Paper Dolls (28 page)

Salem had always been the strong one. I had to be strong like Salem.

The last few weeks fluttered inside my head like a bird taking flight. No, I realised, I had to be strong like
me
.

“I know you won’t want to hear this, but you need to know the truth…”

“Don’t you dare!” Salem pulled back the hammer and it made a horrible cracking sound. Just like my heart.

“Please, no,” I begged, the tears forming in my eyes beginning to run down my cheeks.

“You won’t shoot me,” Clay said.

“I will.”

“No, you won’t. You care too much about me. But you’re right about one thing. It’s time to end this. Aria…”

“Stop! I’m warning you,” Salem shrieked.

There was a bang as she fired. I screamed. The branches beyond Clay’s head cracked as the bullet tore past it. He flinched but the determination didn’t slip from his face.

“Stop it, Salem! Stop it!” I spun to stare at my sister. Her eyes were wild and deranged, the gun held in both hands pointed towards Clay. My muscles tensed, ready.

“I’m sorry, Aria…” Clay’s voice cracked from behind me.

“No,” Salem hissed and I felt rather than saw her finger move. I dove towards the barrel to smother the next bullet with my body.

“…you are Salem.”

17

My vision shuddered as I flew through the air. I braced myself for a fall onto the bridge but I didn’t hit the ground. Nor did I feel the pain of any bullets tearing through me.

You are…
Clay’s voice echoed in my head.

I felt the sensation of waking and I jolted where I stood. I swayed on my feet before my balance took hold. For a second my mind stuttered before all of my memories flickered back into place, organising themselves into a messy line like a long strand of broken dominos.

You are…

What am I?

Tell me.

I blinked as I stared around me. I was standing on the bridge facing Clay. How was I facing him? I was missing something. I tried to grasp onto more of my memories but they fluttered out of reach like black crows, cawing at me, taunting me with what I didn’t know.

How did I get here? Salem had been standing here when I lunged for her.

My eyes found her, my twin, standing beside Clay, her body blurry as if my eyes just couldn’t focus on her.

“You idiot,” Salem cried. It took me a second to realise she was screaming at Clay. “Now you’ve done it. The fallout is all on you.”

He didn’t move. He just stared at me.

And Salem dropped her gaze to stare at her own empty, shaking hands.

Hands. There was something in my hands.

I was holding a gun.

What the hell was I doing with a gun?

The gun handle was smooth under my palm as I pointed it at
his
chest. Fear flashed across his face, causing a riot of power to flood through my veins. For once, he was scared of
me
.

My hands weren’t shaking anymore.

“Sweetheart…”

“Go to hell.” I squeezed my finger.

Bang bang bang the noise exploded through the room. My father’s eyes bugged open as blood spread across his torso from the six holes that I had plugged into him. All six bullets that I had loaded. Now in his body. He made a strangling noise. “You will never hurt me again.”

Then he collapsed…

I caught myself before I collapsed onto the bridge.

Salem had been holding this gun. How did I get this gun in my hands?

“Aria?” Clay was standing there, his eyes wide and on me, looking at me…like he was afraid. No, this wasn’t right. He wasn’t the one that I wanted to fear me. He… He wasn’t the one I shot…

I shot someone?

I found my voice. “What’s going on?”

“Please, put down the gun.”

But a part of me didn’t want to. I felt safer with it in my hand. Safer. I gripped the handle tighter. “Not until someone tells me what’s going on.” I turned my eyes to Salem. For once she was just standing there, mute, a look of absolute dismay on her face. “Salem?”

“Aria, listen to me carefully,” Clay said, his voice firm. “Salem isn’t real.”

Clay’s words from earlier finally came back to me.
You are Salem.

You are Salem.

You are…

But the words wouldn’t find purchase. They pinged off the inside of my mind like metal pellets.

I swung my eyes to Clay. He was relapsing. He was delusional. How had I not noticed the signs? The odd behaviour. The mess growing in his apartment. “Calm down, Clay,” I said slowly. “Salem is right there.”

He didn’t even look. “No, Aria. She’s not.”

“Clay, Salem is right there. I can see her. Just look.”

“Salem isn’t real.”

“Salem is right fucking there,” I yelled, pointing with the gun at where she stood near him. “She was your ex-girlfriend, Olivia. You loved her and she loved you but when something happened…something that happened that night, she left you. And you came after me. To get her back. Or you used me as a substitute for her. Or…” This wasn’t making any sense anymore. My skin started to crawl. What was happening to me?

“Don’t freak out.”

Anxiety rumbled through my body, shaking me from the inside. “I’m not freaking out.”

“Olivia,” he said slowly.

That name is cursed.

“Why are you calling me Olivia?” I lifted the gun automatically as Clay started forward towards me.

“Whoa,” he raised his palms to me and flinched back. “You’re freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out.” I was freaking out. I inhaled deeply and loudly.

Don’t freak out.

Rosey.

Olivia.

Salem.

Aria.

Don’t. Freak. Out.

Salem isn’t real.

Salem’s words from earlier today came back to me.
Did you ever stop to think that perhaps it’s you who is crazy? You’re the one in denial?

“But Salem is Olivia,” I said, but now I didn’t sound convinced.

“
You
are Olivia.” Clay was begging me now. “You
were
Olivia. Please, remember. We met right here on this bridge. You saved my life here.”

My white cotton dress fluttered as I swung my legs over the railing to sit on it beside a dark-haired boy.

I shook my head and it was gone. “I don’t remember. Why don’t I remember any of it?”

“Salem’s been keeping it from you.”

“No,” I screamed as something inside me battered against the lid of this box of unwanted things. I couldn’t let them out. I couldn’t. Keep it inside.

Salem was right. Clay was trying to fuck with my head. I’m not crazy. I’m not the crazy one. Salem is.

I am Salem.

I clutched the gun tighter. “What happened to me? Tell me what you did that night that made Olivia run away.”

“I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m afraid that as soon as I tell you…you’ll run away again.”

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll shoot. There are two bullets left in this gun. I will put one in your leg. It won’t kill you but it will hurt. A lot.”

I watched him swallow down, hard. When did I learn to use a gun? How did I know that there were two bullets left?

Because I loaded the gun. I loaded it with three bullets before I left my house.

And
I
had let off one shot over Clay’s head so there were two bullets left.

I am…

“Your mother died when you were very young,” Clay said. “And your father…he started to do horrible things to you. You couldn’t cope so you created a sister, a twin sister called Salem who you believed took all the abuse for you. Your name was−”

But I already knew what it was.

Rosey.

Olivia.

Salem.

Aria.

“Rosa,” I said. “My name was Rosa.”

“Yes,” Clay’s voice cut into my thoughts. “I met you when you had become Olivia, after you had run away. After you killed him. You didn’t remember any of it then. You were seventeen and I was eighteen. We fell in love. We were happy, so happy. Then on your eighteenth birthday, you decided…you wanted to lose your virginity. To me. I didn’t know that it would cause you to flashback.”

You’re so tight.

“You freaked out.”

Don’t freak out, Olivia.

Clay swallowed. “And that’s when I met Salem for the first time. That’s when she told me…what had happened to you.”

…And the Mirage Falls Mirage Falls Mirage Falls Mirage Falls

“Olivia, Salem, Aria…these are all just parts of you. Dr Bing says that you have Dissociative Identity Disorder. I took you to her because I wanted to know if you could be helped.”

Dr Bing
had
been assessing me.

“You don’t need help,” Salem cried. “You just need me.”

Suddenly the gun seemed too heavy. It hung by my side in my right hand like a dead weight. Suddenly it didn’t seem safe anymore. It wasn’t enough to keep away everything that was coming for me, and I could feel it all coming for me, like scuttling clawed creatures coming for me all at once. “What do I do?”

“I can help you,” Clay said. “Give me the gun. We can go together. Dr Bing can help you. She’s on her way now. I called her before I came. She wants to help you.”

“No one can help you,” Salem screamed. “Only I can. I’ve been the one protecting you all this time. Run with me. Just you and me.” Salem held out her hand. “Give me the gun. Let me end this. I’ll do what you can’t.”

Salem, what have you done?

I did what you couldn’t.

“I promise,” she said, “you won’t remember anything about him tomorrow. Quick, before Dr Bing gets here.”

“You have a choice, Aria,” said Clay. “You can choose me, you can choose to…believe the truth. But it’ll be painful. You’ll start to remember everything.”

Even from here I could smell the reek of alcohol reek of alcohol reek of−

I blinked and it was gone, the ends of it brushing against the tips of my mind.

I looked at him. “If I choose you then I lose Salem.”

He nodded, his lips pressed in a grim line. “And you’ll lose Salem.”

I gazed at Salem, my sister, standing as real as Clay, standing so close to him that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. “But she’s real to me.”

“I know she’s real to you.”

“She was all I had,” I spoke to Clay but stared at Salem. A tear began to fall down my cheek, and it was mirrored in hers. “I love her. I don’t know if I can live without her.”

“I know.”

“Choose me,” Salem said. “We can run again. I can make you forget him. Forget all this. We can become someone else again. It’ll just be you and me. And you’ll be protected.”

I turned my eyes towards Clay. He was trying so hard not to show how much he was suffering, but it squeezed out in the creases of his face and was clear in his trembling chin.

“You won’t lose me.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

How could I do this to the man I loved? How could I give him up? “But if I choose her, then I lose you.”

He nodded.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.

I wanted to run and run and keep running until I was so far away that nothing could find me… I could forget Clay and become someone else again… It would be easy.

But I’d lose him. I’d lose who I was becoming, who I
could
become…

Pain shot through my head.

Even from here I could smell the reek of alcohol, the stink of him as he fell into the bed against me.

“Go away,” I cried as he grabbed one of my wrists. I punched out with my thin arms but they just bounced off him.

That sick choking feeling rose up inside me to cut off my air as he slipped his hand down between my−

A moan ripped from my lungs. Bad things. Horrible things. Sticky turn-my-insides-out things. I had to keep it inside.

Keep it inside.

Salem and Clay both ran for me but I lifted up my gun and they froze. If either of them touched me right now I would fall apart. Don’t touch me. Keep it inside. “Stay away. Both of you. Stay away from me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Salem. “I don’t want to hurt you. But I had to show you a piece. Just a piece of it.”

The last shred of doubt about Salem’s existence fell away. All those memories I had of her, watching those things happening to her…they had happened to
me
.

“Aria, you can get through this,” said Clay. “But you have to face it. It’s the only way to start getting better.”

Could I?

“Do you think for one second that you’re strong enough to handle any of it?” Salem said.

Was I?

All I knew was, I had to choose.

18

In the end, my life came down to this. Two people − two faces, two pairs of hands that have pushed aside tears, two pairs of arms that have protected me, held me despite the darkness, despite the pain that threatened to pull me under. And now these two people, the two people I loved the most, were tearing me apart.

“Choose, Aria!” my sister cried at me, her sharp voice echoing over the expanse of the gorge and the sound of water crashing onto rocks.

My hand holding the gun felt heavier and heavier, the muzzle dipping, sweat rolling from where my palm wrapped around the grip, my tendons trembling and crying out in a discordant harmony along with the weighted, fractured wailing of my heart.

I shifted my weight, trying to stand in a way that would keep me upright, even as my legs were trembling so hard I thought I might collapse, my feet crushing dried broken leaves that had swept onto the bridge as if they were bones or pieces of my shattered self. The smell of my own sweat and fear mixed in with the pine and the tang of moist earth.

Choose. The rest of my life came down to this. One choice. Two faces.

In moments like these, everything slowed. Salem always joked that it was life’s way of making sure you didn’t miss the turning points, the important bits. As if gravity sank heavier and heavier with the weight of the moment until the world was too heavy to turn and everyone held their breath.