The Complete If I Break Series

by Portia Moore

  “Well, obviously people do know. Dexter for one. He tells you to talk to him and…” she pauses hesitantly.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Your parents have to know,” she says cautiously, wiping her eyes.

  “No! No way! My parents wouldn’t keep something like that from me. There’s no way. Thanks, Jenna, but no. There has to be another explanation.” I get out of her car. No, not possible.

  “Think about it, Chris! How did your mom know who that woman was?” she calls after me. She gets out of the car and follows behind me.

  “Why did they tell you they would explain? If they didn’t know what was going on, how would they be able to explain anything?”

  My throat is burning; I start to panic. I turn around to face her. “If this, if you’re right, do you know what this means?” I yell, to release my frustration. Helplessness; I feel sick. The only thing keeping me from vomiting is that she has to be wrong. But she’s hardly ever wrong.

  “You think I’m happy about this?” she shouts back at me. “You think I want to be right? That I haven’t been willing this to be a case of mistaken identity, some outrageous misunderstanding?” her voice is breaking. She covers her face and turns away. “If this is true, you’re fucking married, Chris! I don’t want this to be true! I have never wanted to be more wrong in my life. But I don’t think I am…” she takes in a deep breath. “Your parents,” she moans. “If I’m right, and they know…” she shakes her head defiantly. “How could they do this? How could they not tell you?” She’s hysterical, and I grab her and hug her tightly. She looks exactly how I feel inside: angry, confused, and frantic. I can’t let her see that I’m as scared as she is, even more. Because if this is true, my life will never be the same.

  With the state she’s in, I decide to follow Jenna to her house to make sure she makes it inside. She gets out and walks over to my car.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?” she asks quietly. I nod my head. I really do want her to, but I don’t know what I’m about to hear, and she’s not as good at keeping her emotions in check as I am.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done talking to them,” I say, trying my best to smile. She leans down to kiss me, but doesn’t on my lips, just right near them. I’m not sure what to make of that. My brain is too tired to analyze it.

  As soon as she closes the door behind her, I hit the gas and head to my house. There are so many things running through my head. The voice named Cal. What Dexter has to do with this? Jenna’s theory. My parents. The girl my mom called Lauren, who, if Jenna is right, is—I won’t even think about what that means.

  When I pull onto our street, I see a white Audi parked across the street from our house. I didn’t notice it before, but it’s hard to miss now. That has to be the girl’s car, which means she’s still here. My stomach turns. I pull around to the back of the house. I park in my normal spot and go in through the kitchen, once I make sure the coast is clear.

  “I want to talk to Cal. Right now!” I hear her voice yell. My stomach drops, and I move closer to the door so that I can hear.

  “Does he not want to see me? The damage has already been done! I just—he owes me an explanation!” I hear footsteps approach, and I move back from the door.

  “Lauren, please calm down,” I hear my mom say, and the footsteps stop.

  “You know my name?” I hear the girl ask. She sounds as surprised as I am. She doesn’t know my parents.

  “We know who you are. You’re Cal’s wife,” I hear my father say. My throat tightens. How do they know this “Cal” guy? My heart is beating faster and faster, but I know there is a reasonable explanation for this. There has to be.

  “So he told you about me? Then, why does he act like he doesn’t know me? Is it because of that woman out there? I’m sorry I don’t know who … he never mentioned you. He-he…” her voice trails off, and I’m as close as I can be to the door without going through it.

  “He doesn’t know who you are. The person you saw earlier wasn’t Cal,” my mom says, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. The knots in my stomach release. I can’t help the wide smile that spreads across my face as a sense of relief courses through my system.

  “I don’t understand. No, that was Cal. I know it. It has to be,” the girl says adamantly. She sounds so sure about it, I feel sorry for her. I don’t know who this Cal guy is, or how she could feel so strongly about a guy who seems like an asshole.

  “Are you telling me that he is Cal’s brother? Is he Cal’s twin?”

  Why didn’t Jenna and I come up with that? It would make so much sense. Maybe I have a twin, or a brother who looks like me. I don’t know anything about my birth parents. It’s entirely possible, but the message—it doesn’t fit, unless he’s screwing with me, but why?

  “Yes,” my dad answers.

  “William, no. No more lies. She deserves to know the truth. We agreed that we’d tell her,” my mom says sternly, and my stomach churns. My heart is beating in my ears.

  You can't get married because you already are. Since no one gave two shits to inform you. I'm Cal.

  I hear voices, but I can’t tell who’s saying what. I squeeze my temples together and make myself focus. The one thing Dr. Lyce told me to try to do to prevent blacking out. I’ve been getting better at it in the past year.

  “I understand he used me…that he never loved me,” the girl states before she cries. I’ve missed something. I put my ear back to the door.

  “Oh, no sweetheart, you have the wrong idea,” my mother says, and I don't know what I missed.

  “Chris and Cal share the same body, but the person you met today is Chris, not Cal. That’s the reason why he reacted the way that he did. He truly doesn’t know who you are. Cal is a separate personality from Chris.”

  I’m going to be sick. I’m going to throw up right here.

  “Chris has what is called Dissociative Identity Disorder,” my mom says, and I’ve heard enough. I’m dizzy. I make my way over to the kitchen table. The room feels like it’s getting smaller. My chest constricts.

  “You–you’re both lying for him. You’re covering for him!” the girl shouts.

  “We’re telling you the truth. Chris doesn’t know who you are. He doesn’t know what Cal does,” I hear my mom say, and I can’t take anymore. No. No. No!

  I burst out of the kitchen, onto the back porch. I lean over the railing and all the contents of whatever I last ate pour out of me. I’m outside, but I can’t get enough air.

  I’m Cal.

  I try to catch my breath and wipe away the hot tears escaping my eyes. All of this time. No clue. I thought I just had amnesia, an undiagnosed neurological disorder. It was all a lie. My life is a lie, or one of them is. How is this possible? How can something like this actually happen? Why would they lie to me? How could they do this? Two years! Two years I’ve gone without this happening. Well, aside from yesterday.

  I’ve finally finished my bachelor’s degree, I’ve gotten engaged, landed a steady job, and they let me do all of it knowing that this freak is living inside of me. But really I’m the freak, I’m crazy. I’m the psycho!

  I pull out my phone and listen to the message again, then throw my phone across the field. Who the hell is this guy? Why don’t I have a clue about any of this? Why does he know more than I do? I kick the dirt. I really need something to hit, or even break. I feel like I’m breaking, and now, without realizing it, I’m crying.

  I haven’t cried since I found out my mom had cancer. I felt helpless then, and I feel the same way now. Everything I’ve worked for seems meaningless. I look back at the house and think of the girl inside. How could I be married to her? I don’t even know who she is. What do I say to her? To Jenna? I can’t marry her while I’m married to someone else, and if I’m not cured—is there even a cure for this? When will this Cal guy pop up next? I think back to yesterday, and shudder. It happened then. He came out, and he called me. He, who―he is me, rig
ht? No, that guy can’t be me. I’m nothing like that. I sit on the porch, my head between my knees. What am I going to do? How do I explain this to people? How do I, how can I live like this? My parents didn’t believe I could. They would have told me if they thought I could handle it.

  Dissociative Identity Disorder. What the hell does that even mean? It might as well be freaking “living inside of you disease.” I take a deep breath and head back in the house. There’s still yelling coming from behind the door, but I ignore it. I head up the back stairs and into my room. I flip open my laptop, pull up the search engine, and then stare at it. I sit down and stuff my head in my hands. They’re shaking. Once I do this, there’s no going back. But really, there’s no going back now.

  I type in Dissociative Identity Disorder, and hit enter. There are 1,080,000 results. Wow. I scroll down and click on what seems like the most official link.

  Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), previously referred to as multiple personality disorder, is a dissociative disorder involving a disturbance of identity in which two or more separate and distinct personality states (or identities) control an individual's behavior at different times. When under the control of one identity, a person is usually unable to remember the events that occurred while other personalities were in control. The different identities, referred to as alters, may exhibit differences in speech, mannerisms, attitudes, thoughts, and gender orientation. The alters may even present physical differences, such as allergies, right- or left-handedness, or the need for eyeglass prescriptions. These differences between alters are often quite striking.

  I stare at the screen, taking in all of the information. You’d think this would be empowering, finally knowing what’s wrong with me. But it’s terrifying, because it makes this real. After reading about it for the past half hour, I haven’t seen that there is a cure. Treatment, therapy, something about integration, which makes no freakin’ sense. Apparently I’m lucky though, there’s only one “alter.” That’s what Cal is, an “alter.” I suppose it could be worse, Cal could be a woman, and my husband could have shown up today. I think of his message, and how he joked about it, knowing I had no clue what he was talking about. This guy is a prick. Hopefully he’s the only one, but who knows? I try not to think about what all this means. It’s kind of landed on my doorstep this morning, literally.

  My head weighs a thousand pounds. I want to wake up, run from this, for it to only be a nightmare. My life has gone from finally getting on track, to straight to hell in a matter of minutes. I wonder who else knows and watched me blindly go through life without knowing the truth. Dexter obviously knew, but the real act of betrayal is my parents’ lies. I never trusted Dexter, but them―how could they do something like this?

  I hear tires screech outside and see the white Audi pulling off. She’s gone. Maybe for good. She had no clue what was going on. This Cal guy has screwed us both over. If I was that girl, I’d walk away and leave this mess behind. If he’s anything like I think he is, she’s lucky. Nothing tying her to this mess, but if that’s the case, Jenna should leave too. She’s not tied to me. We’re only engaged.

  Are we engaged? Can you even get engaged while married to someone else? Married. I’m married? No, Cal’s married. That sounds even more ridiculous than me being married. I’m Cal, or Cal is me? It’s a bad math equation. How is it possible for him to have a whole relationship, and manage to get engaged and married while this was happening? I should have some recollection of her. Well I did, kind of, but nothing concrete, no memories, just familiarity.

  The emotion that poured off that girl when she saw me. She looked at me like I was her world. She was devastated when I didn’t know who she was. He couldn’t have had time to have a relationship like that. How could he forge a connection with someone that intense when he could disappear at any moment? They couldn’t have been in love.

  Fix this, or there will be hell to pay.

  And who is he to threaten me? How am I supposed to fix this? I didn’t even know about any of this until today. He’s the one who ruined my life! The part that sucks about this the most is there’s nothing I can do. I’m powerless. How can I marry Jenna and not know when this guy will show up? I don’t know anything about him. Can I take his threat seriously? What if I marry Jenna one day, and wake up as this guy the next? She doesn’t deserve that.

  I look under my bed and pull out calendars I used to keep before my blackouts stopped two years ago, when I started tracking the time I lost. I have four years worth, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. I used to keep track of how many days I didn’t remember. I look over them all, counting. Twelve days one month, 16 the next. Seven, ten, eighteen, twenty two, I total them all together. Out of four years, I was aware of what I was doing for 750 days. A little more than half of the time frame. That’s a hell of a lot of time for this Cal guy to do a lot of damage to my life, and build his own.

  A burning starts in my throat and spreads to my chest. I grab the calendars, and start ripping them up, and throw them across the room. I see pictures of me with my parents, with Jenna, and with friends throughout the years. I grab them and throw them, too. This isn’t my life. How can it be my life, when I don’t own it? When someone can take it over at any second without me having any say?

  “Christopher,” my mom says, her expression is horrified as she stands in the doorway, looking at me in the middle of the room I’ve just trashed. I’m about to be 28 years old, and I still have a room in my parents’ house. I look at her, her face partially covered with her hands. My dad joins her soon after and takes a deep breath.

  “Son, what’s wrong?” he asks cautiously like he’s afraid to hear the answer. I let out an angry laugh.

  “Dissociative-Identity-Disorder,” I say pointedly, and watch their expressions change from shocked to guilty.

  “We can explain. Come, come downstairs so we can talk about this,” my dad says.

  “What’s there to talk about? How fucked up my life is? That I’m sharing it with some asshole, and you hid it from me?”

  “Don’t use that language with us!” my dad says, seemingly offended.

  “Why not, Dad? Is that too Cal-like?” I shout at them. Cal had no problem dropping f-bombs in the message he left me.

  “Son, we know you’re upset,” my mom interjects.

  “Upset doesn’t explain this. My life has been a lie. I don’t have a life!”

  “You have a life. You, you’re the real person. He’s—”

  “Is that right? Because he has the wife? I’m pretty sure he has friends, and a house. He at least knew what was going on, and according to him, I’m ruining his life. He knows a hell of a lot more about everything than I do!” I shout, and there’s silence.

  “How could you not tell me this was happening?” I say, my anger turning to exasperation.

  “We thought we were protecting you. We didn’t want to burden you.”

  “Huh, how do you think I’m feeling now?” I laugh with disdain.

  “We’re so sorry, Christopher,” my mom says, tears falling from her eyes. She can save them now.

  “We thought it would make things worse,” my dad says incidentally. Like hiding the fact that I have another person inside of me was trivial. Some sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde isn’t a big deal.

  “How?! How could you think that was best? How could you think that me not knowing there’s this jerk-off running around, screwing people, and getting married, was best for me?!” I ask, letting out a disbelieving laugh. They looked dumbfounded.

  “You let me think that I was having blackouts and amnesia, a normal side effect of some made-up neurological disorder. How could you do this to me?” Now I’m shouting, because I want to make sure they are hearing me.

  “We were going to tell you,” my dad finally answers.

  “When? Because this has obviously been going on for years. Why now? Oh, because I could possibly get arrested for being a polygamist?” I shout.

  “That’s enough!” m
y father says, authority dripping from his voice. My chest is heaving, but I try to calm down. I see the tears covering my mom’s face, and hearing her soft whimpers from her covered mouth breaks my heart.

  “Don’t you dare think for a minute this has been easy for us. You don’t think we wanted to tell you? You don’t think we wanted this guy to disappear? Trust me he’s not any fun to deal with! The day we met him was one of the worst days of our lives,” my dad says, his voice stern but yielding.

  “Not telling you was one of the most difficult decisions we have ever made. We thought we were doing what was best for you. Clearly we see that we were wrong now,” he continues.

  “You have to know we didn’t do this to hurt or deliberately deceive you. You have to know that, Chris. We thought that it would be easier for you not to know, until we knew you were in a good place to deal with this. We didn't know what would happen if we told you,” my mom explains timidly.

  “We couldn't see what good would come from telling you,” my dad interjects.

  “The doctors pretty much told us that there was no cure for this. Intensive therapy could make you one with this guy. Trust me he isn’t anyone you need to be ‘one’ with. Why tell you this if there was nothing we could do about it? It was just going to make you worried and stressed out of your mind,” my dad says defensively.

  “When you came back after my diagnosis, we were going to tell you. By that time, we knew about Lauren and saw that Cal was doing things that would eventually affect you,” my mom sighs.

  “But you were being so strong for me while I was sick. It seemed like too much. As time went on, things got better for both of us, we thought. We hoped that maybe there wasn’t a problem anymore,” my mom says, her voice returning to normal.

  “Everything has been going so well. We were selfish to revel in the normalcy of life,” my dad says.

  “When you told us yesterday that you were marrying Jenna, we knew we had to say something. We were just trying to figure out the best way,” my mom adds.