Page 21

Twenty-One

I don’t remember walking home.

Not really.

One second I was on my knees in the street, humiliated and shaking, still hearing the echo of my own thank yous like they’d been carved into the air—and the next, I was in the shower. Numb. Scrubbing until my skin turned blotchy and raw.

I threw the clothes away. Every last piece. Shoes included.

By the time I walked into Dr. Reynolds’ office the next morning, I looked… fine.

Which was the whole point.

Hair down. Concealer thick. Fresh jeans. Long sleeves. Calm, steady breaths. The illusion of a woman who was holding it together.

She greeted me with a warm smile. "It’s good to see you again, Dawn. I was starting to worry.”

I sat down across from her on the soft beige couch that always felt like it was trying too hard. “Yeah. Sorry. Things have just been...”

She waited.

So I offered a shrug. “Weird.”

She waited.

So I offered a shrug. “Weird.”

Dr. Reynolds tilted her head. “Weird how?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “Kind of… like I’m not totally present all the time. Like I’m walking through fog.”

She nodded slowly, flipping her notebook open. “So—disassociation?”

I pressed my hands together, squeezing my knuckles until they ached. “Kind of. It’s not like I’m blacking out. I still know where I am. I just… feel like I’m watching myself a lot. Like a second behind.”

“And when did that start?”

I hesitated.

The real answer?

When I brought them into the house. When I put them on the shelf. When I let them stay.

“…A few weeks ago,” I said. “I think.”

“You think?”

I forced a laugh. “I haven’t been great at tracking time. Which is… not super comforting, now that I’m saying it out loud.”

She smiled at me gently, which somehow made it worse.

“And what do you feel like when you’re watching yourself?”

I looked past her. At the framed quote on the wall. At the plant that never wilted because it was fake.

“Like I’m borrowing the body,” I said finally. “But someone else is driving.”

She blinked.

And I immediately added, “That’s just a metaphor. I know it’s still me. I’m not hearing voices or anything.” A lie. A little one. I had to say it. I had to stay safe.

“Have you had any new stressors recently?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. My heart kicked once, hard, like it knew what I was about to say before I did.

But before I could speak, Dr. Reynolds set her pen down and looked at me carefully.

“…I need you to know that I was contacted yesterday.”

That stopped me cold.

“I received a formal notification,” she said softly. “From the state. About Elliot Mendez’s release.”

The name hit me like a switchblade behind the ribs.

I froze, fingers twitching in my lap. My lungs forgot how to fill.

She knew.

She already knew.

“I wasn’t going to blindside you with it,” she continued gently. “But I do need to ask how you’re doing with that.”

I wasn’t.

Not at all.

I stared at her. Her voice was far away. Muffled. My vision went too sharp around the edges, like the room was folding inward. Like the couch was miles beneath me.

And somewhere— deep in the back of my skull— something shifted.

Not a sound. Not a whisper.

Just a presence.

Heat. Cold. Both. Like the air in the room had been watching.

“Elliot,” I said. The name tasted like blood. “He’s out.”

I tried to laugh. It cracked like glass in my throat.

“I thought I’d feel safer if I didn’t have to worry about what was going on in my head,” I whispered. “But now I’m starting to think it was easier when it was just the nightmares.”

Dr. Reynolds frowned. “Dawn?—

“I can’t even trust my own body,” I said, louder this time. “How am I supposed to protect myself when I can’t even move my own hand without permission?”

And the second I said it— I felt it.

The shift.

My vision sharpened. My heart slowed. My shoulders rolled back with a grace that didn’t belong to me.

And I wasn’t in control anymore.

Not in the foggy , detached way I’d felt before.

This was different.

This was intentional.

Someone else had taken over.

It was subtle.

But I felt it in the silence.

I screamed in my own mind, don’t, don’t, don’t, not here ? —

But my lips were already moving. My voice— my voice—was steady. Even. Warm.

“Sorry. I’ve just been a little off lately.”

Dr. Reynolds nodded, reassured by the calm tone. She had no idea the girl she was speaking to had left the building.

“Do you want to talk about what that feels like?” she asked.

YES!

My real voice, clawing behind my ribs. Yes, please—God, please—I’m not okay.

But my body only smiled. Tilted its head.

“I think I just need rest.”

My jaw tensed behind the mask of my face. I could feel the smirk hidden in the polite expression.

It wasn’t trying to help me.

It was protecting its claim.

I wasn’t going to be 5150’d.

Because it wouldn’t let me.

I don’t know when I came back.

I blinked and suddenly I was upright on the couch again, my legs crossed, my hands folded neatly in my lap.

Dr. Reynolds was smiling gently. I registered it the same way I might notice wallpaper—distant, unimportant, already fading.

“I think that’s a good place to pause for today,” she said. “Would you be open to meeting twice a week for a bit?”

I nodded before I could think.

She handed me my coat.

I walked out on legs that didn’t quite feel like mine.

And the second I stepped outside?—

The breath I hadn’t realized I was holding shattered out of me.

What the fuck just happened?

What the fuck just happened?

I couldn’t remember the last ten minutes. I couldn’t remember saying goodbye. All I remembered was the moment I said “I can’t even trust my own body.”

And then...

It took over.

I stood on the sidewalk, heart pounding in my ears, coat too warm, air too sharp. And for the first time since this all started— I wanted to be hospitalized.

I wanted a room with locked windows. A bed with restraints. Doctors who didn’t smile when I smiled. A fucking exorcism if that’s what it took.

Because if I couldn’t say no to what was happening inside me?

Then maybe someone else had to.