After You Died

by Dea Poirier

  “Do you have anything you’d like to discuss before we get started?” he asks.

  I shake my head. I don’t want to discuss the weeks I’m missing, or Sayid and I sneaking off campus to meet with Eden. Or when I woke up with the knife. I’m not here to talk, or to be cured. I’m here for answers. I slip into the hypnosis easier this time, like pulling on a pair of worn boots.

  Olivia’s laugh, soft, high, cuts across the night. It’s so beautiful, even the crickets stop singing long enough to listen. My eyes dart to the street, though we’re hidden in the shadow of the mansion, I still feel the crawl of eyes on my skin. The entire neighborhood keeps watch on the Howey Mansion, if there’s so much as a mouse fart out here they call the cops.

  “Olivia, please, someone will hear us.” I whisper, my voice is rushed, but I try not to let the panic seep into my words. We took my dad’s car to get here, and that’s already turned me into a bundle of raw nerves.

  The trees rustle as the breath of a cold wind blows. The night is such an inky black the circles of light from the streetlights seem to be strangled by the darkness. It’s far too cold for Florida, there’s a crisp chill in the air that doesn’t belong anywhere south of the Carolinas. I turn back from the street and see Olivia leaning against the wall, eyeing me. Her blonde curls rise and fall with the breeze. Her white dress laps at her legs.

  “Asher, calm down. You’re wound tighter than a Slinky,” she says with a warm smile as I walk past her.

  At the mouth of the backyard, I’m barely able to sit still. The wind whips around me, and chills me to the bone. But I don’t make it another step. I don’t even get to take another breath before I hear Olivia gasp.

  “Mr. Flemming?” she says, her voice trembles.

  At the sound of my father’s name, my heart leaps into my throat. I whip around so quickly my head swims. My father glowers at us. He’s unsteady on his feet, with his metal flask clamped in his right hand. In his other hand, he’s got a cigarette trapped between his fingers.

  “What the fuck do you two think you’re doing?” he spits.

  How the fuck did he make it here? This is drunker than I usually see him. The drive from Ocala to the mansion takes nearly two hours, I’m not sure how he managed to make it here, he can barely walk.

  His anger seeps through the air, it mixes with the sour scent of alcohol and forms a toxic cloud around us. Instinctively I grab Olivia and pull her behind me. She grips my hand, her skin ice cold. Her eyes are wide, and her hand shakes in mine.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper back to her.

  My dad moves closer, and I stiffen. This won’t be the first time he’s hit me, and I know it won’t be the last. Every few weeks I intervene on my mother’s behalf, taking the beating that he’s meant for her. This time though, I know it will be different. This time, the beating will be meant for me from the beginning. His jaw tightens, and he shoves the flask into his pocket.

  “I said, what the fuck do you two think you’re doing?” He spits the words at me, with every one I feel Olivia flinch behind me. “You took my fucking car, you drove all the way here. What are you doing?”

  “I was surprising Olivia. It’s not her fault, she didn’t want to take your car,” I say as I try to diffuse him, and most of all, try to steer the anger toward myself. I give Olivia a nudge, she could run into the backyard, she could get far away from him. But she’s just wasting time. My gut tightens, I know she won’t leave me. She should leave me.

  “You’re useless. You’re spoiled. You’re a blight on the Flemming name, just like your brother. I’m going to kill you, just like I killed him.” He growls the words through his gritted teeth as he throws his cigarette to the ground.

  He lunges, and I turn to shove Olivia out of the way. I need to protect her, keep her safe. But the impact I’m expecting doesn’t come. Wind rushes past my face as his fist flies past me, and it hits with a hollow thud into the side of Olivia’s head. Her eyes go wide, and she calls out. Her body recoils from the punch. She slams her head into the side of the house. The stucco crumbles as she hits.

  “Olivia!” I scream as I rush to her side. Her head is bloody, her breaths shallow. Quakes shake her body as blood pours from her head wound, then a wound opens from her neck. Small stab wounds bloom from her chest. I look up, and the last thing I see is a flash of red before the world goes dark.

  When I come out of the vision, I feel like I’ve been thrown into a pool of cold water. My eyes burst open, and I gasp for air. The smoke in the room burns my eyes. It takes a long time for my mind to unravel from the vision, the memory.

  “Are you alright?” he asks.

  I nod slowly, and he hands me a glass of water.

  “Is there any reason you would believe that your father would kill Olivia?”

  The question catches me off guard, I haven’t mentioned anything about my father. I start to ask, but the words get caught in my throat.

  “While you were going through the vision, you were telling me what happened as you saw it,” he explains. He must have seen the confusion on my face.

  “I was?” I ask.

  “Yes, that’s how regression therapy works. You’ll slip into the vision, and I will talk you through it, asking you questions, guiding you, pulling you out if you get too upset.” He holds out his hand, offering me a glass of water.

  I take it, realizing how dry my throat is. I sip it slowly before I speak again.

  “You look tired, maybe you should go have some dinner and get some rest,” he says.

  I nod, and stand. My legs shake beneath me, so unsteady they feel hollow. When I get to Madison, I feel like I’ve ran a marathon. I collapse into the bed, hungry, empty. The sleep that finds me is as restless as my mind.

  After

  A choir of crickets pulls me from the depths of my subconscious. Beads of rain tickle my skin, the trees creak in the cool breeze. I blink furiously, my eyes try to focus. Above me, the blur of the full moon is the only thing I can see. For a few minutes I stare at it, without realizing I shouldn’t be looking at the moon, I shouldn’t even be outside. The twisted, crooked branches of the ancient trees are slick with dew, knobbed like the fingers of a wicked witch.

  I pull myself up and it registers. I was asleep on the ground behind the stables. The weather-beaten wood stands beside me. Panic tightens my chest. The throb of my heartbeat pounds in my ears. My arms are sticky, caked in mud.

  How long have I been here? Did I sleepwalk?

  When I don’t hear the bark of bloodhounds, I’m relieved, that means no one has realized I’m gone yet. I stick to the shadows until I make it back to my cottage, the downstairs bathroom is gloriously abandoned when I enter.

  I toss my muddy clothes into the hamper and turn on the shower in the furthest stall, ignoring Sayid’s warning about showering alone. I can’t wake him for this. He can’t see me like this. When I look in the mirror, I realize it’s not just mud covering me, mixed with the dirt is deep red blood. Every inch of my skin that wasn’t covered by clothing, is stained.

  Whose blood is this?

  Though the shower is unusually warm, I’m covered in goosebumps. As the water mixes with the mud, the air fills with the scent of copper. Shivers quake across my body. Too many questions swim in my mind, questions I may never find answers for. The most important, who did I hurt this time?

  AT BREAKFAST, I’m barely able to eat, my stomach is already full. Thankfully the wound on my neck is covered, so no one can see it, and the bruise on my cheek is barely visible. An uneasy feeling has expanded inside me since I woke up behind the stables last night. Again, I scan the tables searching to see if anyone is missing. There doesn’t seem to be a single student out of place. And when I see Becks lumber in, my hopes are crushed that I killed the one person here who’s worth killing. I’m relieved it doesn’t appear I killed anyone, but I still can’t bring myself to touch my breakfast. Sayid sits down and eyes me.

  “Not gonna eat that?” His for
k is already raised, he’s ready to pounce on my breakfast.

  I push it toward him without a word. He shoves ham steaks, bacon, and eggs into his face. He hardly chews. What am I missing?

  “What are you doing during worship today?” Sayid asks.

  Since I’ve been here, Sayid and I have spent Sundays together, ducking whatever worship services they offer to the inmates. Sayid manages to be even less religious than I am. While the rest of the campus is quiet, reflecting, he and I hide out in the hay loft and talk. It’s the best part of my week. With no one else around, no work detail to attend to, there are no distractions. It’s the only time things really feel normal. Or I guess as normal as they can feel in Dozier. But he has to be confused. Today isn’t Sunday.

  “Worship isn’t today, it’s Wednesday,” I argue.

  He raises an eyebrow and looks at me like I’m crazy. “No, it’s definitely Sunday.”

  “What’s the date?” I ask, as I try to get my bearings. Sayid is normally better with dates than I am, after all, he has to keep track of shipments. I don’t. My mouth goes dry, I take a sip of my orange juice, but it doesn’t help.

  “The ninth, I think.” He shrugs.

  It can’t be the ninth. Yesterday was the twenty-sixth. Wasn’t it? I’ve felt strange, off, since I started taking Dr. Lennox’s pills. But since the one episode waking up on the back porch with a knife, I haven’t missed any other time. Or have I? My mind puzzles through the dates, the three weeks I lost last time, two weeks this time—it doesn’t seem any other days are missing.

  A lump fills my throat for the rest of breakfast. Though words try to bubble to the surface a few times, they get stuck behind the lump. I swallow them, and keep my eyes on my plate. After Sayid is done eating I follow him outside.

  “Can we take a walk? Need a smoke,” I say to Sayid. It’s a lie, I’m just trying to make an excuse that I know will mean I can have a few minutes alone with him. No one smokes in groups here, not groups larger than two anyway.

  “Sure.” He grins.

  We walk from the dining hall, once the trees swallow us, I light up and turn to Sayid. “Do you have any idea where I might have gone last night?” I consider what to tell him. I don’t want to scare him, especially after the knife incident. The more time I spend with Sayid, the more I like him. There’s something growing between us, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. The last thing I want is to frighten him, to make him want to stay away from me. Needles prick the pit of my stomach, and I shift on my feet.

  He cocks his head to the side, raising his eyebrow slightly. “What do you mean?”

  It’s difficult to know where to start. There’s a fine line where I’ll start crossing into crazy. I’m pretty sure I passed into crazy a while ago. As much as it creeps me out, I can only imagine how nuts I’ll sound to him. I know I can trust Sayid. At this point, I know we’re friends—and I don’t want to lose him.

  “Last night, I woke up covered in mud behind the stables. The last thing I remember, it was two weeks ago.” After the knife incident, I leave out the blood. I don’t want anyone to know about that. I swallow that secret down.

  “You’ve been around the last two weeks, just like last time. And I never saw you leave last night.” He gives me the side eye as he smokes his cig. “Are you alright?”

  I don’t answer, because I don’t know if I am. It occurs to me I could have hallucinated waking up behind the stables, or it could have been a dream. But it was so real neither of those seem possible. That still wouldn’t explain why I don’t remember the last couple weeks.

  “For the last two weeks, have I acted strange or anything?” I ask.

  He shrugs, “No, not really. You actually seemed less depressed. You smiled a few times.”

  My face tightens. “You make it sound like I never smile.”

  “You don’t ever smile. I can count the number of times you’ve smiled on this hand,” he raises his left hand and wiggles his fingers exaggeratedly.

  I roll my eyes and flick my cig to the ground. “Maybe I should ask Lennox for some different meds.”

  He laughs. “I seriously doubt they’re going to waste any of their precious budget on meds for you. They’re probably giving you aspirin.” He looks down and brushes the hair out of his face. “But you do need to talk to someone. I’m worried about you.”

  “Thanks. I’ve got to try something. I can’t keep living like this. Waking up in strange places, covered in...” My resolve hardens and seems to push me forward. It digs at me, pulls me. I start to walk through the trees toward Dr. Lennox’s office, knowing that he’s likely the only person who can give me answers. He’s the only person who might be able to help me.

  “Asher, wait,” Sayid calls after me.

  “Yeah?” I stop and turn to look at him.

  “Be careful what you tell him. The seriously mental kids are locked in rooms barely the size of a closet with only a bucket to piss in,” he warns.

  “That can’t be true.” I glower as I look at my feet. If I try to get help I risk that as my punishment.

  “If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you tonight,” he offers.

  “Okay, show me.” I say as I start to walk toward Lennox’s office.

  “There’s something else I need you for tonight, too,” he says before I’m out of earshot, but I don’t have time to ask what it is.

  On my way to Lennox’s office I measure the truth. I consider each part of what I remember carefully to see how crazy it sounds. The blood, I will definitely leave out. I’m also afraid if I admit I was out of the cottage after lights out he’ll ship me off to the white house. My hand trembles when I knock on his door. After I knock, I regret it.

  “Come in,” he calls, his voice slightly muffled by the door.

  I walk in and find him watering his plants with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His blue-gray suit seems to glow in the light.

  “Mr. Flemming, good to see you,” he says barely looking at me. “What brings you here this morning?”

  The sessions I remember having with him are pretty mundane. Paranoia nags at me, what have I been telling him for the past two weeks? Have I been coming at all?

  “I need to talk some more. Some strange things have happened,” The words seep out of me slow, like they’re buried so far in my mind it’s difficult to dig them out. The rational part of me wants to sit down and talk through my problems, but there’s a voice at the back of my mind telling me to run. I push back against the voice, I won’t let control me.

  I edge toward a chair and take a seat before he can tell me no. The scent of the dusty chair envelopes me. I press my palms into my knees, to keep my legs from twitching, and to hold my shaking hands steady. My body, has a life of its own now, it seems. Moving in ways I don’t understand, taking me places I don’t want to go. I have to take control back, or it could cost people their lives.

  His eyebrow perks up, and his milky eyes settle on me. “Oh?” He sets down the watering can and fishes out a pad of paper from his desk. His hands shake as he shuffles to the chair across from me. The pen settles on his knobby fingers, and he looks at me, waiting for me to speak.

  When he looks at me, I shift uncomfortably. I’m at a loss. What do I say? How do I explain what’s happened? Sayid’s warning is heavy in my mind. I wipe my sweaty palms on my shirt, and take a deep breath to calm my racing heart.

  Something in the back of my mind warns me not to tell him, not to trust him. If he locked away those other kids for being too crazy, he could do the same to me. Part of me wants to bury the truth, to never step foot back in this room. But I can’t do that. He’s the only chance I have at getting answers. This is the only way to keep it from happening again.

  Every time I wake up somewhere I shouldn’t be, every time even a day goes missing, that’s another chance I could hurt Sayid.

  I won’t take that chance.

  I can’t lose him.

  “I’m missing two weeks of time. I gues
s I came out of it yesterday evening.” I fidget in my chair, but it’s the omitted truth I’m trying to get comfortable with, not the chair.

  “What do you mean?” His head tilts as he asks, his glasses slip down the bridge of his nose.

  “I don’t remember anything for the last two weeks. This morning, I thought it was Wednesday. Then I find out it’s actually Sunday.” The words sound unsteady, and unsure as they come out of me. My voice waivers in an unfamiliar way, I clear my throat.

  “This is the kind of place where it’s easy to lose time,” he explains, and rubs his chin, “But when you came out of it where were you?”

  I look at my feet, I don’t want to end up in the white house. All I can hear is the throbbing of my heart loud in my ears, and the longer he looks at me, the faster the thuds grow. The white house may not be the worst place, I could end up with the crazy kids. If I was locked away, I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else. Maybe, it’d be for the best.

  “It’s alright,” he urges, his kind eyes shimmer with curiosity.

  “I sort of, woke up, in the middle of the night behind the stables. This morning when I asked the date, last I remembered, it was the twenty-sixth, now it’s the ninth.” I don’t look up from my trembling hands as I explain.

  “How many times would you say this has happened to you?” he asks as he writes on his notepad.

  It’s not something I’ve kept track of and for all I know it’s happened hundreds of times. Maybe I just don’t realize it. “There’s a few big instances that it’s happened, but it could happen more often, and I just don’t realize.”

  In the end, Lennox doesn’t seem all that surprised, or concerned. He tells me that I’ll take three of the little white pills instead of two. If I miss two weeks while taking two pills, what will happen if I take three?

  I decide to stop taking them.