abuse, or a significant event, one the brain tries to hide, initially creating the first sub-personality as sort of a protective defense against the knowledge it doesn’t want the brain to have. The rare DID exceptions are brain damage, physical impairments that cause a shorting out of the cranial lobe from which idiosyncrasies result.
I haven’t had any physical damage, no hard blows to the head, no horrific accidents that would have caused multiple Brants to emerge. I also, with the exception of October 12th, haven’t had any traumatic events. And October 12th happened after – was a result of – my development of DID.
The obvious answer is that I must have had a traumatic experience and have psychologically hidden it. I’ve asked my parents and believe them when they claim ignorance of any triggering events. My curiosity isn’t worth contacting Jillian, my anger building into a grudge that won’t soon fade.
Dr. Terra has tried, in a roundabout way, to unearth this possibility. He forgets the man he is dealing with. I am an intelligent enough individual to attack a problem head on. I don’t need subtle pecks at the corners of my brain. I need to split my psyche open and dig at the root of my problem.
I can feel the incident. It nags at a part of me, like that errand you walked into a room to do and then forgot. It lies, just out of reach but at the corner of my mind, occasionally tapping at my brain matter when it wants to drive me bat-shit crazy. I need to unearth it. Need to open my past and find the key.
Now, for the 32nd evening in a row, I try. The chair beneath me creaks as I sit on the back veranda, my feet propped against the railing, the skies dark as a storm approaches. I can feel the air thicken, thunder clapping as lightening streaks the sky. I contemplate going inside, avoiding the rain, but the overhang will keep me dry. As the skies open up, rain tapping a staccato beat on the roof above me, I close my eyes and try to remember the past. Try to remember a summer twenty-seven years ago.
And then, listening to the familiar sound of rain against a roof, it comes to me.
Chapter 70
Sheila Anderson had been beautiful. Half Cuban, she had tan skin, dark hair and eyes that gleamed when she laughed. I had never spoken to her. Only sat three seats behind and one seat over, and stared. I was nervous; I was awkward. She was untouchable.
When she left school, I followed. Always had. I had an excuse. She lived a street over; our paths home followed a logical route. So I followed, and I watched her hair bounce, and I stared some more. She was always with friends, she giggled, she whispered, she hummed, and I listened. Until the day that she cried, and my world broke in two.