CHAPTER TWENTY
Derek Graham stood up at the front of the room and held onto the edges of his jacket as he addressed his audience. Ella saw a little Italian mobster in him, but one blended with the aesthetics of a failed cult leader.
‘Welcome, everyone, to our psychoeducational phobia class.’ He had a bass to his tone that could have summoned snakes. ‘Today, we delve into the complex world of our fears. The irrational, the unexplainable, and the profound impact they have on our lives.’
He paused. His eyes moved across the faces in the circle.
Ella counted eleven people total: seven women, four men.
Probability told her that her unsub was male, so she took special note of them.
Each one of them could be the key she was looking for, yet each face was a mask of its own, hiding whatever truths lay beneath.
The four men were much younger than she expected, save for her new friend Mason, or whatever his real name was.
‘Fear,’ Derek continued, ‘is not just an emotion, but a journey into the deepest recesses of our minds. It's a primal response, yet so often, it detaches from reality, becoming a ghost that haunts our every step.’
He walked slowly between the chairs, moving his hands as he spoke. 'We fear what we can't control, what we don't understand. And that fear traps us. Keeps us from living.'
Ella watched the faces around her. Some people nodded. Others stared at the floor.
‘Yet,’ Derek's voice rose slightly, breaking the spell, ‘it is in acknowledging our fears, confronting them, that we find our true strength. Fear can either be a barrier or a gateway to understanding ourselves better.’ Derek turned his attention to an elderly woman sitting beside Ella. ‘Martha, stand up.’
The woman obliged and rose with a speed that belied her years. 'Yes, Mr. Graham.'
‘Less of the mister,’ Derek said as he took her hand. ‘Martha here is nearly seventy years old, and for decades you suffered from what?’
‘Fear of flying.’
‘Martha here never saw the world, never stepped on a plane. Until last month, she’d never been further than Glendale, but what did you do last month, Martha?’
The woman clenched her fist like a boxer. ‘I went skydiving.’
‘You hear that?’ Derek asked the room. ‘This woman jumped out of a plane. She looked her crippling fear dead on and said not today.’
Martha's eyes welled up with tears. Derek, seizing the moment, stepped forward and wrapped her in a reassuring embrace. The room broke out in a soft applause. A part of Ella was happy this woman faced her fear, but another part of her wanted to roll her eyes.
When Martha sat back down, Derek's gaze landed on Ella.
'And today, our friends, we have a newcomer. We haven't spoken at length so I don't know your reasons for being here, but please, Miss….?'
‘Ella,’ she said.
‘Ella. Would you like to introduce yourself?’
Goosebumps prickled her skin, and not just because it was pretty cold in here. She'd known this was coming, but that didn't make it easier. She looked around the room and said, ‘Hi everyone, my name’s Ella D… Darby, and I’m here to help overcome…. some issues.’
Derek nodded encouragingly. ‘We believe in the power of community here. Sharing can be a cathartic experience. Would you be willing to tell us more about these issues? Remember, you're among friends.’
She stood up, suddenly feeling like a kid in a class doing a presentation she hadn’t prepped for.
Fear of insects. Simple, common, believable.
‘Well, for years now, I’ve been struggling with…’
The word wouldn't come.
Ento, enpho, entho.
She couldn’t think of it, nor could she just say fear of insects. It needed to sound real.
She felt twelve pairs of eyes burning her; the eleven group members and Derek. She also spotted a few people, presumably church workers, coming and going in the hallway outside.
The room fell into a hush, and at that point, her subconscious betrayed her.
‘Needles,’ she said. ‘I'm afraid of needles.’
Derek leaned back in his chair. ‘Trypanophobia. Very common. Tell us about it.’
Ella's mind filled with images she'd spent years trying to bury. She could have lied. Could have invented a childhood story about a bad doctor's visit. But the words came before she could stop them.
‘My mom... she had MS. Multiple sclerosis. It started right after I was born, and… first she needed a cane, then it got worse.’
Derek scrunched his face up. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Ella.’
The wound was open and Ella couldn’t stop the blood from flowing.
‘She was in and out of hospital all the time, and then it progressed rapidly. I was only about three, so I didn’t understand why my mom couldn’t do anything. Then my dad had to… inject her. With her medications.’
Derek said, ‘That’s good. Only continue if you’re comfortable.’
‘She was bedridden. Or stuck in a chair in the living room. Every day, my dad had to inject her, and they’d ask me to stay in the other room, but I would peer around the door to watch.
Sometimes, when neither of them were looking, I’d find the needles in the trash and I’d imagine injecting myself with them.
Sometimes I’d touch the tip of the syringe and it would cut me. ’
Ella swallowed hard. She’d never told anyone this, let alone twelve strangers. It wasn’t something that came up often, because any conversation about her parents usually defaulted to her dad’s murder.
‘Feel free to continue, if you wish.’
‘I remember sitting by my mom most nights, just watching her breathe. I asked her if I could inject her one time, and she just laughed and said no. One day, just after my fourth birthday, she could barely function, so she brought me into the room as my dad was injecting her. She never did that, so I knew there was a reason for it. When he injected her, she didn’t even flinch like she usually did.
I figured out a few years later that she just wanted us all in the same place, so she could say goodbye.
The last thing I remember seeing, next to her body, was a box full of needles. ’
Ella was no longer in St Augustine’s Church, no longer surrounded by strangers. She was back in her living room-turned-deathroom to endure the painful cycle one more time.
‘Every time I see a needle, I remember that you can do everything right and still lose.’
Ella blinked. The church came back into focus. She looked around the circle. People stared at her with sympathy, curiosity, and pity. She couldn't tell if any of them were faking it.
‘Thank you for sharing that, Ella,’ said Derek. ‘It takes courage to be that honest. Fear and grief are often two sides of the same coin.’
Ella sat down. She wiped her eyes quickly, before any tears could fall.
Maybe she'd regained her cover, at least. She'd given them a real story, and now she couldn't take it back.
Ripley had been right, again.
She really was a terrible actress.