Mirage (10 page)

Memory of my bedroom full of eyes bears down on me. My face flushes, making my cheek throb. This office is too hot. My mind squirms under his scrutiny. I feel like a bug that's been pinned to a board while it's still alive.

“I was tired.”

“I'm sure you were. You'd been through quite a lot.” He jots something down on a yellow legal pad. “You mentioned seeing eyes. Your parents said you wanted them to stop watching you?”

“I'd been sleeping. I had a bad dream, and I think I woke confused.”

“You were dreaming that eyes were watching you?”

I swallow loudly. “Yes.”

“You were standing and fighting with your eyes open,” he says in that question-but-not-a-question way. I don't confirm or deny. He forges on. “And during your episode when you were on LSD, did you see eyes then, too?”

“Eyes . . .” I start to say yes, but that's not the whole of it. I saw a girl in the mirror. She saw me. We fell into each other.

I'd never been in a fight before that.

“You fought the eyes?” the doctor asks, scribbling.

I hadn't realized I'd spoken that out loud. “I was on drugs,” I stammer. “Seeing things. Isn't that normal when you're on LSD?”

Dr. Collier scratches his head with the tip of his pen and smirks. “It's possible that what you experienced in your bedroom was what is known as a flashback. This can sometimes happen after taking psychedelic drugs. It's very important to let someone know if it continues, Ryan. You have nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.”

You do. Yes, you do. Be afraid.

My head snaps up. Her threat echoes so loud, I wonder if he's heard it too. I glance at the window. His gaze follows mine. There is no face in the glass, just the frozen arms of a cactus outside. My heart thrums in my ears.

Be afraid,
she says again.

He has no idea about my fear.

“And how are your emotions? Would you say you're feeling the normal range of emotions?”

“I'm not feeling much. My emotions are . . . deadened.”

You should be dead.

Inside my sneakers, my toes are curled so hard they hurt. My hands are shaking bad enough that I stuff them under my legs. The voice has cast a spell on me. The rest of our session is like a bad date. There are too many questions on his end, too many one-word answers on mine. I figure the less I say, the better. Ayida bookends my appointment with another five minutes alone with the doctor, and then we're on our way home to make dinner. Gran has fallen asleep in the backseat. My mother is as rigid and silent as a tombstone.

Nolan is relaxing in front of the television, drink in hand, when my mom and I walk in, supporting Gran by her arms. She's a little wobbly from waking up, tipping like she's boozy. “Can we ride the motorbike again?” she asks through a yawn. I bite my lip, but my mom seems to take this as a dementia moment and answers, “Not just now, Mama. We need to make dinner.”

We settle Gran in a chair by the kitchen table and get to prepping food. The doorbell rings, and I offer to get it so my mother won't have to.

Avery smiles and leaps on me for a tight hug. It's the first time I've seen her since the night of the LSD. “You're okay!” she squeals, then pulls back to look me over, taking in my bandages. “
Are
you okay? How bad is it?” she asks, pointing at my face.

“I don't know yet. It hasn't been
unveiled
.”

“Well, what's a few scars as long as you're alive and well, right?” She bounds through the front door and hones in on the savory smell of caramelizing onions wafting from the kitchen. “I wanted to wait until things settled down before coming over,” she says.

“Probably a good call,” I say as my mom sets another place at the table.

My dad picks at slices of roast chicken faster than I can cut it. My mom shoos him away, but I can tell by her playful smile that she doesn't mind. There is warmth in gathering around the island, preparing dinner together. Family is the blanket that wraps us, even in dark times. I'm grateful for it. It's the first time I truly relax since I came home from the hospital.

Tension tiptoes into the room when my mom “accidentally” dumps my dad's drink in the sink, claiming she thought it was just melted ice. He pours another, a taller one this time. No ice.

“The date's been set for the mucky-mucks from the X Games,” he announces. “We've got three weeks to get the place in shape.” His drink sloshes as he motions toward me. “I'll need you to come in and shoot some promotional emails out to people. That's how you can help. We need a big push. If they do choose us, there's going to be some initial cost involved.”

“Tomorrow, then?” I ask, excited to get out of the house. Excited that he needs my help in some way.

My mom's head snaps up from the peas she's shelling. “No skydiving.”

“No question,” my dad answers.

Now I feel two years old. “It didn't even need to be said,” I say. “I'm not ready to go up yet anyway.” As with my dad's “rules” speech, I'm being looked at like they don't recognize me, and I have to look away, continuing with my job of dicing the chicken.

My mom stops what she's doing and puts her arms around my shoulders. “Soon enough, baby. We know what jumping means to you.” The blanket of love is once again around me. I tilt my head against her soothing arms. We could stay this way all night and I wouldn't mind. I've been starving for it.

A smoky shadow passes across the silver surface of the knife. I blink. I tell myself that it's our movements. I look again and see nothing but the glint of polished metal with bits of chicken clinging to the serrated edge. A sigh escapes me.

Softly, my mom kisses my cheek, and there's another shadow in the shine, so fleeting, the quick flap of a bird's wing, the flutter of eyelashes, there and then gone.

Death . . .

The voice calls to me, as if that's my name. I shake my head. It's not my name. My name is Ryan. My name is Ryan Poitier Sharpe. My name is Ryan.

Death,
she beckons again, and it occurs to me that perhaps she is telling me who
she
is.

I tilt the knife sideways to peer into it. My own eyes shine back at me, but then she rises out of them, glaring. I swing my hand upward, wanting to shake her loose. I want to make her disappear. I want her gone. I want her to know I'll fight her again. I'll win again. I wave the knife, slash at the air.

There's a yelp in my ear, and my father is on his feet, coming at me. I pull my hand back, away from him. My grandmother's head is tilted sideways, listening hard. Her fingers are over her mouth as she shoots to her feet, faster than I thought she could move. Avery's mouth is moving, but I can't hear her words through the ghost's murmurs. Pain sears through my shoulder as my father twists my arm painfully to the side.

Mine,
Death whispers again, drawing my attention back to the knife that Nolan is trying to take from me. I'm scared for him, but I can't look at him. My eyes are focused on the blade, eyes locked with hers, which are crinkling with humor.

Death is smiling.

Mine.

“Do you hear her?” I scream. She's so loud. They must hear her.

From behind me, Ayida screams again. I crane my head to see her. Why are they looking at
me
like I'm the monster in this kitchen? Fingers pry mine open. The knife crashes onto the white floor​—​it's splattered like scarlet poppies in a field of snow.

A big, black boot smashes down on the knife. I wouldn't pick it up anyway. Nolan watches me, one arm stretched out to keep me back as he slowly bends down and slides it out from under his boot. He doesn't take his eyes from me as he asks Ayida, “Are you hurt bad?”

“N-n-no,” she says through tears. “Small cut.”

My head whips toward her at this. “You're cut? Oh God. No. She cut you?”

“She?”
my father screams. His hands, still holding the knife, are on my upper arms. He shakes me so hard, my teeth rattle. I can smell the sharp tang of alcohol wafting from him. It takes me . . . somewhere else. “What the hell are you talking about? You cut your mother!”

My body goes limp in his grasp, gravity pulling me to the floor so that my father is no longer shaking me; he's holding me up. “Are you telling me I have a crazy kid now?” His voice climbs, and his question suspends from the ledge of a mountain.

“Nolan, no!” Ayida pleads. She is upon us now; her hand, slippery with blood, grasps my arm, turning my bandages pale red. “She didn't mean to.”

My mother and I are both crying. I'd cover my face, but my father hasn't let go of me. The pressure of his fingers feels like a pulsing vise around my arms. “I don't know what's happening to me,” I cry. “Help me.”

The voice is there again. I can't shut it out.

It screams.
Help me!

“I
T IS NOT UNCOMMON
for a latent psychological illness to surface after the use of hallucinogenic drugs. More common, however, is drug-induced psychosis.” Dr. Collier's deep voice resonates, bouncing off the shiny tiles in the house. My parents called him immediately after I wigged out in the kitchen, and he rushed over.

Nolan's voice eclipses Dr. Collier's. “Since she took it, she's been seeing things, hearing things. If it walks like schizophrenia and talks like schizophrenia​—”

Dr. Collier interrupts him. “It hasn't been conclusively proven that taking LSD causes schizophrenia, and that's a diagnosis that takes some time. The same neural pathways​—​like roads in our brains, if you will​—​are stimulated, making the symptoms remarkably similar. Additionally, if a patient already has a marked lack of self-identity, they may, through use of hallucinogenic drugs, invite other
selves
in, so to speak. It's possible your daughter was already mentally unstable before taking the drug.”

My mother speaks. “Ryan is the most self-identified person I know,” she says through a wry laugh. “But this all started
after
she took the LSD.”

That's not true.

“So,” Dr. Collier says, “you saw no signs of instability, strange behavior, or mental distress in Ryan before the incident?”

I lie on my bed and listen to the painful beat of silence hanging after the doctor's question. Gran snores in a chair next to me, and Avery sits at my feet. She's reluctantly been assigned to watch over me while my parents talk to Dr. Collier.

“Is he suggesting that there was a mental illness lying in wait inside your brain?” Avery whispers, looking sideways at me like I suddenly make her nervous. “God. That's like having a bomb in your head and not knowing when it'll go off.”

I shove Avery's thigh with my big toe. “I'm
not
mentally ill.”

“Looks like I didn't wait long enough for things to settle down,” she mumbles. “I know you do a lot of things for attention, but this is over‑the‑top.”

I bury my face back in my arms. I
know
what I'm seeing and hearing is real. The face that follows me around may show up in flat reflections, but she's as three-dimensional as I am, as if I could reach in and touch her. I shudder. I
have
touched her. Every time she appears, she watches me with emotions pouring from her eyes like tears. Her eyes are angry, and I'm the nexus of her focus.

I cheated Death. Now she won't leave me alone.

Why is she so persistent, though? She'll have me eventually. She visits everyone at some point. Death always gets her way in the end.

“How do you know you don't have a mental illness? Do crazy people
know
they're crazy?” Avery asks. “And I don't mean to be rude, but you smell crazy. Like, when was the last time you showered?”

“Shhh,” I hiss. “Don't upset the crazy person. I'm trying to listen.”

Dr. Collier is speaking again. “Is there any history of mental illness, such as paranoid schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, in the family? Addictions?”

There is a heavy silence where I'm sure my mother's eyes flick to my dad.
Addictions.
But post-traumatic stress disorder is a response to something awful happening. Nolan has seen the ravages of war, has had his body permanently disfigured. I wouldn't call that a
latent
psychological illness. I look over at Gran. Her mouth is slack, fingers twitching occasionally in her sleep. She's old, not mentally ill.

My disc is scratched, sure, but that's my fault. I didn't have to do what I did that night in the motor home. That was when things went very wrong.

The doctor continues. “We cannot overlook the seriousness of tonight's incident, for your safety and her own. A sedative can be administered for the night, but I'd advise an appointment with me first thing tomorrow. Ryan may require antipsychotic medication.”

Tearful murmurs from my mother follow Dr. Collier's pronouncement. My father's voice is loud and clear. “I don't care if you have to medicate her. Hell, I'm medicated. Whatever's going on, fix it. This is the last goddamned thing we need right now. Control this shit, doc.”

“Nolan!”

Dr. Collier clears his throat, which he does a lot. “I am committed to doing that, Mr. Sharpe.”

The adults come to my bedroom door. The way everyone moves toward me, like they're trying to corner a stray cat, makes me want to scramble off the bed and curl into a ball or extend my claws. “The doctor's going to give you something to help you sleep,” my mother says. My father hovers over me with a look of fierce determination.

“No! You don't understand. This isn't my fault. I didn't mean for this to happen. She was talking to me. I was trying to get away from her, from the eyes​—​the eyes in the knife,” I protest. The room goes silent. When I see the distrustful, wary look on their faces and my mother's bandaged hand, I'm forced to remember that I'm the one who hurt her. She doesn't deserve to be hurt. The spirit appeared, but I was the one holding the knife.