Phantom Limb: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Lucinda Berry

  I had no memory of it. How could I not remember having sex?

  “I’m not a virgin,” I said out loud. I couldn’t believe we’d had sex.

  “You still kinda are. I mean, we tried … but, uh … it didn’t really, um … work.”

  How did sex not work?

  “When did we do it? Or try to do it. Whatever. When did it happen?”

  “It was the first time you stayed overnight.”

  “I stayed overnight?”

  I never stayed overnight anywhere. Not ever. I’d always been too scared to leave Emily home alone because of what she might do while I was away.

  “You don’t remember sneaking into the dorm?”

  “No.”

  He described how we’d decided to spend the night together while his roommate went home to be with his family over the long Presidents’ Day weekend. There were plenty of other guys who snuck their girlfriends in to stay the night, so there was already a well-practiced plan for getting girls into the dorm. All of the guys took turns being the decoys in front of the cameras at the front door by jumping around after footballs and smashing up against the wall to block the view. It worked for us too and I’d walked in undetected. We got carried away in the moment and had sex. I made him tell me the details of the story a second time and I still couldn’t remember any of it.

  “I’ve got to tell Lisa.”

  “When did you talk to her?” he asked.

  “After I saw my legs last night, I was so freaked out, I could barely sleep. I knew I needed to talk to somebody, but you’ve met Dr. Larson and he’s impossible to talk to. Plus, he doesn’t know my history or Emily’s. There’s something comforting about talking to somebody who knew her. I called her office earlier today and she came to see me tonight. She brought me an old doll I used to hold when we did therapy as kids.” Lisa had given me Annabelle to keep during my hospital stay. She’d even left her brush. I would’ve still been hanging on to her, but I didn’t want Shelly and Tobi to tease me. “I told her about my legs.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  My heart began to thump.

  “Your legs. You never looked at your legs?”

  I could hear the disbelief in his voice and didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t believe it if someone told me the same thing. It seemed impossible. I didn’t know how it was possible, but it was true. I’d been going to the bathroom all day to look at my legs to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake. I’d confirmed my self-deception over ten times.

  “Of course I looked at my legs. I looked at them all the time. I just never saw the marks and I don’t remember putting them there either. That’s why I’m crazy. It’s why I called Lisa. I had to talk to her about it.”

  “What’d she say?” he asked.

  “She told me Emily and I got into a car accident after our high school graduation and that’s how she died. She thinks her death put my brain over the edge, so I kept on pretending she was alive.”

  “That makes sense. It must feel good to feel like you can start moving on now.”

  It didn’t feel like I was moving on. I felt more lost and confused than I’d ever been. I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe.”

  “My turn. My turn. My turn.”

  Doris was in front me.

  “My turn. My turn.”

  “Look, I have to go. My time’s up,” I said.

  I did my best to stay out of Doris’s way. She flipped out at least a few times every day. Her eruptions almost always ended in something getting thrown or somebody getting hit. So far, I’d been lucky enough to stay out of the way of her rages. Tobi hadn’t been so lucky. She’d taken a dining tray to the left eye yesterday during lunch, and today she was walking around with a black eye.

  “Okay. Can I still come on Thursday? I can’t come tomorrow, but—”

  “Of course you can still come.”

  I was amazed he still wanted to see me.

  Doris was muttering louder and she was tracing an angry trail back and forth in front of me. I had to get off the phone fast.

  “All right. Bye.”

  I nodded at Doris, but she wasn’t aware I was there. She moved past me and grabbed the receiver from the wall. I walked into the family room and took a seat next to Rose. She didn’t bother to look up when I sat down.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She ignored me.

  “Rose? Can I talk to you?”

  “Oh, now you wanna talk.”

  “C’mon, I know I totally freaked out after last night. It’s been weird for me all day long. I’m sorry. Will you let me explain? Can I tell you why?”

  She rolled her eyes, but let me explain everything I’d experienced in the last twenty-four hours. I did better explaining things to her than I’d done with Thomas. It was easier to tell her because she understood mental illness so well. I tried my best to articulate how I’d become aware of the marks on my legs last night while we were in the bathroom without hurting her feelings, and that the only explanation was that I’d put them there myself. By the end of it, she’d scooted her way down next to me and was almost sitting on top of me.

  “Wow. That’s wild. So, Emily really has been dead? For like two years? And you totally thought she was alive?”

  I nodded. “I still can’t wrap my head around it. Any of it. All I keep thinking over and over again is that nobody’s been trying to trick me or mess with my mind. Emily’s been dead for two years. Two whole years. None of what I went through with her even happened.”

  “I remember reading a book about something like this when I was in high school. I can’t remember what it was called. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The girl in the book wasn’t a twin, but she had a daughter who died. I don’t know how she died. I think it was drowning or something. Whatever. It doesn’t matter how she died. But she was kinda like you. She still saw her daughter all the time and talked to her every day. She thought her daughter was alive.”

  She kept describing the book and explaining different scenes, but I quit paying attention. I was too busy searching my mind for any kind of image or memory of Emily dying besides the night I thought she died. There was nothing. My mind always returned to the night in the apartment when I found her in the bathroom. I could remember it so vividly. How could it seem so real and not be?

  I had so many questions. How did I fight with someone who wasn’t there? How did I come up with the idea to pretend she was alive? Was it a choice? Did I wake up one day after the funeral and decide to do it? Did I think about it beforehand?

  “What do you think? Does it help?” Rose interrupted my thoughts.

  “Sure,” I replied, even though I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Did I tell you my mom is coming in for a meeting tomorrow with the team?” she asked.

  “No. Really? For what?”

  “No idea. Dr. Heimer told me about it in our session. I wanted to tell you earlier today, but you’ve been ignoring me all day, remember?” She stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout.

  I giggled. “Sorry, but you’ve got to understand, right? I mean, wouldn’t you be out of it for a while if you figured out you’d been the one butchering your legs and didn’t remember doing it?”

  She laughed. “I guess. You’ve got a point. I’ll forgive you this one time. Just don’t let it happen again.”

  21

  I expected to have a hard time sleeping again, but much to my surprise, I got the best rest I’d gotten since they’d taken me off my sleeping pills. Up until two days ago, I’d been taking two pills a day since I’d gotten to the hospital. A white one in the morning and a pink one at night. But even without my sleeping pill, I fell asleep as soon as they turned off the lights and put on the hallway dimmers.

  “I’m really curious to hear how your meeting with Lisa went last night,” Dr. Larson began while we walked down the hallway that grew more familiar each day. I couldn’t believe it, but I was beginning to like the structured
routine of doing the same things in the exact same way every day. I was starting to feel comfortable in an environment where nothing ever changed.

  “She told me Emily has been dead for two years,” I said as soon as he shut the door behind us.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  I was used to his favorite question and wasn’t surprised when it was the first thing out of his mouth. “I’m trying hard to remember the real night she died.”

  “I want to be clear—are you telling me you believe Emily’s been dead for two years and didn’t die a few weeks ago?”

  I nodded. “I just—”

  Dr. Larson interrupted, “Do you realize this is the first time you’ve acknowledged Emily’s death happened two years ago? This is very significant progress.” He looked pleased, like he might want to give me a high five. “I think it would be helpful if you said it out loud again and not by saying someone else told it to you. You’ve said that before, but I want you to acknowledge Emily’s been dead for two years. It’s important for you to make it your own truth.”

  I swallowed hard. Swallowed again.

  “Emily has been dead for two years.”

  Since the moment I’d looked at my legs in the bathroom and seen the wounds, I knew what they were telling me wasn’t an elaborate scheme to test my insanity. If I could cut my flesh without having any recollection of it, then I could make-believe my sister was still alive even though she was dead.

  “What does it feel like?”

  I shrugged.

  “Elizabeth, I want you to work hard at getting in touch with the loss. Part of the reason you created Emily was because you couldn’t deal with the grief of losing her. It’s important for you to experience the grief so you can begin to heal. You’ve got to let her go in a meaningful way. Part of that process means allowing yourself to feel the feelings you’ve been burying. It’s the only way you’ll be able to move past this and you want to move past this, don’t you?” He peered at me over the table.

  I felt guilty, but I did. Spending time with Thomas again reminded me why I’d taken the risk of starting to separate myself from Emily in the first place. It felt good to be close to someone who was capable of reciprocating it. I couldn’t remember the last time my relationship with Emily had been reciprocal. It’d been a lot longer than two years. I’d lost her when we were teenagers. She’d given in to her pain and I’d never been able to get her back. Not fully. I’d been surviving on pieces of her, and brief moments of who she used to be, for a long time. In the days before the hospital, I’d begun to believe I was capable of separating myself from her and beginning to live my own life. I wanted to feel that way again and not feel guilty for it.

  My motivation was based on more than my feelings for Thomas and wanting to get back what we had. Rose was my first real friend who wasn’t Emily and I liked our friendship. It gave me hope that other people besides Emily might like me and want to be close to me even if they knew how messed up I was. Rose and I had so much fun laughing and joking around. It felt good not to be serious all the time. The weight of carrying Emily around with me was heavy and overshadowed everything I did. It always had. What if I could live without the weight? What if Lisa and Dalila had been right all along about letting her go and moving on?

  I didn’t have to do it alone. Other twins had done what I was trying to do. They’d gone through what I was going through and somehow made it to the other side. They’d learned how to be half-alive. If they could do it, was there a chance I could do it too?

  “I want to get well.”

  It felt good to say it. I was finally letting go and allowing the recovery process to happen.

  “Getting well is going to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do. One of the most important things we need to do is to get at the root of your dissociation. Dissociation stems from trauma and we need to go back to where it started. The reason you were able to disconnect from Emily’s death and create an alternate reality is because of your ability to separate yourself from pain. I believe the practice of disengaging yourself from hurt to protect yourself was already in place before you lost Emily. Most likely, it began in your childhood. We’ve got to go backward and find those places where you disconnected in order for you to move forward.”

  He was losing me again like he always did.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “People dissociate to protect themselves. You learned how to disconnect from reality when you were a child because of the things you went through. You’re going to continue to dissociate unless we go back into your childhood and walk through the trauma you experienced. We have to reconnect the connection to reality that was severed a long time ago.”

  “Do we have to do this?”

  He nodded. “It’s important. We can start small. Were you sexually abused as a little girl?”

  That wasn’t starting small. Not at all. I didn’t need to talk about what had happened to me when I lived with Mother. It had nothing to do with what was going on now. I shook my head.

  “It’s time to start talking about what happened to you when you were a little girl. You’re safe now.”

  I wanted to go back to talking about Emily. I’d do any other work he wanted me to—just not this. Anything but this. I froze, my mind paralyzed.

  “When kids experience trauma, they often describe leaving their bodies. They talk about being outside themselves and watching themselves do things, but without any emotional attachment. Has that ever happened to you?”

  How did he know?

  I flashed back to the ceiling tiles in Mother’s bedroom, where I would hide and watch as the special friends played their games with my body. Each ceiling tile was filled with tiny holes and I would pick one to focus on and send my brain into it. Sometimes I watched as they poked and prodded into my body, putting their evil inside of me, splitting me in two. Other times I disappeared into nothingness for a while.

  “Yes. I know what that’s like.” I didn’t recognize the sound of my voice.

  Dr. Larson spoke slowly, enunciating every syllable. “Tell me about it. Try to remember where you were and what happened. What it felt like. You’re safe now. It’s okay to talk about it.”

  “I … um—I … it was …”

  I remembered the searing pain ripping through my whole body, so hot, it felt as if I was on fire, like my entire insides were being burned. I saw Emily’s face filled with terror and her small body shaking violently as she watched me from the corner of Mother’s bedroom, knowing she would be next if the monster didn’t get his fill from me.

  Oh my God. I can’t do this. I said I never would. I don’t want to remember. Please don’t make me. Please.

  Dr. Larson rose and pulled his chair next to me on my side of the desk. He was on my side. He was too close. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t breathe. What was he doing?

  “You’re safe now. Nobody is going to hurt you. This is an important part of the process. Give your brain permission to remember.”

  I can’t do this. I won’t.

  It felt like someone shoved my head underwater.

  I can’t breathe. There’s not enough air.

  I saw myself as a little girl lying on the bed, the monsters hovering over me. The black stones where their eyes should’ve been. My thoughts raced so fast I couldn’t discern them.

  “They hurt me. Bad men. Really bad men,” I whispered as if the special friends were in the room with us and might hear. I started coughing and choking. There was something in my throat. I gagged but nothing came up. I heaved again and this time when I opened my mouth, gut-wrenching wails pierced the air. Loud animal screams from someplace deep within my core.

  I can’t stop screaming. Please, make it stop.

  It went on and on. Dr. Larson moved to stand beside me and placed his hand gently on my knee. He didn’t hug or embrace me like Lisa would. He simply stood on guard as I came apart. And I was shattering. My entire body hurt. My insides were on fire. The s
obs ripped through me again and again. Tears stung my eyes as the images of Emily and me huddled together in our room after the monsters had gone played in my mind. The pain devoured me. My body shook as if I was having a seizure. Snot dripped on my knees as I began to hiccup. I kept hiccupping and my body kept shaking until the sobs finally ceased. I was empty. I felt like a woman whose baby had been ripped from her womb. I pushed Dr. Larson’s hand off of my knee.

  “Can I go back to my room?” I asked, refusing to look at him, ashamed at my explosion.

  “I’m not sure it would be a good idea.”

  “Please, just let me go. Please.”

  He motioned for the door. I shuffled out the door and down the hallway. I moved in slow motion on the way to my room. I fell onto the hospital paper sheets and curled up on my side, hugging my knees to my chest.

  Just like Emily.

  I sat up and looked around, expecting to see her. I’d laid in the same position I’d found her in so many times over the last two years, but it wasn’t her. It was always me.

  “This is how I lay when I’m Emily,” I said out loud.

  It was comforting and familiar. I saw myself in our apartment, lying exactly as I was now—alone. I saw the image clearly. My eyelids were heavy and I didn’t fight their descent. I closed them to the darkness. It was like being covered in a warm blanket.

  I was startled awake by Rose shaking my shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you sick? Get up before you get into trouble.”

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “I’m sleepy. How long have I been asleep?”

  She pulled me up. “I don’t know. An hour. Maybe two. You were gone when I got back from my breakfast and then I noticed Dr. Larson was meeting with Darin, but you weren’t anywhere to be found. Now, c’mon, get up or you’re going to get in trouble. They still don’t know you’re in here.”

  I groaned and stood. I wanted to crawl back into my bed but instead followed her into the family room. I curled into a ball on the end of our couch. She sat next to me and put her arms around me. Shelly and her crew stared at us from their spots at the table. Shelly whispered in Tobi’s ear and before long, Tobi walked over to the couch. I hid my head in Rose’s chest.