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“I just heard all this noise suddenly,“ I say. “The radio came on, the dashboard flashed, I lost all control. Then these cars boxed me in and I think they were trying to kill me.“
“You think the cars were trying to kill you?“
I lick my teeth. “I mean, I don’t know if you could come to a different conclusion.“
Of course, I know what I'm doing. I’m afraid. I’m breaking into a cold sweat. I sound like I’m afraid because Iam. This is scary. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Maybe the racing heartbeat has more to do with the fact that I’m in the hospital and nothing to do with the fact that I’m doing something I’ve been trying to actively avoid my whole life.
She meets my gaze, waiting for me to say something else. Under her white coat, I see a cheetah print blouse and dark blue slacks. She’s wearing sneakers, though. She probably has to run a lot.
She’s sensible. What I’m telling her is anythingbutsensible.
I brace myself. The way she’s dressed makes no difference because I need to do something about this, and I have to do it now. I need to make sure that she is concerned for me. Telling her the truth is probably the easiest way. After all, if I wasn’t in the midst of this myself, with exorcists worried about it, I would think I'm fucking bonkers myself.
That would simply be the sensible take.
Dr. Shah breaks the silence between us. “Okay, you said you were upset. Why were you upset?“
I sigh before taking a deep breath. I wonder if I can get through what I’m about to say in one breath. “Because my mom has been possessed most of my life, fuck, probably most of her life. And I thought she abandoned me, but it turns out that she was actually trying to help me, so I guess I just wanted to talk to her about it. I stole the car, it was not my car, and I raced to find her without thinking it through.“
The doctor takes a second to process this. “Did you know where she was going to be?“
“No, I understand it wasn’t the most well-thought-out plan, but to be honest, I wasn't worried about that. All I was worried about was making sure that I confronted her about it. I needed to know the truth.“
“The truth about her being possessed?“ Dr. Shah asks, obviously concerned.
Okay, I’m pretty sure that this is working. And it’s working on me, too, because I’m getting upset just talking and thinking about this. But maybe I’ll feel better if I just tell her the whole truth.
“The truth, doctor, is that my family is generationally cursed with demons.“
“Your family is…“
“Generationally cursed with possession. I just found this out like a day ago,“ I say, interrupting her.
“How did you…“
She trails off that time. “Because the exorcist came to me, to do a survey on how their first exorcist had gone. Because three years ago, I woke up bound to a bed with three men trying to get the demons out of me.“
“Like, with consent? Do you want me to call the police?“
I laugh. I can’t help myself. But I can’t stop talking about this. “Anyway, doctor, it turns out that I have precognition. Powers, but not when it comes to accidents. You know, when I'm here, they seem to be completely turned off. It's like being around my mother jams my precognition signal. I could’ve avoided the accident if I had managed to, you know, see the future.“
She blinks, opening her mouth for a second before she speaks. “Okay. All right. So to be clear, what you mean by precognition is that you’re a psychic?“
“Yeah, something like that. Not exactly like that. You remember that show that was on TV, I don’t know, like 15 years ago, with Patricia Arquette?“
“I…maybe? I don’t know what you’re talking about.“
“Doesn’t matter,“ I say, waving her off. “Yeah, I'm a medium. Except what I see is not actual spirits, just the future.“
She stares at me, her eyes wide open. I might need to pull back a little bit; there is every chance I’m overselling this. But if she only thinks I’m quirky, she’s just going to discharge me, so I decide I’m all in. “Is that why you think you got into the accident? What you think caused it?“
I shake my head. It hurts. “No, I think that I got into the accident because there are demons that are chasing me that I was trying to get away from and they don't want me to do that. So that's why they caused the accident. They were trying to kill me. They were trying to hurt me. They…“
“Okay, so just let me see if I got this correctly. You came to visit your mother…was that planned?“
“No. We’re estranged.“
“So you don’t live with her.“
