AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I slam my hand next to her head, and she screams.
The door bursts open, and a muffled voice comes from behind. “What have we here?”
When I turn my face to look at them, something hard connects with the side of my head, lights fading as I fall off Carina to the left and hit the floor. My eyes find hers as fear licks between us. Blood oozes from my nose before I’m struck once more.
“No!” Carina shouts, and my eyes flutter closed.
I back away from the frame. “It can’t be. I remember hitting her.”
“Do you? Or is your guilt twisting your memories? That can happen, you know. So can substances.”
“I’m clean. I haven’t touched a drug since that night. I mean, I drink, but we all drink,” I slur, so heavy and warm. I want to go to sleep. I want this to be over.
But I need answers.
I fight to open my eyes, but I can’t. I don’t control them. She controls them.
My heart patters away in my chest, running wild at the loss of control.
“You weren’t clean then, Mr. Stanner. And substances have a way of twisting things. Now, I want you to take a deep breath for me,” she says. “Good, and another.”
I do so each time she tells me as she counts until she’s satisfied that I’ve taken in enough air.
“Now, when you’re ready, I want you to come back up the stairs, alright? Just as before, don’t look at any of the memories. We’ve gotten what we came for.”
I turn and step up. Making it up five steps, I let my hand follow the wall as I ascend. But when my hand accidentally touches a frame, and tingles of joy seep through my veins, I can’t help but snap my head to the left.
“Mr. Stanner?” the doctor calls, but I’m lost.
Mom sits cross-legged next to the Christmas tree, her smile bright and warm. The puppy she got us leaps from person to person, beams of joy and barks of play sounding through the living room. Father’s in his chair, stoic, but even his eyes radiate Christmas glee.
Puppies have that way, don’t they?
Maybe it’ll be a new beginning for us all after such a long time of darkness and strife.
Maybe Charley will bring us all back together again.
But when my eyes meet Father’s, my smile fades. He looks at me as if he knows something about me I don’t. Like I’m a monster, he has to keep his guard up around, and I don’t understand why. He lost a son, sure, but I’d hoped that one day he’d move past it. But each year without him, he grows colder.
But I know why he’s looking at me like that today. And it’s nothing to do with his missing son. It’s for the son who sits before him laughing at a stupid dog, when he’s had to cover up my sins.
Had to bury things for me in the past.
“Mr. Stanner! Focus, turn away from the wall and keep your eyes forward!” the doctor shouts, and her touch is on my chest. I can feel it, faint and unwavering on my body.
“I’m coming,” I manage, rushing up the stairs and pushing the door at the top open, white light bathing me as I put my forearm up to shield myself from it.
“Fuck.” I open my eyes. The room is brighter than I remember when I went under. Throwing my legs over the side of the couch, I shrug off the doctor’s touch.
“There you are,” she says, smiling and then sighing in relief.
“What I saw, what the memories showed me, was it real? Can substances change what’s in there?” I ask, needing to know this is concrete evidence before unveiling it to Carina.
She nods. “It’s real. The subconscious can bury things, hide them from a fractured mind unable to deal. But what’s in there, what’s behind the veil, is real.”
“So, I didn’t...” I sob, letting myself break now that I know some of the truth.
She shakes her head. “Seems to me you’re as much a victim as the girl you saw before you closed your eyes, this... Carina.” She looks down at her notes for Carina’s name.
