I ask her what’s wrong.
“Nothing. I have a toy, you want to play with it?” she asks me. Her voice is so sweet and nice. It hardly ever is. I nod my head and she goes in a drawer and pulls out a gun. She kneels down on the floor in front of me. It’s heavy but she helps me hold it.
“We’re going to play a game. When I count to three, you’re going to pull this, okay,” she says showing me the trigger. She then aims it at her chest.
“One, two…”
I drop the gun out of my hand. “I killed her. I killed my mom,” my chest feels tight. I can’t breathe.
“Babe, it’s okay,” Lauren says, running over to me and hugging me. I’m crying so hard I’m shaking.
“It’s okay, babe. You were only a baby,” Lauren says rocking me like I’m a baby now. I killed my mother. I almost killed an innocent man because I was wrong. I killed her. I’m a murderer.
“I found you, in the bedroom. She called me right before it happened and told me everything. How she had an affair with Dexter Crestfield, that he promised to marry her and take care of her the rest of her life and he didn’t and that you were his son. She said she couldn’t live in squalor anymore. That you and your brothers and sisters were better off with her dead. I tried to get home as fast as I could. When I did it was too late. I figured out what had happened.” Clayton's voice explains but it doesn’t matter.
Everything I believed, that I held on to was a lie…
Except her.
She’s my truth.
Chris
It sucks when you have to be filled in on things that happen in your own life. When the transition finished Lauren and Dr. Lyce filled everything in for me. How it turns out I’m actually a Crestfield. It still makes me cringe to think about it.
How my birth mother was so sick she used me to kill her. Clayton, her husband, eventually told them she grew up Catholic and believed if she killed herself she’d go to hell. I wonder how much better off she thought she’d be having her five year old do it for her. Clayton also told us Isabella left a note with Dexter Sr. the day she killed herself. Clay called Dexter Sr. and told him what had happened. Dexter Sr. came and had everything, right down to the last detail, swept under the rug. Clayton says he told him family had always been important to him and he had to know his son was taken care of. Can you believe that? Dexter also gave him a pretty nice chunk of change as an incentive for him to disappear with my half brothers and sisters. Dexter had to keep everything quiet since at the time he was re-married and the pre-nup would be void if infidelity could be proved.
It made perfect sense for him to give me to my parents since my mom couldn’t have children, she couldn't care less what led to the mysterious circumstances of Dexter bringing a child to their door. My dad wanted to make her happy and Dexter purchased the land that they lived on, which they wouldn’t have been able to buy for years.
Collin, the other guy inside my head, it turns out had been popping up on occasions long before he made his presence known to Lauren. He was the one who told the Crestfields about Cal and how he needed their help when Cal surfaced and took over. The Scotts thought all along it was Cal who reached out to the Crestfields but it was actually Collin who was the one who took over after Cal’s break and started talking to Helen in these sessions I’ve had to take over for.
We’ve been in therapy the past few weeks. After everything happened with Cal trying to kill Clayton Rice I guess he needed a break because I woke up and Lauren had to explain everything that had happened. To think how many lies were hidden from both of us, and the fact that I have a whole other alter that not even my parents or Helen knew about. Therapy has been going okay. I still feel numb a lot, like a part of me is missing. Lauren is great, always there, supporting me each step of the way. My mom has been staying with us the past two weeks too. I’ve even talked to my dad one or two times. I’ll have to slowly try to build that relationship back, if it can be rebuilt. Helen’s recommended that I try to avoid anything that brings stress or anxiety to me and to try not to think about it until our sessions. I’ve started to have more memories of Lauren and me when Cal was in control. They’re not as frequent as they were but they’ve been coming back slowly but surely. Lauren comes to these sessions sometimes but Helen asked that today it just be me.
“Okay Christopher, before we begin I want to show you something,” Dr. Lyce says turning on the big television in her office.
“Are we watching another testimonial?” I ask her, trying to sound more interested than I am. At first it was interesting watching videos of other people with DID share what their experience has been like. The hardest part was listening to how their family members cope with it. So much sacrifice everyone has to make, it makes you feel guilty.