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21

DELILAH

I ’ve spent the entire morning gearing myself up for this moment as I reach the small stores. I send Asher a message so he knows where I am in case I do something stupid. My timings have worked, and I’ve taken my pills, but my hand trembles as I get out of the cab. As rude as it is, I can’t get my tongue to move and say thank you to the driver. I should have accepted Asher’s offer to keep his car but I can’t keep taking from him and making his life harder. The cab drives away, no doubt thinking I’m an ill-mannered piece of shit, but all of my focus is on remembering my name.

Asher said money isn’t an issue, but I can’t sit in that house day after day doing nothing or I’ll become even crazier. His birthday is coming up and the photos of our life together show that he’s turned into an extravagant gift giver since we were teenagers. Every snapshot of a birthday or anniversary had flowers in the background. It doesn’t matter if he forgets that I hate the fresh blooms because it shows his thought and care has gone into it. The only way I can give him the same without making him a pathetic sock puppet is by having access to my own money.

I can’t buy him a gift with his own money, and I can’t make anything for him when he’s never been interested in my paintings or compositions. But my feet don’t move as I look at the glass doors of the clothing boutique. The outfits are nice, and I thought it would be easy enough to transfer a childhood of being pushed into fancy fabrics to selling them to other people.

Soft giggling gets my attention, distracting me and my anxieties. A little boy pulls on his mom’s hand and points further ahead to a group of children and their respective adults loading onto a bus. They’re all excited, even the adults, and a woman stands beside the doors, ticking their names off a list.

She spots me staring like an idiot and smiles. “Did you sign up to volunteer?”

I shake my head, about to apologize when another thought strikes.

“I’ve just moved here, but if you still need volunteers, I’m sure I can do something.”

Well done, dickhead, you can do something when you’re not even trusted to remember to take your pills on time so your husband has to remind you.

The woman doesn’t know that though and she doesn’t judge me. I won’t have to sit opposite her and disclose that I have issues with my memory so I definitely shouldn’t be trusted with closing a store. So, I walk towards her and ignore the fact I have an interview that I’ll be embarrassed about not turning up to.

She gestures for me to come closer and hands me the clipboard as she smiles at each child and adult getting onto the bus and lowers her voice to say, “It’s an activity day and the volunteers only come to gossip. So, it’s the best place to learn about your new neighbors.”

I fill in my details—Delilah Newman’s—and hand it back to her. She reads my name and smiles again. “Well, Delilah, it looks like we’re all set. I’m Kara. Do you have a car to follow?”

Fuck.

“No, sorry, I didn’t think. You can just remove my details.”

I step back, ready to leave and crawl under a rock because it’s embarrassing as fuck, but Kara shakes her head and a small crease forms between her brows.

“That’s fine, you can drive with me. The bus is for the kids, and I didn’t want you to end up getting lost on the way.” She looks down at the clipboard again and her brows go up. “You can play the piano?”

I nod and weakly offer, “I began training when I was four and I had composition lessons up until I was thirteen.”

Her brows get further up her forehead, and she blows out a breath before doing a head count and sending the bus ahead. Once it’s driven away, she points to her car and makes polite, normal small talk. I can do this whole people-ing thing and Asher will see that I’m not totally crazy. He won’t have to worry as much and maybe I can find a different job, one with less responsibility.

Kara doesn’t take long to catch up to the bus and she gives me all the details about what I’ve volunteered for.

“We rotate through each plot of farmland because there’s one field out of use to give it time to recuperate from last year. The children can do whatever they want and there’s some musical equipment in the barn.” She looks over at me. “It might not be up to your standards, but they enjoy it.”

When we reach the farm, my nose is nearly pressed to the window. She made it sound like a boring activity day, but there are animals grazing on the property. Ruby had a horse when we were children, and I was never allowed to go near it after it had bucked and broke one of the trainer’s jaws. My mother couldn’t risk the same happening to me and giving me a “hideous” scar that she’d be unable to hide.

A group of adults stand beside the bus, they all have the same matching pale blue t-shirts as Kara and I get out of the car, following her like a lost sheep because I’m socially inept. I allow her to introduce me to everyone and as much as I feel like an idiot, I’m also strangely proud of myself for getting out of the house.

It’s a day where my mind doesn’t win, there are no shadows following me or incorrect images and I’m not totally reliant on Asher. He gets to have his life, and I get to do the same. We can do this and be in a healthy relationship. All I have to do is continue taking my pills and slowly introduce myself to society. So I remind myself that these people don’t know my parents and there are no monsters lurking in the background.

I get distracted by a horse with a shiny silver coat like a magpie. It’s majestic. There are stalls set up with feed. Taking an apple, I hold it flat in my hand and bring it to its mouth. It dips its head, sniffing the fruit, before eating directly from my hand which is freaky as fuck, but it’s cool that it’s not afraid of me. I always thought animals would have the ability to sniff out all my insecurities, but this one is calm and allows me to stroke the top of its head while it eats. Until it’s finished the apple, and a laugh escapes me when it nudges my chin with its muzzle.

“Okay, you want more?”

I pick up a carrot next and jump as a deep voice behind me says, “Careful with him, he can get attached.”

A man stands far too close and I slowly step to the side as I politely smile and feed the horse.

“Well, he’s a pretty boy so I wouldn’t mind taking him home with me.”

The man smiles and brushes his hair out of his amber eyes. He’s tall and his t-shirt clings to his muscles as he rests his forearms on the wooden fence keeping the horse enclosed.

“Don’t let people hear that,” he whispers and smirks. “You’ll have a house full, Delilah.”

The horse snorts as my hand falls, taking its food away.

Because he knows my name.

How does he know my name?

I’ve never seen him before, and I study him for any sign of familiarity. Is the ghost real? His voice isn’t the same as the masked freak in my mind, and he isn’t sinister or leering. And he isn’t chasing me. But I still ask, “Do I know you?”

Are you the person haunting me?

A crease forms between his brows and he slowly backs away. “You were introduced to the group and walked away before I could do the same.”

Fucking fuck. I’m letting my crazy show.

I bring the half-eaten stick of carrot back to the horse’s mouth and try to make an excuse. “Oh, I thought I recognized you from somewhere.”

Also known as my hallucinations.

He nods, unconvincingly, and makes some mumbled excuse to leave. I don’t think I’ll ever be normal and it’s a stupid concept anyway. No one is normal because no one lives a life exactly the same as someone else. Everyone has issues. So what if mine are managed by pills and doctor’s visits? Just because they exist in my head doesn’t make them any less real than if I had a physical illness. Stupid dictionaries and doctors with their need to find a meaning in everything, only to end up isolating the entire population because there are all these words for things that end up making people feel more alone. There’s no comradery in being crazy when everything that makes me is at war, from my mind to my body, so what hope do I have of being able to be understood by anyone else when I’m constantly fighting to do the same? There isn’t any and I’m always going to be exhausted, unfulfilled with this need to be understood and hope that if someone, anyone, can do that then maybe I’ll be a step closer to knowing who the fuck I am.

I continue feeding the horse because it doesn’t bring any attention to my crumbling mind and it’s calming. No one is within earshot as the man returns to the group, probably to tell them there’s a nutcase on the property and Kara hasn’t done her due diligence, so I bring a carrot to the horse’s mouth and stroke the side of its face as I whisper, “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”

It snorts, which is just rude. I pull the carrot out of reach.

“Hey, I’m the one that can reach your food. Do you think you should be sarcastic with me?”

It rubs the tip of its nose against my cheek, and it tickles. Taking it as agreement that I’m not insane when it’s proof of otherwise, I bring the carrot back to its mouth. We fall into a relaxing routine as I continue feeding it and stroking the side of its neck until a small body slams into my legs. I look down to see a little girl push her curly hair out of her face with the back of her hand. Her cheeks are red, and her eyes are freakishly wide as she squeals, “Horsey!”

A woman runs up after her and she breathlessly apologizes, “Sorry. Scarlet, baby, say sorry for hitting the nice lady.”

What the fuck? I’m way too young to be referred to as a lady.

I ignore the insult and lower to my haunches in front of the little girl. “You have a very pretty name. My sister has the same one and she was always running everywhere too.”

The woman, who I’m assuming is her responsible adult, laughs lightly and holds the girl’s hand. “There must be something in the name.”

I nod and give up my space with the horse so the child can have it since she’s forced me to think about my sister. Ruby filled the role of a mother because she’s the eldest, but Scarlet was my loud protector. She never gave a shit about anyone or anything and she never ran away like Ruby did. She walked out of the house with her luggage rolling behind her and not a single care in the world. But that Scarlet would be with me. She wouldn’t leave me alone or choose our parents over us. She wouldn’t have forgotten me.

There’s no distraction from any of the other volunteers who have all been assigned tasks as I make my way to the barn and a pedal piano sits in the center. The wooden surround is aged and for the first time, I feel excited. The older equipment was always better to play on because it takes an adjustment to learn how to work with it rather than having it tuned to perfectly fit my parents’ preference.

The bench is newer and even if it was made out of nails it would be comfortable with the excitement coursing through me. It doesn’t take long for me to work through an old composition that I’d use as a test for any new instrument. It runs through each note and my eyes close to get a feeling of the strings and how they react.

When I open them, the man from earlier is standing beside the barn doors staring at me. He quickly turns when I meet his eyes. I’m stopped from going after him as a little boy lifts himself onto the bench. He can’t be older than four, and he slaps his hands together.

“Can you play the clap song, please?”

I nod and play the tune he wants as he claps and sings to himself. It’s a strange parallel to my childhood. I’m still playing to someone else’s command, but the boy isn’t taking, he’s inviting me into his game and more children end up joining him. They all clap offbeat and out of order, but I get to feel like I’m doing something with my life. Something that is worthwhile and actually helping someone other than frustrating me and making me want to climb inside of my skull to physically sort through the mess that sits there.