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Chapter 40

FORTY

MADISON/brOOKE/MATILDA/?

I wake up from the lurking, non-stop nightmare, still screaming as I sit up violently in bed.

I’m in a bright yellow room with a big bay window and blue streaming in from the sky beyond. There are even clouds. But I don’t recognize the room, or anything around me.

“Where the hell am I?” I ask, scooting to the opposite side of the bed as an intimidatingly large man stands over my bedside. He’s young, maybe in his early thirties, and his thick-framed glasses make him look nice. Approachable. But I know better than most that a pretty package can hide combustible sins .

“You’re in Domhnall Callaghan’s house, in your own separate wing. He is not here.”

I can’t tell if that last bit made my heart speed up or slow down.

“I’m glad to meet you,” he says. “I’m Dr. Nathan Ezra. Professor Roberts referred you to me. I understand you’ve been dealing with some amnesia of late. We finally know your identity. You are Matilda Sheffield?—”

He stops speaking when my head starts vehemently shaking back and forth.

“You aren’t Matilda Sheffield?” he asks.

“Not anymore.”

“What should I call you, then?”

My eyes wander off towards the wall as I slip away. “I’ve been so many people,” I murmur. “But usually its just me and her.” She’s there now, whispering in the corner of my mind.

He snaps right in my face and my eyes jump open.

“I’ve worked with folks like you,” the doctor says gently as I lift a hand to my pounding heart. “Folks who’ve been brainwashed as a part of a cult or experienced extensive, brutal psycho-physiological gaslighting like you have. Sometimes a mind finds it necessary to split, sectioning itself off so that only part of oneself experiences the worst of the trauma so the other pieces can remain intact.”

I picture my brain as a fractured mirror.

“So it’s hopeless?” I feel myself sink further and further away from the doctor and the nice room with each passing moment. Everything starts to feel fuzzy. It’d be easy to sink into it and give over to her. Where’s Domhnall? He’s my anchor. Without him, the little box in the corner of my mind beckons.

“Quite the opposite in fact,” Dr. Ezra says. “We’re continually astonished by the brain’s ability to build new neural pathways. You’re still young, Miss Sheffield. Some part of the extensive trauma you’ve lived through may always be with you.”

“But,” he leans in, “to tell you the truth, we’re all a little fucked up. And there’s a real opportunity here that you can have a bright future not trapped in your past.”

“Oh.” I almost perk up, confused by the optimism of his words. Is he just blowing smoke up my ass? Then again, he hasn’t met her . I immediately deflate. Some part of me hoped that when I killed my father, she’d go away, too. But she’s still here.

Fuck. Where is Domhnall? I ache for him like he’s a missing limb. I pull my arms around my stomach and pretend they’re his.

“So what would you like to be called? Plenty of people try on names nowadays. What strikes your fancy?”

I shrug. I’ve never cared much about names. My father gave me so many of them. “I don’t care. Brooke. Madison. Whatever you want.”

“It’s for you to pick,” Dr. Ezra says patiently. “Identity is important. It’s part of what your father was trying to erase. It’s your job to rediscover it. Who are you?”

I just stare at him, feeling the haziness coming on. Identity? Is he kidding? Who the fuck cares? What he’s talking about seems so… inconsequential compared to everything else that’s happened.

He tilts his head at me, a gentle smile on his face. “You’re skeptical. But this is actually quite central. Your whole life, you’ve been given various roles to fill, which you’ve done exquisitely.”

I glow a little under his praise, just like I do anytime Domhnall calls me a good girl.

Then he continues on, “But you’ve also never been given the opportunity to find out who you yourself would choose to be all on your own. What do you want? What sorts of things do you like? What are your hobbies? Opinions?”

He leans forwards in his chair, fingers crossed under his chin. “What food do you like?”

“Oh just whatever anyone else is eating is fine. I’m not picky.”

One eyebrow hefts. “But what do you, yourself , like? What’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite color? If you had a day that was completely empty with no responsibilities, just to yourself, what would you do?”

His questions are pedantic. So easy they’re stupid. I open my mouth to respond. And go completely blank.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t know. Something. ”

He waves a hand. “Then by all means. Tell me.”

“I’d sleep.” I look around. Out the window. “Or do something useful. Wash the dishes. Get some laundry done.”

“I said a day when there are no responsibilities.”

“What if I like doing laundry?” I spit back.

He holds his hands up, but then just sits there in silence.

And then more silence. Waiting for me to answer him about what I like. Which is so fucking ridiculous. Who the fuck even cares?

“I’d go on a walk,” I finally say. Jesus, get off my back already.

“Do you like taking walks?”

“How the fuck should I know? You think my life’s been about going on nice pretty little walks under the fruit trees?”

I’m trying to rile him up or get him to stop looking so fucking calm. I’m being a brat, and by this point, Domhnall’s nostrils would be flaring. But Dr. Ezra just sits there looking perfectly pleasant.

“I’m going to let you in on another little secret. It makes total sense to me why you don’t know what things you like or how you would choose to spend a free day.”

He leans forward and does the hands-folded-beneath-his-chin-thing again. “Your clever mind found a way to protect itself all these years so you could survive under extraordinarily brutal circumstances. You say you don’t know yourself, but the core of who you are still fought this whole time to hold on to you . ”

He thinks he’s so clever with his soft voice, but he’s?—

“No it didn’t!” The rage hot in my chest erupts. “I don’t even know who the fuck I am!” I’m furious at him. At myself.

But he just shakes his head, not put off by my fury at all. “You’re still there. You’ve always been there. It’s like a fully decorated room with the lights off. Little by little, as myself or other therapists work with you, you’ll learn to turn the lights up bit by bit, as if on a slider. You’ll eventually start to see what was in there all along. The furniture and the posters on the wall. The colors and design of the bedspread you choose.

“You’ll figure out what you like and don’t like—not because someone else told you, but because it’s just you in there. Nothing is lost that can’t be found. So let’s start over. What do you want your name to be?”

“Anna,” escapes my lips before I can really overthink it.

Dr. Ezra nods. “Anna. That’s a beautiful name. Does it come from somewhere?”

Why is he asking so many questions? Stupid questions, stupid questions, attacking my already battered brain.

“Enough!” I run and shove the door to the room open. The second I’m across the threshold, the haziness descends again, and I welcome the dark place as I climb back into the box in the deepest recesses of my brain.

HE R

“It’s her mother’s middle name,” I say, sitting up straight as a pin, crossing my legs, and staring Dr. Ezra down with one eyebrow lifted. “Anna.”

This nave thinks he can fix my girl?

Fool. I protect the girl. Just like I have since she was a child and her mother abandoned her to the monster.

Dr. Ezra tilts his head. “Her?”

I roll my eyes. This is so pedantic. “The girl. It’s the girl’s mother’s middle name. Anna.”

“And who am I speaking to now?”

Oh he’s clever, is he?

I give him an icy smile, hands tucked demurely in my lap. “My pronouns are she/her.”

“And your name?”

“Names are overrated.” I give a tight wave of my hand before tucking it back in my lap. “You don’t need a name when there’s no one to talk to except a monster. And I was a secret we kept, so he never knew I was here.”

“Monster?”

I give him a deadpan stare. “If you don’t know about the monster yet, you’ve really got shit qualifications, don’t you? Did they call in another half-doctor?” I yawn and roll my head to stretch my neck. We really need to be getting the girl more exercise. She’s so tight.

He chuckles. “I can see how you kept her safe all these years. You’re very smart, aren’t you? She’s mentioned you in passing but I wasn’t sure I’d get to meet you. And yes, I know about your father. So you call him the monster? What was your experience of him?”

I give a laughing scoff. “Oh I’m not here for that, little doctor man. She can talk out all her woes to you, but I’m just fine. I’ve been toughing out shit you can’t even imagine in your little academic ivory tower. I’m so glad that you’ve worked with other little sad shits who’ve gone through traumatic childhoods but you don’t know us. The girl and I have a system that works just fine.”

“Does the girl think so?”

I scoff again. “She’s just a child.”

“That’s not what she thinks. She feels like a twenty-two or twenty-three year old woman.”

I roll my eyes. “She’ll always be a child who needs my protection.”

His eyebrows rise and he purses his lips like he doesn’t believe me. Which pisses me off. “What the fuck do you know, anyway?”

“I think she went and grew up when you were busy dealing with difficult things.”

“Don’t try that doctor shit with me,” I warn, huffing and rearranging myself on the couch. I sit up straighter and lift my chin, looking away from the doctor. The girl growing up! Ha! This man’s obviously a quack. I huff again, fury building in my guts.

My head snaps back to him. “She’s not a grown-up because she can’t handle the real world. The real world is brutal and she’s a child. She’s fragile and she’d break at the slightest?—”

“Are you sure she’s so fragile? Are you sure she hasn’t been stronger lately? Moira Callaghan told me she’s been a very strong-willed person since she was released from the hospital with amnesia. Or was that you?”

I suck in a breath and stare at him.

But it’s not him I’m seeing.

It was the girl who slayed the monster. Not me.

I was… I was doing what I always do. I was protecting her by obeying. And getting my father away from Donny. Both of us wanted to protect Donny.

It’s why I took over at the club. I saw our father and I knew the girl would want what was best for Donny. Which was to go and get our father away from him.

… And I did it because… because I’m the one who obeys.

“I protect her,” I gasp, my fingers grasping the fabric of the soft pajama pants I’m wearing. “She’s fragile and I protect her.”

“I’m sure you do,” Dr. Ezra says in a soothing voice. He’s patronizing me. I hate it when people patronize me. Thinking they’re smarter. Thinking they can outwit me.

“Can you tell me more about her mother?”

I breathe out hard and cross my arms over my chest. “Her mother was a dumb bitch who couldn’t figure her way out of a trap.”

“Oh?” Finally, the all-wise, all-knowing doctor looks surprised.

“Oh,” I say back snottily, giving him another thin smile.

“Would you like to elaborate?”

Ugh . This is all such a fucking waste of time. “I know you think this will help the girl, but digging up her tragic childhood past? Really? That’s so cliché, doctor.”

“Humor me,” he says with an amused smile. At least it’s better than his patronizing smile.

I sigh, not even caring that I’m being dramatic. “It’s not a big deal. My father set a trap for Mom, and she fell for it like a big, dumb idiot.”

“What was the trap?”

I roll my eyes. “It wasn’t even that inventive on his part. I mean really, the man could get inventive with his tortures.” Then I tilt my head, considering. “But maybe sometimes the simplest ones do cut the deepest, because the girl was deeply wounded by it. After all,” I hold out my arms with a grin. “It was around then that I showed up.”

“The trap?” Dr. Ezra prods.

I shrug. “Classic Sophie’s choice.”

“Care to expound?”

He’s going to keep me on this couch until I spill the details of the girl’s maudlin past, isn’t he?

“He wouldn’t let our mother leave him. I mean, she could leave the house. But she could only take one of us with her.” I stare the doctor in the eye. “Either me or my brother. Never both at the same time, in case she ever tried to run. Family’s the only thing we’re really given in this life, right?” I give a sarcastic smile. “And he knew he was such an evil, unbearable monster that one day she would leave him.”

Dr. Ezra stays quiet a long moment. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Yeah. Well. The girl didn’t have him for long, did she? My mother made her choice, and one day, they both just up and disappeared.”

“And you were left with the monster. All alone.”

I gulp and look away. “The girl was fine. She had me to protect her. He must have been fucking delighted watching her mother squirm, though, as she tried to decide. Fucker always loved that shit the most. Fucking with people’s heads. Destroying beautiful things.”

It wasn’t just her he had fun making squirm.

Daddy told me to always be a good girl, or Mommy would leave me.

And I tried so hard. I followed her around like a little duckling, asking if there was anything I could help with. I tried to fold laundry, but I was clumsy at it. I tried to play with Tommy when he got fussy. He was four, but still threw tantrums sometimes.

Mommy stopped letting me help towards the end. When I asked her if I was still a good girl, she just looked away and said she needed to go check on Tommy.

“She was trying to distance herself from me by the end,” I whisper. I couldn’t see it then. I was just hurt. Devastated really. Well, the girl was. “So maybe it wasn’t such a difficult choice after all.”

“Do you really think that?” Dr. Ezra asks softly. “How old were you?”

“Six.” I’m still glaring towards the window, unable to look at him. “And I think my mother was a weak bitch who should have been smarter and figured out a way around my father’s trap.”

Finally I wrench my head back to glare at the doctor. “A stronger woman would never have left her own flesh and blood with that bastard. She knew what he was. It’s why she chose Tommy over me. Because he was a boy and she was afraid of what he’d do to him. But what about the girl?” I shout. “Didn’t she think the monster would find a way to torture her even if he didn’t fuck her? The girl’s mother was a weak, stupid bitch!”

“And you despise weakness?”

“I fucking hate it!” I shout, almost rising up from the couch. “I’ve been fucking strong. When anyone else would have cowered in the corner, I fucking took it . When our father water-boarded us, and smothered us, and shoved a tube down our throat to steal our air, and locked us in the box for hours on end, and made us fucking watch !” I’m screaming and all the way on my feet now, and gasping so hard I can barely catch my breath.

“It’s all right,” Dr. Ezra says, both hands lifted calmly. “Can you breathe with me? Deep breath in. From your belly. Come on. I know you think this is stupid, but humor me. Take a deep breath in.”

I take a dumb breath in.

“Good. Now hold it. Good, good. Now let it out, for a count of six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Now let’s take another breath in?—”

He guides me to take a bunch more breaths in and out and like he said, I humor him and play along.

“How do you feel now?”

I sit back down on the couch hard and cross my arms. “Like this is all cringe.”

“Thank you for telling me about your mother and how you felt about what happened. I think you’ve been very strong.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re welcome,” I say sarcastically.

“Now tell me, what’s your favorite food?”

I seriously can’t with this motherfucker.

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