We'll Never Be Apart

by Emiko Jean

  “Allie?” It’s Chase behind me. But I ignore him. Now I’m following Cellie from the hayloft, down the ladder, and into a horse stall, where Jason left the gas lamp.

  I blink and I’m standing next to the lamp, caressing the glass with a hungry desire to feel the heat and watch something burn. Cellie’s hand hovers over mine. It dips down and melds into my fingers, until it becomes my palm. Cellie is guiding me, but it’s my hand that’s moving.

  I barely remember taking the gas lamp in my hand, holding it aloft, and looking for something flammable. I hear Jason’s footsteps coming down the ladder, watch his twisted face as he races toward me.

  “Cellie,” he whispers, standing outside the horse stall, a seemingly safe distance away. I look at him and see him through Cellie’s eyes.

  “This is your fault,” Cellie hisses, though I’m the one who does the talking.

  “You’re right. This is my fault.”

  “You don’t love me. Nobody ever does,” we say.

  “I love you both,” Jason says. “How could I love one without loving the other?” He reaches for me, for Cellie, and I let him take my hand. His palm is callused and warm. He squeezes my fingertips, grasps them lightly at first and then more firmly. “I love you both. I always have. I did this for us.” He brings his other hand up, cups my cheek, and I lean in. The gas lamp settles next to my thigh, and I don’t notice the heat of the flame or the smell of oil, which seems more pungent in this part of the barn. His hand moves down, traces my shoulder, my elbow, my wrist, then wraps around my fingers.

  I’m afraid.

  Something that is fractured inside me is coming together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I see myself as a little girl, standing over Grandpa’s body, his skin the color of an approaching storm. Over my shoulder, someone blossoms behind me. A mirror image whose hand feels real, whose touch brings comfort, whose voice brings joy. Someone who takes all the love I never feel, balls it up, and stitches it together inside herself to save me from a lifetime of feeling unworthy, unloved, unwanted. My dark partner. My twisted twin. Me.

  “It’s okay.” Jason smiles down at me, bringing his body close to mine. “It’s okay,” he says, holding me like I am a fragile doll or something expensive made of glass.

  “You’ve known all this time? That Cellie’s not real?” I don’t understand what is happening. She seemed so real. A part of me is heartbroken that she isn’t.

  “Of course. I’ve always known.”

  It is too hard. I can’t swallow what Jason is telling me. “But she terrorized me.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. You haven’t been well for a long time. But I’m going to make it better now.” Gently he tries to pry my fingers from the handle of the gas lamp. “Just give it to me.” My grip tightens. Something isn’t right. “C’mon baby, let go.”

  I take a step back and he squeezes my fist so hard it is painful. His lip curls. “I said let go.”

  We struggle, the lamp like the rope in a game of high-stakes tug of war. I swing my arm wildly, trying to dislodge Jason’s grip. It works. But I don’t have total control of my limbs, and the thin glass shatters against the barn wall. Liquid from the lamp splashes, coating my hand and setting it instantly on fire. I scream at the immediate pain, like hot knives slicing into flesh. The lamp tumbles from my fingers and into the hay, where more fire takes root. I slap at my body, trying to smother the flames. “Help me,” I cry. “Please, help me.”

  Jason just stands there, a confused expression on his face. “That’s what I’m doing, baby.”

  “Oh, my God.” The pain makes me jump around. “It hurts so bad.” Finally I manage to suffocate the fire on my hand, but the fire around us is growing fast. Too fast. No way it could spread without the help of an accelerant. It circles the horse stall and moves to the wooden beams of the barn. All at once I understand. The acrid smell of oil. The fresh, dry hay. A montage of Jason’s words spirals toward me.

  It’s somewhere new.

  I think you’ll like it better than anything you could imagine.

  I found the perfect place.

  You’ll be free of her soon, I promise.

  Cellie is a part of me. There is no escaping her except in death. Jason planned it all. I look at him, a boy whom life has ruined, and I scream. The sound that escapes from my chest is guttural, a war cry. I take one step back and then dart forward. The fire rages, and smoke curls through the barn like some kind of hellish serpent. Jason’s hand wraps around my ankle and pulls me back just as a smoldering beam comes crashing down with a loud boom. Jason throws me like a rag doll onto a pile of hay. Some of my hair catches fire and I roll around to put it out. That’s when he climbs over me, his legs straddling my hips, his hands pinning me down. He’d never used his strength against me before. And it is terrifying. Fire bites into my shoulders, but the places where Jason’s hands hold me hostage remain unburned.

  “It’s too late, Alice. Be still.” He wants us to burn up together. This was his perfect place. His perfect plan. He throws back his head and laughs. “Shit, baby. I’m burning up!”

  Blue and red lights flash outside the barn, and through the cracks I see police cars. The rusty door of the barn screeches open and two police officers step in, their arms shielding their faces against the smoke and heat. Their badges flicker orange in the firelight. They shout something at us, but I can’t make it out over the roar of the blaze and my hammering heart. They retreat.

  Even so, I see a glimmer of hope. My hands are useless, the whole upper part of my body is useless, drowning in fire and Jason’s rage, but my legs still work. I bring one up, jabbing my knee into the place I know will hurt Jason most. He yowls and rolls off of me. I try to stand but the heat bows my back and makes me stoop.

  “Alice, please. Don’t leave me.” I don’t know if he is begging for my help. If he regrets his decision, or if he wants me to lie down next to him and let the fire consume us both. I never find out. Spasms rack my body and my legs give way. And then I am falling, gravity is harsh and unforgiving. I land on Jason’s chest. Vaguely I recall not feeling any movement underneath me. There is no way out, no escape. Finally Cellie is quiet inside of me. She isn’t raging, trying to claw her way to the surface. My eyes drift shut. I try to fight it. But some things are so much stronger than our will or our want. Death is always the ultimate victor. Time passes, and in the darkness I feel myself lifted and carried. Rescue. Fresh air hits my face, but not my lungs.

  Someone holds me. It feels as if my chest is being cracked open. Finally, finally, I open my eyes. Chase is holding me, holding me like I’m made of glass. But it’s too late, I’ve already shattered into a million little pieces.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Falling Down

  CHASE’S HANDS MOVE UP AND DOWN MY ARMS. His warmth rips away the cold and brings me back to the present. The burns on my shoulders ache, but I can’t tell if the pain is real or not. All that time I thought Jason had held me, shielded me from the fire . . . but now I know that I am forever branded by his madness. His betrayal seems small compared with my own.

  I toy with my white hospital bracelet, the one with the bar code that rests just underneath my yellow wristband. I trace the letters of my name, Alice. They blur together until they rearrange: Celia. The truth is a dagger buried in my back. “I’m Celia?” I ask. Though I’m not talking to anyone in particular. Chase bows his head and pulls me into a tight hug.

  “I don’t understand,” I say, pulling back. Even though I feel the truth in my core, something inside of me rejects it. “You said she was in the D ward.” My voice is faint, full of doubt.

  Chase shakes his head and looks at me sadly, pitifully. “I never said she was in the D ward. You drew that conclusion yourself.”

  I nod in a sort of vacant way. My mind runs through our conversations. I was the driving force behind each one. She’s in the D ward, I had said. And Chase hadn’t disagreed, but he hadn’t agreed either. Silence hides the most damning t
hings, I guess.

  I press a hand against my chest. It feels as if my heart has cloned itself and now there are two heartbeats at war with each other. Thousands of images swirl in my mind. Cellie offering me cake. Cellie stealing food at the Chans’. Cellie setting fires. No—not Cellie, me. Oh God, all the things I’ve done, all the people I’ve hurt. How will I ever forgive myself? I stagger back and have to use the wall for support. The surface is charred, and little splinters prick the skin under my fingernails. How could I not have known? “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  Chase takes off his hat and twists it in his hands, so hard that water squeezes out of it. The scar on his cheek twitches. “I thought, in the beginning, when you asked about her, that she was real. I didn’t know she was . . .” He can’t look at me. “I didn’t know she wasn’t until the things you said didn’t quite add up, and then I stole your file. And it spelled it out, all in black-and-white. Dr. Goodman noted in it that he didn’t think you were ready to handle the truth. He believed that if you were told the truth, it would cause significant and irreversible damage. And I thought that was bullshit.” It all makes sense now, Chase’s dislike for Dr. Goodman.

  But then, all too fast, Chase’s lies come back to me. It hurts. My file must have said everything. He played along with my fantasy. I’m being held together with thread. I sink to the floor, draw my legs up, and hook my arms around them. I’m shaking, but not from the cold. I rock in place and cry. “So what? This was all some game to you? Something to keep you from boredom in the mental hospital?” I spew the words, and they’re full of hate.

  “No.” He shakes his head, almost violently. He melts to his knees and reaches for me, but I turn my cheek and choke back a sob. A cold finger runs down my spine. The world shrinks away, and I just want to find a hole to crawl into.

  “Look,” he says. “You remember I told you about my sister, how I killed her?”

  I don’t answer, I just keep crying. Cellie’s not real. It’s destroying me. I always wondered what it would feel like to be brought to the bottom, and now I know.

  Chase squeezes my kneecaps, forces my eyes to his. “Please, I know I don’t have any right to ask you this, but just listen, okay? That’s all. Just listen? And then if you want me to go, and you don’t ever want to see me again, I’ll understand, okay?”

  I can’t manage words so I just nod. He starts talking fast, like if he doesn’t get the words out in enough time, they’ll burn up in the distance between us. “My sister, Maya. She was sick.” He smiles, but it’s melancholy. “I told you that you reminded me of her, remember?” He doesn’t wait for me to confirm, just goes on. “That was the thing at the beginning—you reminded me of her.” My little bird with a broken wing. “She had all sorts of things wrong with her, mostly this horrible temper—which you don’t have. But my parents, they kept insisting that she was just sad, that there wasn’t anything wrong with her. They refused to get her help. And she got worse.” He looks at the ground. “Like, a lot worse. One night when my parents were gone, she freaked out and started saying all this shit about how the government was tapping our phones. I couldn’t calm her down. She was out of control. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen. When I tried to wrestle it out of her hands, she cut me real bad.” He motions to the scar on his cheek. “I locked myself in the bathroom. She finally calmed down and tried to apologize through the door. But I was so pissed. And I . . . I said things I shouldn’t have, things I didn’t even mean. I told her I hated her. I told her to go away.”

  The silence builds and then collapses as the final part of his secret spills out. “You don’t know how many times a day I relive those final moments. She made this sound like . . . like I was pulling out her heart. Fuck. After the house had been quiet for a while, I came out. I found her in the kitchen. There was so much blood. I remember taking off my shirt and wrapping it around her wrists. I screamed that I didn’t mean any of it. I begged her to stay. Stay alive. But she died. After that, it was like there was a monster in my chest. I was so angry. Five months later, I wound up at Savage Isle in the D ward for beating the shit out of a teacher who asked me if I was doing okay. I don’t even know why I did it. When the cops came to arrest me, I sobbed like a fucking baby. All I could do was rock back and forth, and all I heard was that sound Maya made.”

  I understand what he’s telling me, but I don’t have it in me to sympathize. I just don’t. I’ve heard enough. “Chase—”

  “Just let me finish, okay? I know what you’re thinking—what does this have to do with you, right? So, like I said, you reminded me of her, but then you didn’t, and I started to like you in a whole different way. Like, really like you. I didn’t understand why you were at Savage Isle. So I stole your file and that’s when I figured it all out. And I thought . . . Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving a chaotic mess in its wake. He’s wild for me to understand, accept, and forgive what he’s saying. “I know, what I did was wrong, but I guess I thought if I couldn’t save my sister, I could save you.”

  I was right. He wanted to fix me because he couldn’t fix his sister. I don’t blame him, but I don’t excuse him for it either. He slumps down so his shoulder aligns with mine. I have a sudden flash of Jason holding me, his weight pressing me down. I flinch at the contact and curl away. “Jesus, Alice. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I want him to go away. I don’t want to hear anything else. I lie down and rest my cheek on the ashy floor. There’s movement in the barn and it’s not from Chase, he’s gone utterly still, just like me. There are footsteps. And then a voice. “Alice, are you in here?” It’s Dr. Goodman.

  Chase nudges me. It has no effect. He tries again. But I’m frozen. It’s almost like one of those horror stories you hear about when people are anesthetized and their bodies can’t move but they can feel everything during surgery. I would be lucky to feel such torture. I feel nothing. I’m not even crying now. I’m all dried up inside. Hollow like the wind through dry grass.

  Chase stands with his hands up. “She’s here.”

  “Alice, come on out. You’re safe now,” Dr. Goodman says, and his voice echoes in my ears like I’m standing at the back of a cave.

  “She won’t move.” Chase gasps, and then, based on the noise he makes, he’s either crying or sick. Maybe both. “I really fucked up. I think I really fucked up.”

  “Chase, come on out. We’ll get everything sorted. I just need you to step away from Alice for me. Can you do that?” Dr. Goodman negotiates.

  Long seconds pass and nobody moves. Finally, the standoff ends when techs storm the stall. Chase is pushed down. I hear the unmistakable sound of handcuffs, and then Chase is dragged away.

  Dr. Goodman kneels beside me. “Alice, it’s over now. Time to go back to the hospital.” I don’t move. He draws a penlight from his pocket and shines it in my eyes. I guess my body still works, because I squint and try to withdraw. Someone, a nurse I think, asks if he wants to sedate me. That’s funny. My limbs are already heavy. Finding out that your twin doesn’t actually exist is a kind of natural sedation. He tells her no. The world falls out beneath me as I’m lifted. Donny carries me to a waiting police car. He settles me into the back seat and assists me with the seat belt. Dr. Goodman gets in beside me. I turn away from him. Chase is in the next car. I can’t see his face, because he’s hunched over. Shudders rack his body.

  The doors slam and the car lurches forward, red and blue lights spinning. Dr. Goodman shrugs off his jacket and lays it over my legs. Somehow I forgot that I’m soaking wet from the lake.

  “I’m sorry this happened, Alice,” Dr. Goodman says. He goes on to tell me all sorts of things, about how hopeful he is for my recovery. How when I’m ready, he’ll be there to listen. He wonders if I know now that Celia isn’t real. He says I must have so many questions. I do. Or I did. But right now, they don’t seem to matter. “You won’t have to worry about Chase coming back to the hospital. I’ll find him a placement at another facility.” He’s tr
ying to reassure me, but it’s pointless. I close my eyes. Dr. Goodman keeps talking, but all I hear are the wheels of the police car on wet cement and the sound of Chase taking me to the edge and pushing me off.

  CHAPTER

  25

  Possibilities

  I SPEND TWO WEEKS IN SECLUSION, undergoing intensive therapy with Dr. Goodman. Donny is my babysitter. For a while I can hear Cellie’s voice. She talks to me when Donny won’t. Dr. Goodman says this is common. That I may sometimes hear her, but the important part is that I now know she isn’t real. He says that the brain is a fragile thing and that mine invented Cellie as a mode of survival. I guess he’s right. The way he says it, it’s like he thinks I’m some kind of miracle. But I don’t feel that way. I feel more like a monster. Something that somebody sewed together with leftover parts, and I can only hope one day to be whole.

  When I ask the good doctor my questions—How could I not have known? Why did I remember Celia and other people interacting?—he is patient and kind and gives me the answers that Chase found in my file. Because of my mental state, Dr. Goodman felt that I wasn’t ready to hear that Celia was a waking hallucination. He said he had tried to tell me before, during my first visit to Savage Isle, but my hallucinations were deep-rooted and became increasingly worse. I had called him a liar and said he was plotting against me. Everybody’s lying. Everyone’s lying.

  I had screamed that, not Cellie.

  Dr. Goodman hopes that the medication he prescribed will eventually enable me to differentiate reality and fantasy. And that’s exactly what Celia was. What she is. A fantasy. Someone I invented all those years ago while I waited to be found in a cold house next to a dead body, because my mind couldn’t bend toward the truth.

  Dr. Goodman and I spend hours reviewing my journal entries and deciphering each one. Together we carefully unlock my warped memories, memories I had twisted and recreated so that Cellie was real. Dr. Goodman is right. The mind is a wondrous thing. My mind rejected so much. The pain of my grandfather’s death. Horrible foster homes. Jason’s madness. Celia absorbed it all. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thankful for her. She kept me together for a long, long time.