Page 67 of Fragmented Illusions

Unknown: Trust us.

I click the lock button on my phone as sit back up, resting my head against the back of the seat as I ponder their words.

Trust them…

How do I do that? Part of me thinks this is all one big game to them. They know my secrets and maybe what they want is for me to give in to them so they can blackmail me or something.

You don’t really believe that.

I grit my teeth and roll my eyes. No, I don’t, I tell It. But it’s not like I can give up everything I have worked so hard for, for afeeling.

It’s more than a feeling.

It can’t be.

They’re a sickness—even worse than the one inside of me. Because what they’re doing to me is much more fucking terrifying than what I have lived with since I was a child.

My sickness is one I know. One I’m comfortable with. It’s who I am, and I have learned to live with it—to survive.

But theirs? Theirs is overpowering and consuming. It’s black with death and reeks of decay. It’s…

It’s comfortable. Familiar.

I swallow down the bile that creeps up my throat as the realization hits me uncomfortably hard.

My sickness may be one I know with deep familiarity, but theirs is too similar to ignore.

My face heats with all of these sudden realizations flooding to the surface. It makes so much sense, I feel sick to my stomach. We can’t be the same. It’s… it’s not possible.

I’ve always been alone in my pain, alone in my own head, and knowing someone—someone’s—are the same way, butfree?

It hurts.

My heart wrenches as tears burn my eyes, once again blurring my vision. They get to be free. To be who they truly are and to do what they crave with no fear, and I’ve been stuck in this vicious cycle of forcing perfection for years, simply trying to survive. To be anyonebutme.

I never knew any other way.

I figured out perfection equaled freedom. Freedom from that fucking hospital and the doctors and the probing questions.

I wanted to be me again—who I was before I almost lost myself. Who I was told Ihadto be.

I fucked up—I know that now. I chose to listen to the darkest voice—my own. It was so hard for me to ignore, so I didn’t bother trying.

That was the night with the razor blades—and when that wasn’t enough, the bridge.

The oxygen up there, that high in the air, cleared my lungs in a way I never felt before. It cleared my head as well—and that’s when It came back.

My confidant. The truest part of me.

I jump up from the seat, needing… something. I can’t fucking breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

“Fal? You okay?”

I glance to my right to find Nat staring at me with her hand wrapped around my bicep as she peers at me in the dark. I can see her soft brown eyes wide with concern and I shake my head.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I tell her, hoping my voice sounds steadier than I’m feeling.

Lies.