Phantom Limb: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Lucinda Berry

  “You can do this.” She squeezed my hand and started walking.

  I walked alongside her robotically, as if I was in a trance. We weaved in and out of the aisles of headstones, careful not to step on any of the grave sites. There were so many. I avoided reading any of the inscriptions.

  Lisa stopped, so I stopped too. She looked down and I did the same, but I couldn’t bring myself to follow her gaze. Instead, I stared at my feet. New black Converse. I couldn’t bring myself to look forward at the stone. I wasn’t ready to raise my eyes. Lisa placed her hand on my back. My palms were sweaty and my armpits were moist. I felt hot and flushed like I was coming down with the flu. My heart was a staccato drum in my head and I was sure if someone looked at my chest they’d be able to see it pounding.

  I took a deep breath and looked up slowly. There it was:

  Emily Rooth (1991–2009)

  Beloved Sister. Cherished Daughter.

  You will be in our hearts forever.

  I stared at the headstone and read the first line again:

  Emily Rooth (1991–2009)

  A sickening awareness flooded my body and all the air got sucked out of me. I reached down and rubbed the spot of the raised Emily carved on my inner thigh—the tattoo I’d put there with a razor on our fourteenth birthday. Lisa had always asked me why I carved my name into myself or wrote my name in blood whenever I cut. The answer was simple—I did it to remind me I was alive and who I was.

  I’m Emily Rooth.

  Panic rushed through me. Did Lisa know? Was this what she wanted me to remember? I furtively looked over at her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at my headstone with tears streaming down her face, struggling with her own memories of me. There was no way she knew the truth. She was as convinced that I was Elizabeth as I’d been.

  It was like I’d been living in a dream and had arrived at the spot where it was time to wake up. I was assailed with the memory of our last night. The images were unleashed from my unconscious and violently pummeled their way into my consciousness without my permission.

  I was behind the wheel. Elizabeth was sitting next to me, crying. I hated it when she cried. She didn’t cry very often, but when she did it was tumultuous.

  “Who cares? He’s just a guy. It’s not like you were going to marry him or something. How many high school crushes end in marriage?” I asked.

  I didn’t like that Elizabeth was so hung up on her new boyfriend, Marc. She’d been spending more and more time with him and less and less time with me. Even when she was with me, I could tell she was distracted, not fully present. It wasn’t the fact she had a boyfriend that upset me so much, but that she’d kept him a secret. We weren’t supposed to have any secrets between us. I’d overheard her talking to him on the phone and promising him she was going to tell me about him soon, but saying she was waiting for the right time to do it because she was afraid of how I’d react. It bothered me that she thought I was so fragile that I couldn’t handle her having a boyfriend.

  I’d started eavesdropping on their conversations more and more. I couldn’t stand the voice she used when she talked to him. It was fake. So phony. I’d never heard her giggle and laugh the way she did when she talked to him. It wasn’t long and she’d started ending their calls by responding, “I love you too.”

  Maybe she loved him, but there was no way he loved her. You couldn’t love someone if you didn’t know them and there was no way he knew Elizabeth. Nobody besides me knew her. If she started thinking someone else understood her, then she might not need me as much and there was no way I was going to let that happen.

  I’d set out to prove to her that Marc didn’t know her like she thought he did. My plan had been simple. I’d pretend to be her and kiss him. If he was in love with her then he should’ve been able to tell he was kissing me and not her. I was only trying to show her that he didn’t know her. If he couldn’t tell the difference between the two of us, then he wasn’t right for her and Elizabeth shouldn’t be with someone who wasn’t right for her.

  I’d gone to the party dressed in one of her outfits and straightened my hair intentionally because she always wore hers that way. She couldn’t stand how frizzy our hair got when we left it curly, but it never bothered me. But it wasn’t as if I’d gone to great lengths to pretend to be her. That wasn’t the point. The point was that what we looked like on the outside shouldn’t matter. If you loved someone, then you knew their insides.

  I’d followed her to the party. She’d lied and told me she was going to the library to study, but I’d been reading their email exchanges all week, so I knew she was meeting him at the party. I’d waited until she’d gone to the bathroom and then I approached him.

  “Hey, honey,” I’d said, wrapping my arm around him.

  He’d turned to look at me. “That was quick.”

  “Come here.” I’d smiled, pointing to the open bedroom door next to the bathroom.

  He’d raised his eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

  I’d motioned seductively for him to follow and he’d eagerly followed me into the bedroom. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” I’d pulled his face close to me.

  He’d pulled back before I kissed him. “What changed your mind?”

  “I don’t wanna talk.” I’d grabbed him and started kissing him passionately. He’d stuck his tongue back in my mouth hungrily. It was only a matter of seconds before he was moaning and his hands were up the back of my shirt.

  And then Elizabeth had walked in. Just like I’d wanted her to. Her face had gone white and she’d looked as if she was going to throw up on the floor. Marc had pulled himself away from me and looked back and forth between the two of us. He had no idea who was who or which one of us he was supposed to be talking to. Elizabeth hadn’t said anything. She’d just turned on her heels and stormed out the door. I’d followed her outside, but she’d refused to get in my car and taken off walking down the road. I’d trailed beside her with the window down.

  “Please, Bethy, get in the car, please,” I’d begged over and over again as she stomped down the road. “I can explain. Just let me explain.”

  I’d pleaded with her for five minutes before she finally got in the car. When she slid into the passenger seat, she began sobbing hysterically and I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t expected her to react so strongly.

  “It’s not just a crush!” she screamed at me from the passenger seat. “I love him!”

  She’d never screamed at me before.

  “He doesn’t love you!” I yelled back. “He kissed me. He kissed me and had no idea it wasn’t you!”

  “What was he supposed to do?” Elizabeth asked. “You came to the party dressed exactly like me, and we’ve never dressed alike. Not once. You looked totally like me. You even straightened your hair and you never straighten your hair. You knew exactly what you were doing! Don’t try to pretend like you didn’t. How could you? How could you do that to me?” Elizabeth hadn’t ever raised her voice at me and now she was screaming. I didn’t know how to stop it or make it better. She was the one who knew how to make things right.

  “He should’ve known! That was the entire point!”

  “How could you? How could you do that?” She was crying so hard she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

  “Bethy, don’t be upset. I was just looking out for you. I really was. You’ve got to know that. I knew he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us because he doesn’t really know you or love you. I had to show you.”

  Her shoulders continued to shake with sobs.

  “Don’t you see? I did it for us. He was going to come between us. He already had.” I was desperate to calm her down. She’d never been so angry with me. “Please, I’m sorry. You’ve got to understand. Don’t you see? I was only thinking about you and trying to protect you. He was going to hurt you. They always do.”

  “I really liked him. I mean, I really did.” Elizabeth turned her head away from me.

&n
bsp; “Please, look at me. Don’t be mad. Please!”

  I was crying now too. I couldn’t take her being mad at me. I didn’t know how to handle it. I was becoming unhinged. Elizabeth kept her head turned towards the window, refusing to look at me. I reached over to touch her shoulder. She jerked it away.

  “Leave me alone, Emily. I just want you to leave me alone!”

  “C’mon, don’t be like that. You can’t stay mad at me. Please, look at me, Elizabeth.” I grabbed her again. She shoved me off and moved further away. I reached for her another time.

  And then it happened. It all took place so quickly. The bright, glaring lights in my face, blinding me. The loud horn screaming at me. The screeching. The squealing. The deafening crunch followed by the darkness.

  I opened my eyes slowly. It was hard to breathe. The airbag smashed my face. My head hurt. My seat belt was ripping into me, cutting me in half. I turned to look. She was gone.

  “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”

  The windshield was shattered. Pummeled through savagely. I pushed open my door. The headlights were blaring in my eyes. The horn still roared in my ears. A semitruck lay on its side next to us. There was smoke. Lots of smoke everywhere. It burned my eyes. Hurt my head.

  “Elizabeth!”

  I began running down the road in the darkness, screaming, searching wildly. My lungs hurt and the throbbing pain in my legs was excruciating, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered. Nothing except finding her. I spotted a body on the side of the road. Crumpled. Twisted. Grotesquely contorted. I ran to it.

  I knelt down. Her face was splattered with blood. Her clothes ripped to shreds. Her arms and legs were twisted at odd angles as if they’d been snapped in half. Her stomach was gashed open and pieces of her insides lay around us, sprinkling the side of the road. Her eyes were wide open. So wide. And dark, filled with terror. I brought my face down to her face. Nothing. I knew before I touched her that she was dead. I placed my hand on her neck, then her wrist, and finally her chest. Nothing. Elizabeth was dead and I’d killed her. My life was over.

  I laid my head on her chest, sobbing. Primal sounds were released from a place inside me that I didn’t know existed. Her blood pooled around my head. People were running, screaming, calling out to each other. Red lights blinked. Sirens howled. And the smoke. There was so much smoke.

  Big black boots at my face. A strong arm shook me. Shook me again. “Miss, what’s your name? What’s your name?”

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t live.

  “What’s your name? Do you know your name?” he asked me again, shining a flashlight into my eyes.

  I lifted my head off her chest slowly and nodded at the police officer.

  “I do. My name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Rooth.”

  Epilogue

  It had been three weeks since I’d been to my own grave. For a brief moment on the ride back to the hospital, I’d considered telling Lisa who I really was, but I pushed the idea aside in favor of keeping it a secret. If I told her, she and the doctors would make me go back to being Emily and I didn’t want to be Emily anymore. I’d never wanted to be me and had spent my life hating myself.

  Mother had been right about the two of us. She’d always said Elizabeth was the strong one and I was the weak one, that she was smart and I was dumb, and I should try to be more like her. Even after we were rescued from Mother and went to live with the Rooths, everyone still compared me to my sister. They measured my progress against hers and I never measured up. Nobody ever came right out and said it as cruelly as Mother had, but it was always there, hidden beneath the surface. Bob and Dalila were too kind to say it to me, but I saw it in their eyes the first time my elementary teacher called to tell them I’d been caught playing doctor with two boys on the playground during recess. Then, there were other times when I heard the two of them talking about how messed up I was when they didn’t know I was listening. Like when I got home from the hospital after Dalila found me in the bathtub and I’d overheard her crying to Bob, “I just don’t understand. Why can’t she be more like Elizabeth?”

  I would’ve given anything to be more like Elizabeth. I’d spent just as much time wishing I could be her as I had hating myself. Everyone always raved about how alike we were as if we were the same person and how we lived in our own world, but the latter part of the story was the only part that was true. We lived in our own world because she was the only person who understood me, but we couldn’t have been more different.

  She was born with a steel guard around her heart that protected her from evil. I, on the other hand, wasn’t born with any form of protective shield. I didn’t have any boundaries to contain me and keep me safe from others. She had her armor and I had nothing, which meant my body and soul were never my own and anyone could reach in and invade me. There wasn’t a single part of me that had gone unmarked.

  I grew up watching Elizabeth with awe, wondering how she could be so invincible. It started with Mother and the special friends but continued after we’d been taken away and our life unfolded with the Rooths. She was solid and strong, full of so much grit and fortitude. Nothing penetrated her. I didn’t have any idea how she did it and desperately wanted to be like her, but I never could. Not even close.

  The night I killed her, I didn’t intend to become her. It just happened—almost by accident. As I lay on the road on top of her body, I was devastated that I’d killed the one person I loved and who loved me more than anyone else in the world. I worshiped and needed her. I couldn’t fathom a life that existed without Elizabeth, nor could I bear the responsibility of being the one who took her life. There wasn’t any way I could admit she was dead, so when the police officer asked me what my name was, I told him Elizabeth.

  Bits and pieces of my memory were slowly coming back. I still didn’t remember anything about the days following her death. But I did remember standing next to the grave as they buried her and realizing everyone thought I was dead. They all believed I was Elizabeth and hadn’t even questioned it. I was the only one who knew the truth and it dawned on me that I could go on being her. If I didn’t tell anyone what had really happened, then no one besides me would ever know. I told myself I would be giving both of us a gift—I would no longer have to be me, and becoming Elizabeth would keep her alive.

  I slipped into the role of Elizabeth effortlessly. It was so simple and didn’t take any effort on my part because I was already aware of every detail about her. I’d been studying her since we were little girls and knew everything about her, from the way she cocked her head slightly to the left side whenever she laughed to the way she stuck the tip of her tongue out when she focused. It was like stepping into my favorite book. It was easy to be her and I found out very quickly that I liked being her. It felt so good. So much better than it had ever felt being myself.

  What I hadn’t counted on was that I wouldn’t go away. I’d buried myself in the ground with a headstone bearing my name, but I refused to die. I wouldn’t disappear and let myself just be her. It was a constant battle between the two of us. During my first session with Dr. Larson after visiting the grave, he explained that the battle I had between selves was because I had an identity fugue that allowed me to assume a new identity while still maintaining a true identity. He described everything in the context of me being Elizabeth, because unlike Lisa, I never considered telling him who I really was. He referred to my identity fugue as my “altered state” and said it was another symptom of my dissociative disorder.

  It was another instance when I had no idea what he was talking about and wished I was able to ask Lisa about it, but I couldn’t. Once I was aware of the truth about who I was, I knew she was the one person I wouldn’t be able to hide it from, so I had to stay away from her because I couldn’t take the chance of her finding out. It made me sad and I was going to miss her a lot. But like Elizabeth always used to say—sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get what you want and giving up my relationship with Lisa was a sacrifice
I was willing to make because I was committed to my freedom.

  Dr. Larson was hopeful for my complete recovery. His focus during my last few weeks at the hospital had been to help me repair my identity fugue by doing what he referred to as “bringing me back into congruence” and “getting rid of my altered state.” He assured me if I followed his instructions and trusted myself to the process, I would be able to begin a new life and I wouldn’t have to continue living the way I’d been living. The process included grieving Emily’s death and identifying the role that keeping her alive had served in my life. Dr. Larson said the goal of my treatment was to live integrated, but my goal was to live without her completely.

  I was willing to do whatever it took to get rid of Emily because when I walked out of the hospital doors I wanted to be free to live my life as Elizabeth without the interference of my old self. I did everything Dr. Larson asked of me. I wrote her a good-bye letter and read it during group, talked to her in an empty chair and told her I loved her, beat on pillows and screamed about how angry I was, and finally through a guided hypnosis, visualized myself releasing her hand and letting her go. Dr. Larson promised it was possible for me to have a new beginning and I knew I could have it as long as Emily stayed buried. I just had to make sure she stayed buried this time.

  By the time I was discharged from the hospital, everyone else had already been released. There was no one in our original group left, but right before my going-away party in the family room, I heard Polly telling the other nurses that Shelly was being readmitted the following day. She’d tried to kill herself by shutting herself up in the garage with the car running. I felt bad that she was coming back so soon and vowed never to come back to the hospital.

  Thomas was at my going-away party with Bob and Dalila. My love for Thomas was stronger than it’d ever been. We’d stopped talking about what had happened in the past and started focusing on planning our future together. He’d begun dropping hints about marriage. Bob and Dalila were as proud of me as they’d been at my high school graduation. Bob brought flowers and Dalila gave me a beautiful book full of inspirational quotes. The nurses brought in a cake with Congratulations scrawled across it in pink frosting. No one was more proud of me than I was of myself.