CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
Although Ava and Eden had separated over the summer between year twelve and thirteen, there was no attempt at rekindling our friendship.
We hadn't messaged at all over our break, and upon returning to school, I only discovered their breakup when I caught Ava with a group of girls from her photography class and not Eden.
Instead of approaching, I watched happiness leak from her from a distance.
My absence in her life didn’t seem to weigh on her at all, but I missed her every day.
Auden kept me company at recess and lunch in the art rooms. While I worked on my final art project, he completed his homework.
He still hadn’t made any friends, and since final exams were fast approaching, I was growing nervous about leaving him all alone.
Who would be there to protect him when I was gone?
All I wanted was to amend the sins of my past. It was my fault he grew up without parents, and I wanted to give him the best chance at being a teenager and adult that I could.
After all he suffered, he deserved happiness.
In between studies, I researched university courses to answer the one question everyone, including myself, had begun asking: What do you want to do after school?
University was the logical answer. I was studious, so pursuing academia made sense.
I wasn’t good with my hands, so a trade was out of the question.
And while I enjoyed art, and received praise from my teacher often, I could not see a future where I could live off my art.
The world did not respect the arts, and while it was a nice dream to pursue your passion, I knew that I needed something stable, something I could live off.
But, apart from art, there was nothing I was particularly passionate about. I liked reading, history, and writing—but the only options before me were being a teacher, a librarian, or a museum collections manager. None of those screamed at me with enthusiasm.
All around me, my classmates seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do. Teacher, nurse, doctor, lawyer, news presenter, pilot, photographer, event planner. One by one, they enrolled in courses designed to aid them in their future career, and I was left with no idea of what I wanted to do.
It was not until one night, alone in my room, that a spark ignited. A small spark, not enough to light a fire, but enough to form an idea.
My mother’s journal was in my hands, her panicked handwriting staring up at me with startling clarity.
February 27, 2009
God speaks to me in my dreams. He tells me my son is possessed by the Devil.
He gives me instructions on what to do, and I feel his presence when I tighten the restraints around Augustus’ wrists, withholding food until he apologises for misbehaving.
Marcus says I am insane, but he doesn't understand. Everything I do…I do for our family. Jesus was accused of being crazy too. The son of God! If I am crazy, then crazy I am. I will not give up on my family.
To kill the Devil, my son must die. And that is a sacrifice I am prepared to make.
The words should have stung. But instead, relief loosened my shoulders, gently cascading over muscles that had known nothing but tension. My mother did not hate me. She hated the Devil.
God spoke to her, just like the Devil spoke to me.
But while God made her lock me in dark rooms and paint me with bruises, the Devil merely conjured violence in my head.
I saw him, and heard him, but was he really there?
Why didn't he just make me kill Elysse, instead of merely making me believe I did?
You fight me because I am the Devil. Your mother would not have fought God, for he is good. She let him in.
My eyes locked on the words 'insane' and 'crazy', the letters around them blurring until they were the only two words on the page. My father thought my mother was crazy…Elysse had called me crazy too.
I flicked through the remaining pages of the journal, the words 'insane' and 'crazy' jumping out at me in big, bold letters. They danced atop the pages, mocking me, daring me to confront them.
Was my mother crazy? And if she was, did that mean I was crazy too?
I slammed the journal shut and glanced toward my desk where my biology textbook lay open, a diagram of a brain and all its different systems luring me closer until I was at my chair, reading about the frontal lobe and how it controlled decision-making, judgement and behaviour.
I vaguely remembered Mr Han talking about the different functions of the brain in class, and how the frontal lobe didn't fully develop until humans reached their mid-to-late twenties.
That was why, he said, teenagers often engaged in risk-taking activities without processing the consequences.
Chin resting on my hand, I read through the entire chapter specifically focused on the brain, the words 'insane' and 'crazy' still roaming my head.
Maybe there was a physiological explanation for my mother's behaviour, a psychological reason.
It would explain why everyone else around us—including my father—didn't hear or see the Devil.
Maybe my mother was unwell. Maybe I was too.
I wanted to know what was real and what wasn't. I wanted to know the truth. And maybe…there was a way to figure all that out.