Page 1 of Borrowed

T hey told me he wasn’t real.

That he’d died and wasn’t coming back.

They said it in a slow way, as if I was too broken to understand syllables properly. Said it with tilted heads and small voices, like speaking louder might shatter my skull.

But I remembered the way his voice sounded in the dark.

I remembered the weight of him sitting at the edge of my bed.

I used to wake up with the sheets still warm from where he’d lain.

That can’t be pretend, can it?

The room they gave me was called ‘intake.’ Dolly said I would get another soon, but I only heard her cross swing like a clock.

Tick-tock.

It hung around her neck like Mother’s. Like a noose. The area was white: white walls, white bed, white light from the ceiling that buzzed like bees trapped in glass. I didn’t like it, but I was a good girl, so I smiled when they asked if I was comfortable.

“It’s nice,” I said. “It smells like bleach and tears.”

Mother didn’t laugh. Her face looked tight, like a balloon, right before it burst. Father cleared his throat and stared at the corner of the room like he couldn’t quite bear to look at me. It was like if he did, he might see Toby beside me again.

“Tabitha, you’ll be staying here for tonight, darling. Your next room will have a friend to talk to until the doctors feel it is safe to take you home for a visit day.”

Home.

Home is where I feel safe.

Not here.

Not the quiet white walls.

“The walls don’t speak here, Mother.”

Her face tightened further, and she looked at Father, who scowled like angry hornets when he looked at me.

“You’re in here because of him, you wretched child. You killed him! I know you did. I just want him back. Our boy. Not you. You’re delusional, and I hope you die here in silence!”

Death wasn’t silent. Death talked. But these walls didn’t talk at all. They were too quiet. The walls at home were loud, like broken glass slowly slipping piece by piece until it fell to the ground.

Cracking.

Cracking.

Drop.

Toby. Toby. Toby.

The circular pills my mother made me take were bitter. Maybe they were why the walls didn’t talk. They didn’t like the bitter taste of the pills.

“When is Toby coming back?”

Mother turned away, tears falling from her cheeks like raindrops. Father looked like a red tomato, his skin color matching the blush I felt crawling over my cheek. His hand did wicked things sometimes.

Would the walls talk now?

A white coat lady walked into the room. Her smile resembled that of my doll, with pretty eyes and pale skin.

What would she look like with Father’s red hand marks?

“Is this Tabby? Tabitha Crowley? Twenty-two years of age, schizoaffective disorder, depressive type with prominent psychotic features…”

Too many words.

I didn’t like words. I liked my dolls…my bunnies. The doctor said Toby’s name, and I tried to listen.

Nobody liked to say his name anymore, but I whispered it into my pillow every night.

Toby.

Toby, Toby, Toby.

They said I made him up. That he died…

But he was here.

He just didn’t like the pills Mother put in my applesauce until I found them.

I knew he was here, but he was there, too.

I remembered us hiding under the porch, whispering secrets to the worms. I remembered when he held my hand while I carved a heart into the back of the willow tree because it was always us.

Toby and me.

He told me that Mother didn’t like having cuts in the tree. That it felt pain, too. I didn’t care. I wanted them all to know. Toby did, too. I was Toby’s, and Toby was mine.

No one understands how smart Toby is.

He always knew.

Now, the room was silent.

No laughter.

No breathing beside me.

No butterfly on the windowsill, just me and the smell of the pills they gave me when I said his name too much.

I stopped taking them three days ago.

And last night…

I heard the floorboard creak. It was after hearing the whisper of the wings yesterday.

Just once.

Just enough.

And this morning, a black butterfly was pressed against the glass.

Waiting.

* * *

Strangers sat around me in a circle, like a bug, looking through glass. They were the sun, and the sun hurt my eyes.

“Hello, Tabitha. Today you are going to meet some new friends. Everyone, meet Tabitha. She will be staying with us for a few days to see how she fits in with our home. Say hello.”

“Hi,” I spoke over the others.

I wanted to do as I was told.

I was a good girl.

Toby liked good girls.

“My name is Tabby, and Toby is away right now, but he says ‘Hi’ too.”

People always looked around for Toby. They weren’t special like me. Toby didn’t like others. He didn’t want to see anyone but me, not unless he wanted to play.

Will Toby want to play with the Suns?

“Hi, Tabby. Hi, Toby,” the group said all at once.

Their voice sounds made my ears ring.

Ding ding ding, like a church bell.

Was this church? Church had pretty walls of color, not walls, not white.

“Tabby. Like a kitty! I like tabby cats. Hi, Tabby cat. I’m Mila.”

I smiled, but I didn’t like cats. Father’s cat was mean to me after I didn’t want to pet it anymore. I liked bunnies. Bunnies were fun to play with because they liked to scream like me. Trumpet and Delia were nice.

“I like bunnies,” I said, but Mila turned away. Her hair looked soft. I wanted to touch it, but she liked cats. “I don’t like cats.”

Toby didn’t like cats either. He punished the cat that hurt me.

“No one hurts my Zusje,” he’d say, and then a snap sound happened.

Bye-bye, tabby cat.

I missed Toby.

Toby. Toby. Toby.

I didn’t want to be near people that liked cats. I wanted to go home to my bunnies and my brother.

“Dolly, when can I go home to my bunnies? They miss me.”

Trumpet and Delia needed to eat. Maybe if I were gone, they could chew on Father’s tabby cat from the barn. Father wouldn’t be happy when he went in there.

Toby doesn’t like cats.

The white coat lady smiled at me, warm like popcorn and kind, unlike Mother.

Mother was scared. She didn’t like to smile. She only smiled at Toby, but then she said Toby was gone, so now her smile was gone, too.

“Tabitha, you’ll be possibly returning home later this week to visit your mother and father. This is an orientation period for you. Your parents are thinking about you living here with us. Would you like that?”

I frowned. “But I don’t like cats. I like my bunnies.”

Dolly kept smiling, her face cracking in a place like the pottery in Mother’s study. But I wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I hear you like to do crafts. We have an art room, ya know? Would you like to see?”

I like art.

“Yes, please. I don’t like cats.”

They took me to the art room, but I still wanted to go home.

They gave me red.

I asked if it was blood.

They said it was ‘Acrylic,’ but it smelled too sweet to be innocent.

The art room was quiet, except for the girl in the corner chewing on her sleeve and the boy across from me trying to swallow his crayons.

I bet it tasted like ashes.

He made a gagging sound every few seconds, and I liked the rhythm. It reminded me of my Father’s cat.

“Paint something happy, Tabitha,” Dolly said.

Happy?

Like…warm sheets after he held me down with his teeth?

Like skin that still pulsed after I wore it to feel their love?

Like the way Toby told me I was his twin sister while licking the salt off my neck?

I nodded and smiled.

Dipping my brush into red, I waited until it bled across the canvas.

“What‘cha painting, Tabby?” Dolly said, tilting my head.

“A memory.” My voice came out in a purr.

She didn’t like that, but Toby did. I swirled the brush down, curve after curve—hips, a neck, a jawline sharp like Toby’s when he was still breathing before Mother and Father put him in a box and said he was sleeping. Or maybe when he wasn’t.

It was hard to remember.

He wore the bandages.

“I can’t let you see,” he told me.

He was behind me now, his breath on my shoulder, his hands slipping under the smock I stole from the chewing girl’s table.

The other people didn’t notice.

That was the best part: taking something and making it mine.

Forever.

“Use your fingers,” he whispered. “Paint the love you have for me, Zusje.”

So I did.

I dipped my hands into crimson and smeared it into the outline of his smile. My fingers slid down the canvas, then between my thighs.

The paint was still wet.

But now, so was I…

Someone coughed.

A nurse walked past.

I hummed my favorite song. Mila would like it. It was about cats. The boy with the crayons started to cry, but I ignored him.

He was not Toby.

My painting was done.

A figure with no face, wrapped in bandages with black butterflies floating around him. I wrote his name in the corner with my tongue…Toby.

Or maybe Mine.

“Tabby, that’s…intense,” the therapist said as she walked by, eyes wide, and I grinned.

I licked the red off my fingers. But it didn’t taste like blood. That made me sad.

“Thank you,” I told her with a sigh. “It’s love.”

Because love wasn’t hearts and roses…

It was teeth, skin, and ruin, and Toby said I was born to ruin.

We both were.

He wrapped his arms around me, not allowing anyone else to see, but I felt him—heavy, pressing, possessive.

“My good twin sister,” he murmured. “Everything you make…is perfect. Just like that dripping cunt you’re hiding from me.”

I gasped, the sound sharp, like the ‘tick-tick-tick’ of the clock on the quiet walls.

“Because it’s you, Toby,” I said, laughing at how silly he was.

I was always wet for him.

I was his.