Sunshine #2
“Felt an episode coming, took a double dose, but it didn’t do anything. Then the next day, and the next day, until I was out,” I continue.
Glass splinters dig into the delicate tissue of my throat when I near the worst part—the things I remember.
Nightmares and day sweats, visions, voices, things I know are there and believe with all my heart—though no one can see or feel what I do.
Things I have been told over and over do not exist. I know they do, they have to, because visions don’t manifest in the real world.
“That’s a start,” he prompts me.
Resting my forehead on my knees, unable to hold his gaze anymore, I swallow the glass and get ready to spill more of my bleeding guts.
“I…I have these missing pieces of time. They’re just…gone. My parents have tried to help me remember, but I can’t. I know my body was moving, living and breathing, doing normal human things, but it’s a blank fucking slate. I had one before Elia—” I stop.
He stills when Elias’s name slips from my mouth. Not once have I mentioned him; at least I don’t think I have, with how intrigued he looks scrambling for his notes.
“Who? Elia…” he repeats, coaxing me into finishing his name. If I could bite through my tongue and never mention him again, I would.
But then you couldn’t kiss him. The demon reminds me.
Then I couldn’t kiss him.
Still, Mr. Kensington waits and finally I give in—I don’t want to be locked up. I don’t want to be away from him.
“Elias,” I whisper.
“Elias. And who’s that? You’ve not mentioned him before.” If he could say it any louder, they’d hear him in space.
“A friend.” I’m quick to reply defensively.
“A friend. Alright. You had a blackout before Elias did what?”
“Before he left.”
“What do you mean, left? Like he walked out and triggered memories of abandonment?”
“No…God no. He had to go to work.” I can’t look at him—not when heat’s filling my cheeks. It’s embarrassing how treacherous my body is for someone else.
“Right. So, you don’t remember. How do you know you blacked out with him if you can’t recall what happened?”
“He recorded it.”
Mr. Kensington’s head snaps, staring at me from across the table.
“He recorded it? Can he send it to me? It would be beneficial to your treatment.”
“No chance in hell. He won’t do shit for you, you’re lucky I’m even talking.”
Elias would never do that to me, show anyone evidence of me at my lowest. He wants…
he wants to erase it. The video was so I could see what happens when different entities take over—the conversations that are had and who may be at the wheel.
He just wants me to know that I’m not always violent, that there’s a part of me that wants to be saved.
Quick and harsh strokes of Mr. Kensington’s pen rattle my nerves as he jots down things he has no business playing with. If he thinks he can get close enough to Elias to ask about the video, I’ll willingly let Kate out. It would be best he left that part of my life alone.
“So, you try to self-medicate but it’s unsuccessful. You didn’t put in for an emergency session, why?”
“Don’t need it. I have no desire to be here when I’m already forced to be. Why would I call an emergent one?”
“Fair. The blanks aside, do you ever experience flashbacks that you can’t pinpoint? If you do, what do you experience?”
“Sometimes. They don’t feel like flashbacks. More like deleted scenes—multiple ones of the same event, but they’ve been replaced.”
“Explain.”
I’m going to die here.
“Usually, I’m back at the cabin, where my uncle had me strung up and ready to sacrifice me at the cross like some Salem witch.
I can feel the electrical cords he had wrapped around my wrist dig into my skin.
Then I remember the deaths, and the lake he tried to drown me in.
When I come back to reality, I’m choking on water that’s not there and my hands feel dislocated. ”
“They’re distorted, though,” he comments. Unsure if it’s a question or not, I go ahead and elaborate since I know it’s coming.
“Yes, the voices are there. Not embodiments, but they’re in my head and no longer whispers or urges. They’re real and feel like they’re going to split me apart. He’s there sometimes, a black spot trying to swallow whatever light is in the room.”
“I see. Do these voices ever tell you to do bad things, or hurt yourself?”
“No.”
Talking about them makes me feel like I’m going to speak them through the veil. With them already hovering around him, crowding his chair and hanging onto the low radiation of his life force, it doesn’t seem like that’s too far off.
With Elias, they’re calmer. There’s no vying for dominance.
No, he puts me under a spell which has them acting like civilized demons—ironic, I guess.
I wake up with a clear head, no weights dragging me to the ground, or fear of Kate springing out of me like a morbid Jack-in-the-box. It’s just…relief.
Be careful what you say, child.
Naamah, nice of you to join us today.
Her past warnings have always kept me in line, not daring to question them, and today is no different. There’s something about her I hate, but respect enough to obey.
“No. We exist at once and they haunt me,” I lie. “Whoever has control does their thing then switches out. We operate well without the pills—well, when I ran out of them.” Another lie.
“Do you have out-of-body experiences or do you see things through your own eyes?”
“My own, if I’m awake.”
“So, you’re sleeping when these things happen?”
“No.”
For someone so bright, he sure is stupid.
Read between the lines, you chauvinistic prick.
“That’s how I describe not being present when one of them takes over.”
“I see. I know we talked about possession briefly, but there isn’t any scientific backing, Sadie.
Religious hauntings are not measurable nor can they be medical without some sort of baseline for treatment.
It’s simply a level of psychosis, and until you recognize that you will turn your nose up on traditional methods. ”
Here we are again, we’ve come full circle.
Another person who doesn’t believe me. Who thinks I’m making this shit up as I go versus taking accountability for the way my brain is broken.
I’m not crazy—I feel them. It’s a physical manifestation in my body.
They’re real and living inside of me like some sort of brain eating amoeba, and the longer they’re there, the worse I get.
I wish he would believe me, I wish someone would listen to me when I tell them something’s wrong, that it’s not me doing all of these insane things.
Elias does.
Elias does.
As Mr. Kensington begins peppering me with questions, his voice fades but lingers in the back of my head. I’m too busy trying to keep myself from breaking down to focus on him. You can only take so much before you start believing you’re as damaged as people say you are.
It hurts, not being believed.
“Do you want to tell me about the detective? Why has law enforcement contacted my receptionist with the possibility of your record being subpoenaed? Are you prepared for what comes after you’re dissected in court? Do you have adequate legal counsel? Do you have a support system?”
I’m so tired. There’s not enough energy left to answer his twenty-one questions, so I let the rest of the appointment dissolve into a one-sided conversation that’s both beratement and pleading. Hanging on with the few remaining shards of myself, I will it all to come to an end—for peace.