The Other Girl - Trisha Wolfe Page 0,34

always explains life and psychology in a unique way that relates to me so I can understand. I hear her voice now telling me to take a step back, observe the situation objectively. Trust my instincts. I’ve come so far, have worked so hard to be free and to find love…I can’t give up now.

I open my medicine cabinet and grab the bottle of pills.

The truth of our existence is based on perception. I know this. Everyone who has ever walked the earth has lived in a creation of their own perceived reality. Just like the cosmos are creating new existence in space, turning the void of nothing into matter and energy, the human mind is constantly altering our reality.

The clock in the hallway ticks away, the sound abhorrently loud, but the hands are stuck on that dreadful time.

Nine-eleven.

The number of times Jeremy and Irina were stabbed.

The psychology of this torment would state it’s a manifestation of guilt. Yet, I feel no guilt for the past. My actions didn’t place me in that psychiatric facility; a jury did—a jury of people misled by other brainless people in authority over a young, troubled girl’s life.

I might have been disturbed on some level when I entered—but it was the years inside that changed my course, that created the woman who I am now.

The bottle in my hand feels heavy, weighted by the choice I have to make. Just as Alice had to accept her perceived reality of Wonderland and drink the potion so she could go through the door, I have to decide whether to stay or move forward on my adventure.

I lift the toilet lid and empty the bottle into the basin. I flush and watch the water swirl and take the tiny white pills to the sewer where they belong.

It causes me physical pain to know what I have to do next. I wish love was easy, but nothing worth anything is ever easy, is it? It’s struggle, and pain, and defiance.

Yes… Defiance.

Those pills kept me from experiencing life, they were killing my soul.

I step to the sink and wash my hands, look at myself in the mirror. I take special care to cleanse the cuts on my palms, then I smile at my reflection. Be bold, be defiant, but also be kind to yourself. All those other fuckers shouldn’t be the ones to receive all my smiles.

Dylan Thomas wrote: Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The very essence of defiance.

I’ve read that poem many times over the years and, though the author was referring to physical death, there are a number of different ways to die. Spiritually. Emotionally. Our ability to love.

Just as a flower wilts from lack of nurture, so does love wither if you don’t fight to keep it alive.

Carter once told me he’d fight for me.

I have to keep fighting for us.

And sometimes, the things we do for love are dastardly. We have to become the base and vile creatures we fear in order to protect that love.

Through my car windshield, I watch Carter. He’s sitting in a retro-style diner booth with his friends, a group he’s befriended since starting BMA.

I’ve been watching him from a distance a lot lately.

I know Carter isn’t ignoring me to be cruel; it’s his way of trying to protect me. Ever since Sue’s death, things have become tense at the academy, and we have to be careful.

I reach over into the passenger seat and grab my phone. Snap a few pictures of him while he’s laughing, looking carefree. He’s so beautiful when he smiles. I want to print these images to add to his file—to show how far he’s come since he first entered my office.

To be safe, I destroyed the recordings. I can’t trust that the author of the texts won’t search my home or office while I’m not there, so everything that relates to Carter I keep with me at all times.

It was evidence.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I will the voice away. It’s nothing like that; it’s simply a precaution.

We haven’t spent much time together lately, not since last week. Or was it the week before? The days started to blur together after Carter left Devil’s Bluff that afternoon we made love.

After I received the text, there were words exchanged—

You had a fight.

A weary laugh springs free. “Carter and I don’t fight. He’s worried about us, just like me. He told me he needs me, and I can’t be there for him as long as people