Still, I wonder what I’m capable of. It feels like there’s so much more to me than just living my ordinary life day in and day out. There has to be more. I wonder all the time.
What the more is.
Fear it.
I might find out soon if my therapist keeps asking me questions about what’s going on inside my head. Too much pushing and I’ll finally break down and tell him what’s really going on in the darkest crevices of my mind. That Lily, the person hidden inside me, is encouraging me to do dark and twisted things. That she hates getting annoyed and right now, he’s annoying her to no end. But if I told him that then I’d actually have to explain who Lily is and that could be more complex than explaining my murderous thoughts. Besides, even I sometimes don’t understand who Lily is.
I never wanted to be this way. Feel this kind of darkness rotting within me, an open wound that won’t heal. What I want is to be normal and for a split second, I was. For ten, glorious seconds when I opened up my eyes in the hospital, I was no one.
But then she spoke to me.
“Maddie, are you awake yet?”
A name that can mean purity, innocence, beauty, Lily probably doesn’t seem like such a terrible person to be. A flower commonly used at weddings, which represents happy times, full of smiles, kisses, and hearts—the name screams good and pure. Of course, it’s also the most common flower used at funerals. They were one of the first things I laid eyes on after I woke up after the accident. I’d opened my eyes, so tangled, lost, scared. I couldn’t remember anything before lying in the road—still can’t. My name. Where I was. How I got to the hospital bed. Anything about my childhood, almost like I’d been reborn. I’d lifted my hand up in front of my face and turned it over; the way it moved was fascinating because my arm felt disconnected from my body and my body detached from my mind. There was a bandage around my palm wrapping the cut I got from the item I was grasping onto in the road (I never did find out what it was) and the hand that had strangled the man. A hand that felt like it had a mind of its own, capable of so many frightening things.
My eyes had finally left my hand and wandered along the hospital room. There was a single window where light peeked in and shined brightly along the walls. Beside the bed was a black and purple vase full of blooming lilies, which were to unsettling to look at. Too perfect—too flawless. Too clashing with the room. And the scent… it drove my senses mad and made me sick every time I got a huge whiff of the potent scent. There was something else about the flowers, too… I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly it was that made me want to smell them then shred the petals and make them go away like they reminded of something beautifully painful. I’d only felt inner peace with them when they started to wilt a couple of weeks later, yet there was still this strange sensation of loss when they were gone, just how I felt. Dying, life slipping away, unnourished, despite the steadiness of my heart. Maddie was withering and someone else was growing in her place, her words alarming yet familiar. I decided that I needed to give the voice a name to differentiate between the two of us, so I started calling her Lily after the dead flowers. It felt fitting and the voice seemed to agree with me. I’m not even sure why I chose the name. Whether it was because of the flowers beside my bed were dying and that I wished she’d die along with them, or if it was simply a name that had surfaced from somewhere deep in my mind. Whatever the reason the name seemed fitting and Lily was born.
“Maddie, did you hear anything I just said?” Preston Wrightson, my therapist since this all began almost six years ago, waves his hand in front of my face. There’s a sharpened pencil in his hand and I flinch back when it nearly pokes my eye out. “Sorry,” he apologizes, quickly withdrawing his hand holding the pencil. “But you were zoning out on me again.”
I’m in a strange mood today, which I usually am when I’m at therapy. Being a combination of Maddie and Lily, it makes my mood unstable, more depressed, more struggling to find a balance, but I think that stems from my dislike toward Preston. “As much as I think I could rock the pirate look,” I say forcing my fake light tone out as I touch my eye that survived a near puncture. “Maybe you should start working on your depth perception before you go waving around sharp objects.”
He sighs, that oh Maddie and your sarcasm sigh. “I really wish you’d tell me where you go when you space off like that.” He pauses, waiting for a response he’ll never receive.
“Me too,” I reply evasively. If I ever did tell him where I went—what I was thinking—I’d be in straightjacket. So round and round we go on the merry-go-round where nothing happens, the one I live on every single day. Madness. Insanity. It drives me crazy, but I still keep my secrets and he still tries to pry them out of me, despite almost six years of failure.
He sighs again, then looks down at the folder in front of him, the one that carries years of notes about me. I can only imagine what they say. Difficult. Uncooperative. Confused. Childish. It makes me sick to think about, what he could possibly see inside me, if he can see underneath the steel shell I’ve created around myself, but is keeping it to himself.
After reading some of the notes over, he sighs for the third time, then closes the folder. There’s disapproval in his expression when he glances up at me. “Maddie, you’ve barely spoken today at all.” He overlaps his hands on the desk, scooting his office chair forward. “It seems like for the last couple of visits, you’ve kind of regressed, and your mother mentioned you’ve been distant and distracted at home. Is there anything going on in your life that’s been different? Or maybe your nightmares have been getting worse?”
“I hate that you talk to my mother so much,” I say, dodging the subject. Yes, my nightmares are bad, but that’s not what’s wrong with me. What’s wrong is that Lily’s been gaining more control over me, so I feel like I’m more bad than good anymore. I’m trying to fight it, but I’ve been fighting it for years and I’m starting to get tired. There’s been a few times where I’ve zoned out and I swear to God she’s taken over, but I can’t prove it yet. “I wish you’d stop. She’s not your patient. I am.”
“I know you are, but that’s not what we’re talking about at the moment,” he replies. “Please answer my question. Are your nightmares getting worse?”