Suicide Med

by Freida McFadden

  “A parasite simply means another organism that derives all of its nourishment from your body without giving you anything in return,” Petrov explains. “It seems that when you absorbed your twin, enough of him remained that he was able to stay alive, although dependent on you for his survival.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “There are several documented cases of this,” he says. “Sometimes a parasitic twin is just a torso with no independent heart or brain. This twin depends entirely on the dominant twin’s beating heart in order to stay alive, sometimes to the point where the dominant twin goes into heart failure in an effort to support both bodies. Fortunately, your case does not appear to be this dire.”

  “Great,” I say without enthusiasm.

  “But have no doubt,” Petrov says, “the brain tissue is alive. And it controls the motion of the eye. Your twin is alive inside you, Abe.” He adds ominously: “And he does more than just sees.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It seems,” Petrov says, “that the brain tissue lit up differently depending on what sort of image we showed to the eye. It seemed to be able to react uniquely to pictures that evoked different emotions.”

  I feel a sinking sensation in my chest, “Are you saying that the eye has emotions?”

  “No, eyes cannot have emotions,” Petrov says. I have about five seconds to be relieved before he continues. “I’m saying the brain tissue, your brother, has emotions.” Crap, that’s much worse. “In fact, when we showed the eye a picture of a child experiencing the death of a pet, the eye exhibited a small amount of lacrimation.”

  “Huh?” I say.

  “He cried,” Adamsky clarifies.

  Is he freaking kidding me? I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. All this time, there’s been a functioning brain inside me, separate from my own, that now appears to have its own emotions. I had a twin brother and somehow he still lives inside me. But what surprises me more is that this in no way weakens my resolve to have the eye removed.

  “I don’t care,” I say. “I still want it out.”

  In fact, more than ever, I want the damn thing out of me. The whole thing is bordering on creepy.

  The two doctors exchange looks. “I don’t know if we can do that,” Adamsky says slowly.

  “What are you talking about?” I demand. “If I had worms in my intestines, you’d help me get rid of those, wouldn’t you?”

  Adamsky laughs. “Well, I wouldn’t. You have to see a GI doctor for that.”

  Ha ha.

  “The ethical implications…” Petrov says. “This is a living, thinking being. It has compassion. How could we just… kill it?”

  I grit my teeth. “Then just take the eye out and leave the brain tissue.”

  “How could we though?” Petrov asks. “If this brain is an entity separate from you with its own thoughts, we’d need its informed consent in order to do such a drastic procedure. And of course, an eye can’t give consent. So you see our dilemma.”

  “Why does he have to give consent?” I ask. “Abortion is legal, isn’t it? And the fetus doesn’t have to give consent.”

  “I’d say that this brain tissue is far more intelligent than a fetus,” Petrov says thoughtfully. “I’d say it’s at least as intelligent as a toddler.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I mutter. Petrov is using some ridiculous ethical argument to cheat me out of my surgery.

  “Do you really want to kill your own brother?” Petrov asks. “Especially when he appears to be such a kind and compassionate soul.” He smiles. “Maybe he’s your better half?”

  I hate this guy. You know what? If I were an eye on someone’s lower back, I think I’d want someone to put an end to my miserable little life. This eye is not my better half. He’s my evil twin.

  “My suggestion,” Petrov says, “is that instead of destroying the eye, you try to nurture it. Stimulate it by showing it photographs or silent movies. Perhaps you and your brother can be friends.”

  I hang my head. I want to cry. Or better yet, I want to tell these two prestigious surgeons to shove it. I can’t believe these assholes are playing God by telling me what I can or can’t do to my own body. Emotions or not, the eye is mine. It’s in my body. If I want it out, that should be my right.

  “Please…” I say.

  The exchanging of looks once again. At that moment, I realized that these doctors are never going to do anything to help me. I’m going to have to help myself.

  Chapter 35

  Why am I here?

  Even though I’ve given up hope that Dr. Adamsky will ever help me, I somehow find myself in Patrice’s office. I hate this woman and I was only seeing her because Adamsky needed a shrink to sign off before I had my surgery. Yet somehow, here I am again. I hate to admit it, but getting to talk for an hour about myself does somehow help me sort through my feelings.

  And now I’m more confused than ever. I always thought that if I got desperate, I’d be able to go to a plastic surgeon. But now that option has been abruptly eliminated. I made one last plea to the two surgeons but all they could talk about was getting photos of the eye for the journal article they wanted to write on this “interesting case.” I stormed out of the office. If they weren’t going to help me, they didn’t deserve to be able to write an article on me.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Patrice asks me. “Now that the easy answer is no longer an option?”

  I promised myself that I wouldn’t return to Heather until the surgery was completed. That resolve hasn’t weakened at all. Heather doesn’t deserve a boyfriend who is a freak show.

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging helplessly.

  “Maybe it’s time to tell Heather the truth,” Patrice suggests. She raises her overplucked eyebrows at me.

  I shake my head. “No. Never.”

  “If she’s the sort of person you say she is, she won’t leave you over something so superficial,” Patrice says.

  “This isn’t a birthmark or some love handles,” I say. “This is… creepy. I’m sharing my body with another being.”

  “Look, you have two options,” Patrice points out. “Either you accept and embrace the fact that you will always be different from everyone else and tell Heather the truth. Or you continue to feel ashamed of who you are and spend your life alone. It’s your choice, Abe.”

  I’m not alone. I’ll never be alone. I’ve got my twin brother with me. My twin brother: the eye in my butt. Nothing creepy about that.

  “I can’t tell Heather,” I say. “She deserves a guy who’s perfect. Or at least, better than this.”

  “Will there ever be a woman you’ll be able to tell?” Patrice asks.

  Even the thought of there being some other woman pains me. I really thought that Heather was The One. I have to find some way that I can be with her. There has to be a way.

  There has to be.

  _____

  That night I find the biggest knife in our kitchen. It’s a butcher knife, about eight inches long with a wooden handle. I take the knife and two towels with me into the bathroom. I also take my cell phone with me. I’m not sure how much bleeding there’s going to be and I want easy access to a phone. I don’t want to die tonight.

  Once inside the bathroom, I lock the door. I drop my jeans first, then pull off my shirt, then finally my boxers. With my back to the bathroom mirror, I can see the eye clearly, located just above my tailbone.

  The eye is blue, which I always thought was strange considering that the two eyes on my face are green. I guess he’s not an identical twin. It has long black lashes that often brush against my boxers. Unlike a normal eye, there is no inner corner where gunk could get caught in the morning—both ends of the eye taper to a fine corner.

  I stare at the eye a long time. There’s no wisdom there. I’m sure of it. Those doctors don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

  I take a deep breath and pick up the knife in my right hand. I can’t believe I’m
really going to do this, after all these years of thinking of myself as a freak, even when my parents assured me that I’m just “special”. I draw my right hand behind my back, my arm shaking almost uncontrollably.

  Get a grip, Kaufman. You can do this.

  I can see the reflection of the blade both in the mirror and in the lens of the eye. I brace myself for the pain, which I’m predicting will be extremely intense. I bring the knife closer to the eye, concentrating all my energy on keeping my hand steady.

  That’s when my right hand spasms suddenly and my fist opens up. The knife goes clattering to the floor, sliding under the hole beneath the bathroom door.

  I can’t do this. As much as I want to destroy the eye, something is physically stopping me from doing so. Maybe my twin really does have power over me.

  I squint, trying to get a closer look at the blue eye, trying to see into his soul. Does he have a soul? There’s a part of me that’s frightened that the eye really is evil. What if he controls me, and makes me do terrible things?

  I shudder at the thought.

  “Abe?”

  My heart leaps in my chest. Is that Heather? What’s she doing here? Did Mason let her inside? I didn’t leave the freaking front door open, did I? Christ, what’s wrong with me?

  I yank open the door to the bathroom. Heather is standing before me, her face completely drained of color. I follow her gaze and realize she’s looking down at the knife I’d been trying to stab my eye out with a few minutes earlier. It’s lying on the floor, clean but decidedly scary looking.

  “Abe,” she says. “What’s going on here?”

  Well, I’ve managed to scare my girlfriend shitless. Nice job, Abe.

  I’ve got to fix this.

  Maybe the best plastic surgeon in the area isn’t willing to remove the eye. And maybe I can’t do it myself. But I’m willing to bet that there’s somebody out there, doctor or not, who would be willing to perform a disfiguring surgery ASAP for a nominal fee. Somebody whose morals aren’t quite as high as Dr. Petrov’s.

  After all, it’s not like I’m trying to get someone to commit murder or anything. It’s just a simple procedure.

  Chapter 36

  My first thought is that Mason could do it. Obviously it’s not my first choice or even my tenth choice, but I just can’t go through begging another plastic surgeon to remove the eye only to have them tell me no. Mason’s been studying surgery since he was in diapers, and I know he has a cache of suture material that he uses to practice tying knots. It will hurt like hell, but I can deal with a little pain. And it could be done fast—I bet Mason will jump at the chance.

  As soon as Heather runs out of our room, I start searching for my roommate. But that proves fairly difficult. He’s not in our room, and I search the hospital up and down, and he’s nowhere to be found. I actually go through every single aisle of the library looking for him. I finally find Ginny in the last aisle.

  “Have you seen Mason?” I ask her.

  She’s so small that I have to bend my neck nearly at a right angle in order to look her in the eyes.

  A crease forms between Ginny’s brows. “No, I haven’t.” She bites her lip. “Have you?”

  I shake my head. Obviously not.

  “If you see him,” Ginny says, “could you tell him that I… I’d like to see him?”

  I feel a rush of sympathy for Ginny. She’s such a nice girl, and she made a big mistake getting involved with Mason. He probably treats her like crap, like she’s nowhere near good enough for him.

  “I’ll tell him,” I promise her. If I ever find him.

  I do end up locating Mason, just after the sun goes down. I find him as I’m driving through the dorm parking lot—he’s all alone, not dressed nearly warm enough for the weather. Even I’m wearing a coat, and I never get cold. But he doesn’t seem like he even notices that it’s twenty degrees out.

  I park my car and walk towards him. He’s pacing back and forth rapidly, and as I get closer, I hear him mumbling to himself. I can’t make out exactly what he’s saying, but I get these chills that have nothing to do with the cold. I get this feeling that maybe I shouldn’t bother Mason right now.

  I back away and go back home. I’m sure there’s someone else out there with at least as much skill as my med student roommate who can get this thing out of me.

  _____

  “PLASTIC SURGERY AT ROCK BOTTOM PRICES” flashes across the internet ad for Dr. Jefferson DeWitt, a plastic surgeon with no listed credentials. The multi-colored font makes me think that this is a man who won’t have any moral qualms about removing some brain tissue. I bet if I go to this guy, I can have this taken care of within the week.

  Well, what’s the worst that could happen?

  I pick up my cell phone with only slightly shaking hands and dial the number on the website. After several rings, a gruff impatient male voice answers, “Hello?”

  “Hi,” I say. “Is this, um, Dr. DeWitt’s office?”

  “Who’s this?” the man asks suspiciously.

  “My name is Abraham Kaufman and I’m interested in having a…” I bite my lip, “A growth removed.”

  There’s a long pause on the other line. “What, are you a cop?”

  “No,” I say. I should probably hang up now. But no, I’ve got to think of Heather.

  “Okay,” the man, presumably DeWitt, says. “Can you come in tomorrow at nine for the surgery?”

  Tomorrow? That seems very soon. “Don’t you need a, um, consultation?”

  “No,” DeWitt says.

  “Right, okay,” I say. Tomorrow. This could all be over by tomorrow. “Well, yeah, I can come in tomorrow. That would be great. Nine in the morning.”

  “Nine at night,” he corrects me.

  Yeah, I’m sure all the best surgeries take place at a shady clinic in the night hours.

  “Okay,” I agree.

  “It’ll be five hundred dollars. Cash only.”

  “Okay,” I say again. I have about a thousand dollars saved up. This is definitely something worth spending it on. “So I’ll see you tomorrow at nine?”

  I wait at least thirty seconds for DeWitt to reply before I realize the man has hung up.

  _____

  Dr. Jefferson DeWitt’s office is a far cry from the waiting room provided by Dr. Martin Adamsky. It’s a tiny room with three folding chairs pushed up against a wall with cracked white paint, and one dim light bulb that hangs from the ceiling. The entire place smells like a urinal.

  There’s no receptionist to be seen, so I take a seat on one of the folding chairs, which creaks threateningly under my weight. I had been “buzzed” in, so I assume that Dr. DeWitt knows that I’m here. There are no magazines to read in the waiting room, but I’m too nervous to read anything anyway.

  After several minutes, the door to the back opens up and a man sticks his head out. “Abraham Kaufman?”

  I nod, my mouth too dry to speak.

  “Come on in,” the man says. “I’m Dr. DeWitt.”

  “Doctor” DeWitt (the quotation marks are warranted because I can’t find any evidence to prove that the man has ever been credentialed as a doctor) is about half a foot shorter than me with very close-cropped gray hair on his head, fine lines on his tanned skin, and two days’ worth of stubble on his chin. He’s wearing rumbled blue scrubs that look like he slept in them. I didn’t bother to search the internet for any more information about the man, because I was scared what I might find might make me lose my nerve. DeWitt herds me down a short, poorly lit hallway to a room with what appears to be a long stretcher in it.

  “Have a seat,” DeWitt says, gesturing toward the stretcher.

  I sit down, although the stretcher looks like it has dirty sheets on it.

  “So you’re here to get a growth removed?” DeWitt asks.

  I nod.

  “Let’s have a look.”

  I go through the usual ritual of turning around and lowering my pants. Even though Adamsky and DeWitt had ver
y different training, their responses are identical.

  “Jesus,” DeWitt breathes.

  “Yeah, okay, I know,” I say. “So can you remove it?”

  “Of course,” DeWitt says, pulling out a syringe from a dirty white cabinet.

  “Don’t you want to… do any tests?” I ask, before realizing what a dumb question that is. DeWitt smirks at me. “Okay, let’s do it,” I say.

  “You got the money?” DeWitt asks, all business. “I need it in advance.”

  I reach into my pants pocket and pull out my wallet. I slowly remove the five-hundred dollars cash I had withdrawn from my bank account earlier that day. I hand the money to DeWitt, who stuffs it into his pocket. He reaches into a drawer and pulled out a gown. He tosses it to me.

  “Get changed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I strip my clothing off and put on the hospital gown. There’s a very large bloodstain on the front of the gown. I feel sick. I must have lost my mind coming here. If I had any sense at all, I’d get the hell out before it’s too late. DeWitt is a walking lawsuit—at the very least, I might end up with an infection from the clearly non-sterile equipment in this office.

  But then again, I was about to stab out the eye in my own bathroom with a knife from my kitchen. This has to be better than that. Well, maybe. I probably wouldn’t get hepatitis or HIV from a kitchen knife.

  I lie down on the stretcher, flat on my stomach. With my nose close to the fabric, it smells like moldy cheese.

  As promised, DeWitt returns a few minutes later. He’s holding several small vials, a syringe, and scalpel.

  “Did you sterilize the scalpel?” I ask.

  “Are you the health inspector?” DeWitt asks.

  I don’t reply.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” DeWitt mutters.

  I lie still and close my eyes as DeWitt disappears from my field of vision. I’m terrified, yet I’m also excited. Soon this will all be over.

  “I’m going to use some lidocaine to numb the area,” DeWitt says.

  A needle jabs me in my back then I feel a slight burning sensation as the anesthetic goes in. I wince and clutch the sides of the stretcher. Here we go.