Black Lies

by Alessandra Torre

  I love you too. I kept my body still, my breath even. Waited for him to fall asleep and tried not to think about the ring in his suitcase.

  Chapter 54

  The next morning, I stayed in bed. Groaned when Brant’s lips brushed the back of my neck.

  “Come on baby.” His voice sweet against my skin. “Big plans for today.”

  I curled my knees to my chest, thought of the ring box. Big Plans. Terrifying. I pulled the blanket tighter. Let out another groan that sounded more alarming.

  “What’s wrong?” His hand, soft on my hair. Probably the same hand that had slid up that woman’s leg. Caressed her thigh like he wanted to fuck her.

  “I don’t feel well.”

  “Really?” Concern mixed with disappointment.

  “Please call the front desk. See if they have a nurse on staff.” I didn’t lift my head, let the pillow muffle the words, certain their meaning would carry.

  “A nurse? You’re that bad?” His hand moved higher. Gently touched my forehead, like it would be warm, like a fever was a symptom of heartbreak.

  “Hurry,” I whispered the word and heard the rustle of sheets, the bed lighten as he moved to the desk. Spoke with hushed words that I strained to hear.

  “Someone will be here in a few minutes. What can I get you? Water? Aspirin?” There was panic in the lining of his words now.

  I did nothing but groan in response.

  Five-star service got me two nurses and our butler. I made a pained face and asked Brant to give me privacy with the nurses. Five hundred bucks in cash, split between the two of them, got me serious faces and an announcement, upon Brant’s return to the room, that I needed to return home immediately. The butler stepped forward, offered his services to secure a chartered jet. Brant accepted, more tips changing hands, the duo of nurses getting double-compensated, then everyone jumped into action, the nurses starting the business of packing our items while Brant knelt at the side of my bed, his face at eye-level, his hand gripping mine. I winced for good measure, tightening the curl of my body. “I’m so sorry, love. I wish there was something I could do.” I closed my eyes, hoping he would stop. Step away. “I love you so much. If anything happens to you…” There was a break in his voice, a desperation. I peeked out of my lids, saw him patting his pockets, looking around wildly. No. I pulled on his hand, pulled his attention to me.

  “I just want to sleep right now,” I mumbled. “The nurses gave me something for the pain…” I closed my eyes and let my hand slacken in his grip. I felt the shift of his hand as he stood. The press of his lips against my head. Then, both touches left and I heard him begin to bark orders to the room.

  The return trip was made by private jet, a charter that probably set Brant back thirty grand. No lines for security. No baggage claim. The car pulled into the private airport and we were airborne fifteen minutes later. The flight attendant settled me in on the couch, Brant at the other end, his hands pulled off my shoes and set my feet in his lap, his hands gentle as they rubbed my soles.

  I avoided him. Avoided looking his way, hearing his voice. Recoiled at the touch of his hands, terrified of doing anything to encourage him to pull out that ring box and ask the question I had spent six months wanting. I closed my eyes and avoided him and counted down the hours until landing.

  …Dissociative personality disorder. Given the time and different stages of his life, he’s had as many as five different personalities… The man I had met downstairs. His hand on her thigh. Smudged lip-gloss. How many women had he fucked during the last year?

  He’s very good at hiding, his personalities are even better. Missed dates. The things I’d blamed on forgetfulness. So many times he’d left during the night…

  We risk… losing the Brant that you love… forever.

  I wanted to be home. I wanted my house and my solitude and to figure this mess out, and to examine whether there was any chance of pulling my heart back in one piece.

  What would you have done? When, three months later, Lee stepped up in that gas station store and flashed his smile? I had loved one side of Brant. Was it really that strange that I fell in love with another side of him?

  Chapter 55

  PRESENT DAY

  It is time. I have to do it. Have to sit down with Brant and talk this through. He is an intelligent individual. He loves me. Lee loves me. I should talk to Jillian about this, but I don’t want to. I am too worried about what she would say. The orders she will shove down my throat. Orders I have no intention of following. I know what the right thing to do is: to allow Brant to live his separate lives without interference. I understand that. But it is too late for that. I fucked up this entire situation two years ago. When I saw Lee and stepped closer. Fucked him in a parking lot and fell in love with his smile. Chased him down and wrestled his heart into submission.

  My options are limited. Lose Lee or tell Brant. Put Brant’s psychological well being in danger because I am too selfish to lose Lee. Again, I know what I should do. What path Jillian would scream at me, her hatred compounding with every unjustified shake of my head.

  Am I that horrible? I think the answer is yes; I know it is wrong, but my love is too strong to feel anything but right. I can’t lose Lee. And I did all of this out of love for Brant.

  Yes, this is selfish.

  Yes, I am putting Brant in danger.

  Yes, I am possibly saving my relationships in the process.

  Yes, I am taking the biggest gamble of my life.

  I love them both too much to do anything else.

  I cradle two glasses of wine in my left hand and step through the open glass sliders, the wave of ocean wind crisp in the dark evening. Take my place on the outdoor couch next to Brant and tuck a bare foot underneath me. Handing him his glass, I try to figure out where to begin.

  Chapter 56

  His wine is half gone by the time I finally speak. “I’ve been keeping something from you.” I set my glass on the table before us and turn toward him. I don’t need to draw attention to the conversation, his focus is complete, as it always is. He follows suit, setting down his wine, his eyes settling on me, the clench of his jaw the only sign of tension. I stare at that tightening muscle and wonder at it, the tic rarely seen in Brant. I swallow, trying to find the next sentence, my hands moving nervously as I attempt to pull together intelligent thought.

  “Is this about the other man?” His voice is deadly calm. A calm I have never heard from him but would have expected in an angry version of Brant. Calculated. Controlled. Angry.

  I blink. “What?”

  “The other man you’ve been seeing.” He says the words casually, but I see the tightness in his face, the stiff line of his mouth.

  “What are you talking about?” Of course he knows. The man is brilliant. Can spot minute changes in a hundred pages of code. I haven’t exactly hidden my behavior. I figured an absent man can’t catch someone who—in his mind—doesn’t exist.

  “We’re both intelligent adults, Layana. Don’t play stupid.” His voice is harder than I’ve ever heard it, yet quiet. He isn’t a yeller. I swallow.

  “Okay. Yes, in part this is about him. Just… bear with me for a minute. I’m getting there.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me. Waiting for you to explain what on Earth I am not providing for you.” I can hear the threads of hurt in his voice. Small. Easily missed, yet in the structure of Brant’s voice I hear them as loudly as if he is screaming.

  “It’s not what you think. I—”

  “How long has it been? Five months? Longer? I suspected before, but didn’t know for sure until we lived together.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes intent on mine. Analyzing. Searching for truth among so many old lies.

  “Two years.”

  That hurts. I see the flinch in his features. The swallow in his throat, the moisture that comes to the edges of his eyes. He drops his head to his hands. “Is this why you won’t marry me?”

 
“Not in the way you think.” I hadn’t intended on my relationship with Lee to be the catalyst that started this conversation, but I move on. Let it open the door wider.

  “Do you love him?”

  I lean closer, hold Brant’s hands and force his eyes to mine. “I love you. Everything about this has been about you.”

  He pulls his hands away. “Stop talking in fucking riddles, Lana, and tell me why.”

  “I need you to look at me. I need you to listen.”

  He does. He stops talking, he looks me in the eyes, and he focuses. Loses his ego, loses his hurt, and focuses on my words. Does what Brant was built to do. Analyze and interpret.

  I give up the quest for the perfect words and dive in.

  “His name is Lee. I met him in Mission Bay. He does odd landscaping jobs out there for cash. He was dating another girl for a large part of last year. I’ve been sleeping with him off and on for two years. I used to do it at my house, now I do it in the guesthouse. Lee is not his real name, it’s an identity that he’s adopted.” I swallow, then go in for the kill. “Brant, his real identity… it’s you. He’s a personality your brain created, an identity that you adopt at times. Mostly during times of stress. You have a condition called dissociative identity disorder. It’s what used to be called multiple personality disorder. I haven’t been cheating on you. The other man… it’s you. It’s just a different side of you, one who has his own personality.”

  His expression doesn’t change when I stop talking. He just stares into my eyes and listens to silence. Blinks a few times, long intervals between. “I’m thinking,” he finally says. “Trying to decide if you are lying or if you sincerely believe what you just told me.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  His eyes hold mine. Studies them. Moves slightly as a process occurs behind them. “I believe that you mean what you’re telling me,” he says slowly. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t insane.”

  I smile slightly. “I’m not insane.”

  “One of us is. I’d much rather it be you.” My smile drops.

  “You’re not insane.”

  “I’m absent-minded, I’m not living separate lives.”

  “I’ve been fucking your other personality for two years. You are.”

  “Do you love him?” The question, when repeated a second time, has entirely different tones.

  “Yes.” I blink, tears suddenly present, the wealth of my emotion at an all time high. It isn’t fair to love a man in two different ways. One way is hard enough.

  “More than me?”

  “No.”

  “You are mistaken.” A stubborn stick to his jaw.

  “Jillian is the one who told me.” A gamble, but those words are the ones that truly get his attention. He turns back to me.

  “What?”

  I move to the ground before him and kneel, my hands on his knees. “In Belize. The weekend you were going to first propose. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t find you. I went downstairs… and saw you in the bar. But you weren’t yourself. You didn’t recognize me. Introduced yourself as someone else—”

  I stop, his form rising above me, stepping to the side, his hand roughly pushing me aside. Like Lee, not like Brant. I choke back the rest of my sentence.

  “You’re wrong. You were confused. Probably drunk.”

  I struggle to my feet, reaching for his hand and miss, frustration spreading through me. “No! I stood in the bar and you told me you didn’t know me. You made a fool out of me, made me look crazy. You introduced yourself as someone else. Had your hands all over another woman. I left the bar and called Jillian. She told me.” I lower my voice, his gaze finally back on my eyes. “She told me that you’ve suffered from DID since you were eleven. Since you became a savant. She said the doctor said you must never know. That you might have a mental break, lose Brant and adopt one of the other personas. Your parents, Jillian… they all know. They keep the secret to protect you!” My voice gives out on the last word, the hoarse rasp of the final work breaking the sentence in two.

  He steps closer, his hands fisting, the calm stride of his voice no match for the frustration in his tone. “So why then, Layana, are you telling me this?”

  “I can’t…” I lose my nerve. Don’t want to give voice to my selfish thoughts. “Lee… he wants me to choose. What you do in your other lives… I can’t ignore that. I can’t be your wife and know that when you are away from me, when you are living another life, that you are touching other women. Loving other women. I need you to be fully mine. I need you to love only me. Right now, I have you both. I love you both. But Lee… he wants me to choose. I can’t lose him, Brant. I need to find a way to have you both, without losing either of you.”

  “So your plan was to tell me. To burden me with this.”

  “A part of me hoped it would be freeing.”

  “I want to speak with Jillian. I don’t believe you.”

  “How can you love me, want to marry me, and think that I would lie about this?” I stare at him, wanting more, wanting the man I love to recognize the man I can’t live without.

  “It’s inconceivable, Layana. What would you do if I told you that you had another person living inside of you?”

  “But I don’t.”

  “That’s how I feel. I’m in my head all day long. Have been for almost forty years. Trust me, there’s no one else up there.”

  With that, he turns away from me and heads inside. Less than a minute later, I hear the roar of his car.

  I listen to him leave and wonder who will return.

  Chapter 57

  Brant

  This is not possible, yet she is not lying. Can’t be. Everything about that interaction screamed truth. I need Jillian. I need to look in her face and find out the truth. I feel stress, pushing on my chest in ways I cannot cope with. Now is the time for a pill. I can feel a blackout coming, pushing on the edge of my sanity with greedy feelings, my mind’s source of relief simple in its black oblivion. I fight the urge, suddenly suspicious of the only relief I’ve ever known, the pale pill that calms my world. Refocuses my anxiety. Lets me sleep. Lets me continue my uninterrupted life.

  Is everything I’ve known a lie? How deep does this level of deception go?

  On October 12th I blacked out. Woke up with half of Jillian’s face beaten in. They said I had gone crazy. She had tried to pacify me and I had turned on her. Punched and kicked and knocked her backward. I woke up in a children’s pysch ward with absolutely no memory of the exchange.

  That was back when I used to have blackouts. It was explained that they were my brain’s way of coping with the pressures that my intellect forced on it. Spots in time where I would act in a manner that made no sense. The longest lasted five hours. Two decades ago Jillian found a doctor who solved my problem. Provided a cocktail of meds that calmed my dark demons. The blackouts stopped, my only moments of dark occurring when the drowsiness side effect knocked me out. I’ve lived without a relapse for decades.

  Blackouts. That is what I was told, what I believed.

  I push harder on the gas, my hands trembling against the steering wheel. Jillian. At the root of all of this, is Jillian. She will have the answers.

  Jillian is standing before her home when I pull in. Wind buffering the long coat around her, her hands tucked in its pockets, a resolute look on the face of a woman I love like a mother. I turn off the car and we stare at each other through the glass, a long look where I read fear and try to understand it. I am so confused. I am so lost. I need Layana. I open the car door and stand. Watch Jillian step backward until she reaches the steps and turns, moving rapidly up them, her black-coated figure framed by her colossal house of white. Around us, dusk hit and lights suddenly come on, illuminating trees and pillars, accents of drama that are unneeded in this clusterfuck of a situation.

  I step away from the car and tuck my hands in my pockets against the chill. My shoes are heavy as they take the stairs, her profile illuminated in the op
en doorway, her hand bracing open the front door. I meet her eyes as I step in. “Jillian.”

  “Brant,” she says with a resigned sigh. “Come on in to the den.”

  Den is a word used by a woman who doesn’t understand what it means. Dens should be comfortable, not the formal atmosphere that is the bones of this room. I sit on the edge of a divan and watch her face as she settles into an upright chair.

  “Layana called me,” she says. “She told me what she told you.”

  I watch her hands smooth the front pleats of her pants.

  “I never wanted you to date that woman, Brant.”

  Not the words I am expecting. “Is she telling the truth, Jillian?”

  She looks at her hands, then up at me. “You wouldn’t even believe me if I told you, Brant. She has you so twisted around her finger. Multiple personalities?” she scoffs. “It’s her delusional attempt to explain an affair.” She stands and paces before me, her shoes clicking on the floor like a metronome. “You’re the one who suspected her of cheating.” She points a trembling finger at me. Trembling. From anger or fear? “You know what’s going on here, Brant. She’s found someone else and doesn’t want to lose you over it.”

  I match her stance, rising to my feet. “So she invented dissociative personality disorder to explain it? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?” Jillian won’t meet my eyes. Her gaze skitters over the room. “She doesn’t know,” I continue. “About my blackouts. Has no other ground to stand on. She looked me in the eyes and told me something she thinks to be true. Told me something she says that you told her.” Breath pushes out of my chest in hot waves, the pounding in my head hurting. Rage. That is this emotion. A foreign emotion that I haven’t felt in a long time. Don’t understand. I feel a peeling of my psyche, a loss of some of what I understand to be control. I blink, focus on Jillian, can feel the snarl in my voice as I step closer.

  “Brant… you don’t understand.” She falters. “Your medicine stopped all that.”