“I am going to try to break him out of this trance that he’s fallen into,” I shrug.
“I really miss him. I miss both of them as crazy as it sounds,” I chuckle.
“They or he? He’s in there, Lauren. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t be sitting at home with you and Caylen,” she says taking a seat on her sofa and patting the cushion next to her. I plop down next to her and watch as she switches the TV from Lifetime to Nick Jr.
“I thought for some reason knowing whatever happened that caused his condition would make things better, instead it made things worse.”
“One of the things that’s interesting about DID is how it’s a mechanism with coping with, tragedy, pain, loss. When you think about it, we all dissociate when we don’t want to feel. We deflect. Now we don’t necessarily do it to the extent of those who have the disorder but when you think about it we’re all searching for a form of it, whether it’s drinking, using drugs or even shopping.”
“I guess you’re right,” I say, mulling over her words.
*
When I make it home, the living room is as empty as I expected it to be. As I head up the stairs, sure enough I can hear the sound of the guitar being played. I stand next to the door and listen for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out my next move.
“Make him feel something,” I say softly, reminding myself of Helen’s words. I have been doing the exact opposite since we arrived. I open the door and he stops playing.
“You don’t have to stop on my account,” I tell him playfully.
“I was finishing up anyway,” he says as he starts to put the guitar away.
“I wish you wouldn’t treat me like this,” I tell him, stepping in front of him.
“How am I treating you?” he asks, closing up his guitar case.
“Like I’m a stranger, or a roommate you tolerate. I know you’re hurting, I just wish you’d let me help you. That you’d let me in,” I tell him, grabbing his hand.
“I’m not hurting. Everything is fi-,”
“Everything is not fine! Stop saying that. You are walking around like a zombie! I don’t even know who you are, anymore” I plead with him.
“Well that makes two of us,” he says, walking past me and heading downstairs.
I follow behind him.
“So that’s it. You’re going to be like this forever? Not talking, keeping everything bottled up, acting like I don’t exist?” I ask him angrily.
“You’re going to let him ruin everything? Stop living your life based on a mistake he made. How can you let anyone have that much power over you?” I shout at him and he stops in his tracks and turns to face me.
She said to make him feel something.
Well here goes.
“Cal would never let him do that. He’d never let anyone else’s actions dictate his life or the decisions that he makes,” I say tightly, meeting his stare, which has gone from indifferent to intense in the span of a sentence. His eyes squint at me.
“You don’t think he would, do you?” he says, a smug grin on his face.
“No.” I tell him adamantly.
He chuckles as if he’s in on a joke I’m not aware of.
“So you laugh now?” I ask him sarcastically.
“As much as he’s done, you still think he’s noble, that he can do no wrong,” he says, shaking his head.
“Don’t you get it? He’s not the hero in this. He doesn’t come out to save us,” he says dismissively.
“Well, right now, you for sure aren’t the hero,” I retort back at him. I see his eye twitch and he turns away from me.
Is it working? I don’t know, but at least that tone and stoic expression that’s been on his face for the past month has changed. He turns back around, his arms crossed across his chest.
“Do you want to know why he was in Venitan?” he asks, stepping closer to me.
“He told me that his biological parents lived in the area,” I say quietly.
“Did he tell you that he was looking for Clayton?” he asks sarcastically.
“If that’s his dad, why wouldn’t he want to find him?” I retort back.
“Did he tell you he wants to kill him?” he says casually, making my heart drop into my stomach.
“W-what?”
“And when I say that, I don’t mean like an arbitrary threat. I mean he’s hired people to track him down. That he’s kidnapped men he thought were him, and he is dead set on finding him and murdering him,” he says tightly.
“So you see when I sit here quietly and appear to be in my thoughts, it’s not just because William had sexual intercourse with my Lisa. It’s not because I want to appear anti-social, it’s because I am trying my absolute hardest, to maintain control in one of the most trying times of my life so your beloved Cal doesn’t come out and kill someone and get me sent prison!”