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Trine
I’m exhausted after our conversation is over. As I close my eyes, drinking the last of my soft drink, I try to think about how the day went. I don’t remember how I slept last night, mostly because it feels like it happened a million years ago, and today has been incredibly eventful.
I look at my shoulder. I think Rei is telling the truth. After they left, when I came back to, there were scars all over me. Some of them had healed over, some had scabbed, but the one along my shoulder was deep and it looked like it had been stitched together.
I don’t like needles. I never have. But I didn’t want to see myself in the mirror and look at the scar left by something I couldn’t remember, so I got a tattoo of a barbed wire fence with lines along the scar, a black and white skull in the middle. The tattoo is fucking awesome, but getting it done right on the scar hurt like a bitch, and it took me a lot of convincing to get my artist to do it.
It didn’t work, though. The art’s amazing, but every time I look at it, all I think about is the scar. How it happened. And now that he’s telling me, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to believe him, mostly because even the thought of it is fucking horrifying.
I don’t know how to deal with any of this.
There's nothing in the world I want to do more than go crawl into a bed, but I don't think it can be my bed. I like having Bryony as my roommate and, most of the time, I like sharing our apartment. But there are times like this when I still wish I lived alone. I would pay to be able to crawl into my bed, scream into my pillow and have no one worry about me.
Shit. Maybe that's why she insisted on moving in as we were recording the album. She said it made more sense and it was cheaper but she probably also wanted to keep an eye on me. There's no way she would've left me to fend for myself after that whole thing happened. She asked me about it a million times and I always told her the same thing.
The truth.
Is she the one that called the exorcists?
I didn't remember. I still don't. I kinda wish I never asked.
"Do you have any more questions?" Rei asks. He looks genuinely curious, but mostly, he seems upset. I don't think he wanted to share any of this.
"You're sure it's over?" I ask, looking down at my shoulder. "I'm not going to start getting cuts and bruises all over my body again that nobody can explain. Will I?"
"No, I don't think so. But if you do, if something were to happen, we would help you."
"And do you think something will?"
He considers that for a second too long. "I'm not clairvoyant. I can't predict the future."
I let his words sink in slowly. He's looking right at my eyes, and I might not always get things at first, but I get this. He's saying everything he needs to say with the way he's looking at me. "Does that mean you think I can predict the future?"
He waves me off, his gaze darting away from mine. "I don’t know," he says. "I only know what I saw, and what I saw was that something happened at the restaurant. I don’t know what it was. I just know that you had information you shouldn’t have had access to."
"So you think that’s a…like a lingering effect of being possessed?"
He shrugs. "I mean, it’s hard to know," he says. "A lot of this is just educated guesswork."
"That’s not comforting."
The waiter comes up to us to refill our drinks and ask us how everything is going, and we both reply that it’s great, but it feels perfunctory. I don’t know how Rei’s water can be great.
"It’s not supposed to be comforting," he says once the waiter walks away from us. "I’m not trying to make things easier for you. I’m just trying to show you the truth. You said you wanted it. Did you change your mind?"
I narrow my eyes. "No," I say. "But this isn’t an easy pill to swallow."
"I know," he says, looking right into my eyes. "But, for what it’s worth, you never hurt anyone. You wouldn’t have."
My hand goes to my throat, to where Tom’s hand was when he was squeezing. My skin feels like it burns, but there’s nothing there. I understand my reaction is probably psychological, but it feels so read, like his hands were on me only a few minutes ago.
It feels remote, too. Like it happened to someone else. Having no marks on my skin isn’t helpful; it just makes me feel crazy.
"I guess it’s a stupid question, but are you okay?" Rei asks.
I laugh. "You’re right. It’s a stupid question."
He doesn’t laugh. He seems to think this is serious, and when I pick up my head to look at him, I can see he’s concerned. "How can I help you?"
