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random_ficceryTitle: Beth And Yet Not Beth
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,009
Warnings: YES. Non-graphic mentions of past child abuse, Implications of possible past sexual assault - vaguely referenced, but potentially triggering for some, General trappings of a mental institution. I tried to make the tags reflect this, but if any of these things might trigger or disturb you, please don't read. Thanks.
Summary: She awoke to find something missing, something it should have been impossible to be missing.
Author's Notes: I wrote about ¾ of this in 2008, and meant for a long time to go back to try and finish it. I was looking for another document when I stopped to double-check what this one was; next thing I know, the ending is right there—SPROINK!—ready to go. So, I typed it and then went back to clean up the previously-written stuff and make it a bit smoother. It’s still not… *grimace and hand-waggle* meh… as good as I wish it could be, but I kind of like it, even so. Please forgive my self from six years ago and my current self for anything too lame, we’re still learning.
Added A/N: Also, please note, I am not a mental health professional, nor do I play one on TV. Mea Culpa for anything too far off from reality.
It was quiet when she awoke. Not the absolute quiet of being deaf, but the mostly-quiet of an empty room within a building that housed other people, all of whom weren’t making enough noise to filter into the empty room except as the faint whisper of presences in the distance. Usually, in most of the past awakenings she could remember, it was not quiet. There were voices asking her questions sometimes, and she would have to try and figure out what was happening. Often she awoke to the sound of Beth crying, screaming, or talking in endless breathless sentences bordering on hysteria. Things had always been this way. Or, at least, as long as she could remember.
Blinking up at the off-white ceiling, she lay very still, feeling the shift of the thick, cool fabric of her clothing moving with her breathing, rubbing between her and the weight of the covers on the bed. Someone had been speaking. She had a gently insistent memory of someone talking to her recently, perhaps while she was still half-asleep. Explaining…something.
“Beth?” She breathed, not daring to speak aloud. No answer. No response. Nothing. “Beth? What happened this time, Beth?” As she asked, she poked tentatively at the place that Beth went when she didn’t want to be anymore for a while. Emptiness. Not the usual knot of ‘I’m not listening!’ or ‘Nononononono!” or any kind of anything. Absence of presence, entirely.
A cold trickle of fear moved through her at the realization that Beth was not there. That couldn’t happen. She existed because Beth had needed her to deal with the world when Beth couldn’t. To clean up and function after the beatings and to handle talking to That Man and to offer penitent excuses to Mother for being clumsy when Beth couldn’t hide the bruises or stand up straight without crying. Later, Beth put her to the fore, used her as a shield to survive the dizzying blur of police breaking into her tiny room in the attic, to deal with people asking question after question after question about her scars and bruises and all the rest. Beth had made her.
Beth had put her together from bits and pieces of the Beth-that-could-have-been and imagination and some of the swirling light that filled up her center. She had been born because Beth couldn’t cope with living, even once the Bad Things stopped happening. So, considering that Beth was her—that she was a part of Beth—there was no way that Beth could be gone.
“Beth?” She said in a loud voice, sitting up in the bed, feeling the light tug of the wrist restraints—the cloth ones this time—and looking around the room. It was a different room than the last time she’d been awake. This room was smaller, with only the one bed, and the door had a window with metal mesh. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. She was the one that didn’t need to scream; didn’t need to cry. She was the calm and rational one.
Footsteps outside the door made her tuck her lips together and suck them in, holding them firmly closed with her teeth from the inside. She wasn’t supposed to shout, to scream, to cry, to even speak—unless it was in a polite small voice. But…but…
A little keen came from her throat as she looked around the room, as if there would be some note, some sign, some indication of what had happened. Just a robe draped over the foot of the bed, a chair turned askew to face into the room, a few crayons in a little cup and some construction paper on the play-counter behind the chair. A window, high up in the far wall, let in weak light that told her nothing about what time it might be.
“Shhh…shhh…quiet,” she whispered to herself as she felt the signs of impending tears. She usually whispered such things internally to Beth, in order to quiet the screams in her head that no one else could hear. Beth didn’t always hide right away; sometimes she dragged her creation out into the world to comfort her.
But Beth wasn’t there, either to scream or be comforted. Beth really was gone.
~~~
When the big, white-clad orderly came in to take her to lunch, he nodded and made understanding noises when she told him in her most careful, polite voice that Beth was gone. He obviously didn’t believe her, probably wasn’t fully paying attention, but she didn’t fuss.
When he asked her to be a good girl today, she nodded and sat still while he released her wrists. When he asked her to put on her robe, she did, hardly glancing at the rough, raw abrasions that marked where Beth had obviously fought against the wrist restraints in the recent past. Beth hated being restrained, but when she was too deep in the memories or lost in her imaginary fears she would scratch at her face and pinch any flesh she could reach into red and black mottles.
As the orderly praised her absently for being a ‘good girl’, her eyes caught the scribbles that had been made on the top sheet of construction paper, words laboriously printed in the manner of a kindergartener, scrawled in bright blue crayon. She recognized it as Beth’s writing and went to the table to get a better look.
“Come on, you can play later. It’s time for lunch,” the orderly said, pulling on her arm.
“May I please take this with me?” She asked, not resisting actively, just not moving yet. He frowned impatiently, but then made a little huffing sound and let go of her long enough for her to take the single scribbled-on page and fold it neatly in half. When she didn’t ask for anything else, he seemed to relax—had he thought she was going to try something dangerous? With what? Crayons? What had Beth been doing since she had last been aware? “Thank you,” she added politely, just for good measure, and stood beside him in a waiting posture.
“Sure, kid. C’mon.” He led her out and to the dining area, while she read the scribbles from Beth.
“Tha sa i can go slep now. No cring no bad memris and no scarry drems just slep. Tha ax if yu will com to but i sed no. Yur good and brav, yu slep ok not lik me. Thank yu. Downt be sad. Bye.”
Beneath the last few words there was a big lopsided heart with a B inside.
~~~
When the doctor came to talk to her, he asked about the page—apparently the orderly had been paying more attention than she’d thought—and she told him all that she knew. It wasn’t much and he obviously didn’t believe her, either, but she was honest. Beth was gone and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. No, she didn’t know to whom the ‘they’ in the blue message was referring.
They did tests, asked her questions, did more tests, and then asked more and more questions. First the usual doctor, then another one, and later a third. She didn’t understand why they were so intent on her, she wasn’t doing anything interesting, just answering what she was asked and doing what she was told. Beth had been the one who screamed and cried, not her. They even asked to talk to Beth. In different ways, at odd times during the testing or just during her physical examinations, they would ask if Beth would please come out and talk to them now, but she kept explaining—politely, always politely—that Beth was gone.
One day the doctor told her he was going to hypnotize her in order to find where Beth was hiding. She had told him in her smallest voice, yet again, that Beth was gone, but that if he wanted to try it, then go ahead. He spoke soothingly, shone a little light back and forth into her eyes, then made her watch some patterns of color on the wall until she opened her eyes again; she had no memory of closing them, though.
“Beth?” The doctor asked in a strange, soft voice. Not the soothing quiet voice, but in a voice that sounded cautious and a little…afraid? “Beth, is that you?”
“I’m sorry, no. Beth is gone, doctor.” She hated arguing with him, but it was the truth.
“Do you remember speaking to me?” She must have frowned or something, because he added, “Just now, a few minutes ago, do you remember telling me about anything?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she almost whispered. She had a memory of another voice, a calm, gentle voice that wasn’t exactly male or female, speaking nearby. “Unless you meant that other person who was speaking?”
“What can you tell me about that ‘other person’, Beth?” The Doctor didn’t need to do that funny thing people did with their fingers, to show ‘other person’ was a term he was using to humor her. It showed in how he spoke the words, themselves.
Sighing a little, because it was sad and distressing that no one believed her about not being Beth, she said hesitantly, “Not much, Doctor, I’m sorry. They felt very warm and soft… inside with me… where Beth used to be.” Tears welled up, though she tried to stop them. She wasn’t the one who was supposed to cry, wasn’t supposed to do anything but be good and quiet, and yet the tears still leaked a bit before she could stop.
“You are Beth,” insisted the doctor, but there wasn’t that smooth confidence in his tone that she usually heard, that certainty that he knew everything there was to know about people and about her. It used to be comforting, in a way, even when he was wrong.
She sucked her upper lip inward, holding it between her teeth as she shook her head.
The doctor sighed, frowning down at the clipboard in his lap, apparently understanding her denial without her speaking it aloud. “Do you remember what you—what the voice—said?”
“Only a bit,” she admitted reluctantly. “I didn’t hear it all as words. Some of it was blurry and thick, like gauze over my ears, and I couldn’t understand anything, but that a voice was there; not the words.”
“Tell me what you can remember, then,” he said, watching her closely.
Swallowing nervously, she told him, “I heard them telling you that Beth was gone, and that it was her choice. They said she wasn’t strong enough to continue with all that she’d been through, and that Beth had used part of her own soul to make me. They said Beth wanted me to stay, to… to live and be what she could’ve been.” The tears were trying to come back and she wanted to let them, but couldn’t. She was supposed to be the calm one, even though Beth wasn’t there to be calm for.
“There was more,” the doctor said; his voice now almost as quiet as a whisper. “What about the other things? The things about me? There’s no way you could know any of that.”
Oh. She held her lip in again, resisting words, because he had that look. The doctor had the subtle signs that could become shouting and grabbing, hurting hands if she didn’t say or do the right thing. This was what she was made for, though. “I’m sorry, doctor. Whatever it was, I’m sure they didn’t mean it bad. Um… that Beth didn’t mean it.”
The anger inside the doctor started to show for just a moment, a couple of heartbeats, and then he took a deep breath and spread his clenched fingers out on his thigh and atop the clipboard. The shouting and hurting retreated from becoming something she would have to endure, like Beth endured, and then he took one more deep breath and his voice was smooth again, though not as smooth as usual. “I’m not angry with you, Beth.” He still grimaced when she couldn’t help shaking her head the tiniest bit—she wasn’t Beth—but he didn’t address it. “I’m confused and… I’ll admit, a bit… troubled. I never told anyone why I became a doctor, why I chose the mental health field. You couldn’t have known, certainly not about—it’s just not possible.”
Eyes wide, she remembered being spoken to, at the edge of sleep, before waking to discover Beth was gone; sort of remembered that and did remember what had just been spoken through Beth’s—her own mouth. “Of course you want to help people. Help them find their way out of their own minds, to free them from the horrible things keeping them afraid or making them do things to hurt themselves or others. You wanted to give them their lives back.” The doctor’s eyes grew moist, his face a bit pink, and he tightened his lips till they paled a little around the edges, but he didn’t speak, so she went on a little more. “You couldn’t help your friend, back when you were so young, but you wanted to so much. Now you help others, or try to, because of him.”
“Yes,” whispered the doctor. “I still don’t see how you can…”
“They told me, I think, before I was awake. And other stuff, before I realized Beth was gone.” She hugged herself, a shiver of dread trembling through her. “They said to be brave, that I would understand more later, and that I’d be okay. But I’ve never been all alone before.”
“It goes against everything sane and rational, against everything I’ve always believed, but…” He shook his head and made a quick swipe at his eyes with one knuckle, left then right, before giving a quiet sniff and looking at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve studied the tests and interviews after the last psychotic break; the differences are remarkable. Indeed, like two different people. Then there’s our session here, today. I’ve always been able to reach you—to reach Beth—through hypnosis, but all I’ve reached today is a… what I can only describe as an unknown… voice… being? One which knew things about me you simply couldn’t have. And, of course, you. To be honest, it seems something extraordinary has happened here, to you. I don’t understand it, not fully, but, even so, I… I believe you.”
Her eyes widened and the breath caught in her chest, a tight hitch of surprise, and she let out a whooshing breath afterward, causing her bangs to flutter as she slumped in relief. Then she stopped, looking up at him worriedly. “I still don’t know who they were. Or what. They didn’t explain that part, really. Or not that I can remember.”
The doctor looked at her for a long time, probably more than a minute, and his expression shifted slowly from keen curiosity to something softer, something more like the kindness he had shown to Beth on previous occasions. “I understand. Don’t worry, B—” Breaking off, he tilted his head, still watching her, but not as if he thought she was Beth being broken, but as if he was trying to see her more clearly. “Well, now. If you’re not Beth, then who will you be?”
Floored, she blinked, almost wanting to cry again for a few moments, and replied in a tiny voice, “I don’t know.”
Clearing his throat, he ran his fingers over the clipboard’s label, which read ‘Sharpe, Elizabeth Ann’. An almost hopeful expression took over his face. “You’re in the same body, and—despite all our tests and interviews—I’m sorry, but I don’t think anyone else is going to believe you’re not Beth, so… what about ‘Liz’ or ‘Ann’?”
She understood, and couldn’t help smiling, a slow, hesitant smile, but it was irresistible. “I think Liz,” she said in a wavery voice. “I was always a part of Beth, a-and I think it’s important that… now she’s gone… I keep her a part of me.”
He nodded, his smile a bit sad, and scribbled through something on the clipboard before writing next to it. She leaned forward and he turned the clipboard so she could more easily see. Preferred name:Beth LIZ.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said, meaning it completely.”
“You’re welcome, Liz.” He stressed the name a little, and she could see he was trying to look encouraging. “You have a lot to learn, I think, before we can be sure you’ll be alright in the world.”
“And you want to study me some more, too?” It wasn’t entirely a guess, but she didn’t want to upset him any more than she could help.
“True.” He chuckled, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, folding his hands beneath his chin. “So… I want to hear more about this being—these beings?—who… who helped Beth, but first; tell me about you, Liz. What do you remember and what do you think about those memories?”
Taking a deep breath, Liz wove her fingers together in her lap and began with the first thing she could remember.
Slowly, but steadily, the echoingly empty place deep inside where Beth used to be started to hurt a little less, and the parts that she—Liz—controlled spread a bit to fill in the gaps. She wasn’t a whole person yet, but it felt like she could be. She’d never even thought of something like this being possible, had no distinct words to fully describe it, and still didn’t really understand how it had happened. It was a bit frightening, but it was a bit exciting, too. The closest thing she could think of to those mixed feelings was hope.
Yes. Liz was hopeful, and it was soft and warm inside her, like the unknown presence who’d helped Beth escape and assured Liz she could do this. She could be her own person without Beth.
So, Liz decided, she would be.
~~~
.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,009
Warnings: YES. Non-graphic mentions of past child abuse, Implications of possible past sexual assault - vaguely referenced, but potentially triggering for some, General trappings of a mental institution. I tried to make the tags reflect this, but if any of these things might trigger or disturb you, please don't read. Thanks.
Summary: She awoke to find something missing, something it should have been impossible to be missing.
Author's Notes: I wrote about ¾ of this in 2008, and meant for a long time to go back to try and finish it. I was looking for another document when I stopped to double-check what this one was; next thing I know, the ending is right there—SPROINK!—ready to go. So, I typed it and then went back to clean up the previously-written stuff and make it a bit smoother. It’s still not… *grimace and hand-waggle* meh… as good as I wish it could be, but I kind of like it, even so. Please forgive my self from six years ago and my current self for anything too lame, we’re still learning.
Added A/N: Also, please note, I am not a mental health professional, nor do I play one on TV. Mea Culpa for anything too far off from reality.
It was quiet when she awoke. Not the absolute quiet of being deaf, but the mostly-quiet of an empty room within a building that housed other people, all of whom weren’t making enough noise to filter into the empty room except as the faint whisper of presences in the distance. Usually, in most of the past awakenings she could remember, it was not quiet. There were voices asking her questions sometimes, and she would have to try and figure out what was happening. Often she awoke to the sound of Beth crying, screaming, or talking in endless breathless sentences bordering on hysteria. Things had always been this way. Or, at least, as long as she could remember.
Blinking up at the off-white ceiling, she lay very still, feeling the shift of the thick, cool fabric of her clothing moving with her breathing, rubbing between her and the weight of the covers on the bed. Someone had been speaking. She had a gently insistent memory of someone talking to her recently, perhaps while she was still half-asleep. Explaining…something.
“Beth?” She breathed, not daring to speak aloud. No answer. No response. Nothing. “Beth? What happened this time, Beth?” As she asked, she poked tentatively at the place that Beth went when she didn’t want to be anymore for a while. Emptiness. Not the usual knot of ‘I’m not listening!’ or ‘Nononononono!” or any kind of anything. Absence of presence, entirely.
A cold trickle of fear moved through her at the realization that Beth was not there. That couldn’t happen. She existed because Beth had needed her to deal with the world when Beth couldn’t. To clean up and function after the beatings and to handle talking to That Man and to offer penitent excuses to Mother for being clumsy when Beth couldn’t hide the bruises or stand up straight without crying. Later, Beth put her to the fore, used her as a shield to survive the dizzying blur of police breaking into her tiny room in the attic, to deal with people asking question after question after question about her scars and bruises and all the rest. Beth had made her.
Beth had put her together from bits and pieces of the Beth-that-could-have-been and imagination and some of the swirling light that filled up her center. She had been born because Beth couldn’t cope with living, even once the Bad Things stopped happening. So, considering that Beth was her—that she was a part of Beth—there was no way that Beth could be gone.
“Beth?” She said in a loud voice, sitting up in the bed, feeling the light tug of the wrist restraints—the cloth ones this time—and looking around the room. It was a different room than the last time she’d been awake. This room was smaller, with only the one bed, and the door had a window with metal mesh. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. She was the one that didn’t need to scream; didn’t need to cry. She was the calm and rational one.
Footsteps outside the door made her tuck her lips together and suck them in, holding them firmly closed with her teeth from the inside. She wasn’t supposed to shout, to scream, to cry, to even speak—unless it was in a polite small voice. But…but…
A little keen came from her throat as she looked around the room, as if there would be some note, some sign, some indication of what had happened. Just a robe draped over the foot of the bed, a chair turned askew to face into the room, a few crayons in a little cup and some construction paper on the play-counter behind the chair. A window, high up in the far wall, let in weak light that told her nothing about what time it might be.
“Shhh…shhh…quiet,” she whispered to herself as she felt the signs of impending tears. She usually whispered such things internally to Beth, in order to quiet the screams in her head that no one else could hear. Beth didn’t always hide right away; sometimes she dragged her creation out into the world to comfort her.
But Beth wasn’t there, either to scream or be comforted. Beth really was gone.
~~~
When the big, white-clad orderly came in to take her to lunch, he nodded and made understanding noises when she told him in her most careful, polite voice that Beth was gone. He obviously didn’t believe her, probably wasn’t fully paying attention, but she didn’t fuss.
When he asked her to be a good girl today, she nodded and sat still while he released her wrists. When he asked her to put on her robe, she did, hardly glancing at the rough, raw abrasions that marked where Beth had obviously fought against the wrist restraints in the recent past. Beth hated being restrained, but when she was too deep in the memories or lost in her imaginary fears she would scratch at her face and pinch any flesh she could reach into red and black mottles.
As the orderly praised her absently for being a ‘good girl’, her eyes caught the scribbles that had been made on the top sheet of construction paper, words laboriously printed in the manner of a kindergartener, scrawled in bright blue crayon. She recognized it as Beth’s writing and went to the table to get a better look.
“Come on, you can play later. It’s time for lunch,” the orderly said, pulling on her arm.
“May I please take this with me?” She asked, not resisting actively, just not moving yet. He frowned impatiently, but then made a little huffing sound and let go of her long enough for her to take the single scribbled-on page and fold it neatly in half. When she didn’t ask for anything else, he seemed to relax—had he thought she was going to try something dangerous? With what? Crayons? What had Beth been doing since she had last been aware? “Thank you,” she added politely, just for good measure, and stood beside him in a waiting posture.
“Sure, kid. C’mon.” He led her out and to the dining area, while she read the scribbles from Beth.
“Tha sa i can go slep now. No cring no bad memris and no scarry drems just slep. Tha ax if yu will com to but i sed no. Yur good and brav, yu slep ok not lik me. Thank yu. Downt be sad. Bye.”
Beneath the last few words there was a big lopsided heart with a B inside.
~~~
When the doctor came to talk to her, he asked about the page—apparently the orderly had been paying more attention than she’d thought—and she told him all that she knew. It wasn’t much and he obviously didn’t believe her, either, but she was honest. Beth was gone and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. No, she didn’t know to whom the ‘they’ in the blue message was referring.
They did tests, asked her questions, did more tests, and then asked more and more questions. First the usual doctor, then another one, and later a third. She didn’t understand why they were so intent on her, she wasn’t doing anything interesting, just answering what she was asked and doing what she was told. Beth had been the one who screamed and cried, not her. They even asked to talk to Beth. In different ways, at odd times during the testing or just during her physical examinations, they would ask if Beth would please come out and talk to them now, but she kept explaining—politely, always politely—that Beth was gone.
One day the doctor told her he was going to hypnotize her in order to find where Beth was hiding. She had told him in her smallest voice, yet again, that Beth was gone, but that if he wanted to try it, then go ahead. He spoke soothingly, shone a little light back and forth into her eyes, then made her watch some patterns of color on the wall until she opened her eyes again; she had no memory of closing them, though.
“Beth?” The doctor asked in a strange, soft voice. Not the soothing quiet voice, but in a voice that sounded cautious and a little…afraid? “Beth, is that you?”
“I’m sorry, no. Beth is gone, doctor.” She hated arguing with him, but it was the truth.
“Do you remember speaking to me?” She must have frowned or something, because he added, “Just now, a few minutes ago, do you remember telling me about anything?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she almost whispered. She had a memory of another voice, a calm, gentle voice that wasn’t exactly male or female, speaking nearby. “Unless you meant that other person who was speaking?”
“What can you tell me about that ‘other person’, Beth?” The Doctor didn’t need to do that funny thing people did with their fingers, to show ‘other person’ was a term he was using to humor her. It showed in how he spoke the words, themselves.
Sighing a little, because it was sad and distressing that no one believed her about not being Beth, she said hesitantly, “Not much, Doctor, I’m sorry. They felt very warm and soft… inside with me… where Beth used to be.” Tears welled up, though she tried to stop them. She wasn’t the one who was supposed to cry, wasn’t supposed to do anything but be good and quiet, and yet the tears still leaked a bit before she could stop.
“You are Beth,” insisted the doctor, but there wasn’t that smooth confidence in his tone that she usually heard, that certainty that he knew everything there was to know about people and about her. It used to be comforting, in a way, even when he was wrong.
She sucked her upper lip inward, holding it between her teeth as she shook her head.
The doctor sighed, frowning down at the clipboard in his lap, apparently understanding her denial without her speaking it aloud. “Do you remember what you—what the voice—said?”
“Only a bit,” she admitted reluctantly. “I didn’t hear it all as words. Some of it was blurry and thick, like gauze over my ears, and I couldn’t understand anything, but that a voice was there; not the words.”
“Tell me what you can remember, then,” he said, watching her closely.
Swallowing nervously, she told him, “I heard them telling you that Beth was gone, and that it was her choice. They said she wasn’t strong enough to continue with all that she’d been through, and that Beth had used part of her own soul to make me. They said Beth wanted me to stay, to… to live and be what she could’ve been.” The tears were trying to come back and she wanted to let them, but couldn’t. She was supposed to be the calm one, even though Beth wasn’t there to be calm for.
“There was more,” the doctor said; his voice now almost as quiet as a whisper. “What about the other things? The things about me? There’s no way you could know any of that.”
Oh. She held her lip in again, resisting words, because he had that look. The doctor had the subtle signs that could become shouting and grabbing, hurting hands if she didn’t say or do the right thing. This was what she was made for, though. “I’m sorry, doctor. Whatever it was, I’m sure they didn’t mean it bad. Um… that Beth didn’t mean it.”
The anger inside the doctor started to show for just a moment, a couple of heartbeats, and then he took a deep breath and spread his clenched fingers out on his thigh and atop the clipboard. The shouting and hurting retreated from becoming something she would have to endure, like Beth endured, and then he took one more deep breath and his voice was smooth again, though not as smooth as usual. “I’m not angry with you, Beth.” He still grimaced when she couldn’t help shaking her head the tiniest bit—she wasn’t Beth—but he didn’t address it. “I’m confused and… I’ll admit, a bit… troubled. I never told anyone why I became a doctor, why I chose the mental health field. You couldn’t have known, certainly not about—it’s just not possible.”
Eyes wide, she remembered being spoken to, at the edge of sleep, before waking to discover Beth was gone; sort of remembered that and did remember what had just been spoken through Beth’s—her own mouth. “Of course you want to help people. Help them find their way out of their own minds, to free them from the horrible things keeping them afraid or making them do things to hurt themselves or others. You wanted to give them their lives back.” The doctor’s eyes grew moist, his face a bit pink, and he tightened his lips till they paled a little around the edges, but he didn’t speak, so she went on a little more. “You couldn’t help your friend, back when you were so young, but you wanted to so much. Now you help others, or try to, because of him.”
“Yes,” whispered the doctor. “I still don’t see how you can…”
“They told me, I think, before I was awake. And other stuff, before I realized Beth was gone.” She hugged herself, a shiver of dread trembling through her. “They said to be brave, that I would understand more later, and that I’d be okay. But I’ve never been all alone before.”
“It goes against everything sane and rational, against everything I’ve always believed, but…” He shook his head and made a quick swipe at his eyes with one knuckle, left then right, before giving a quiet sniff and looking at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve studied the tests and interviews after the last psychotic break; the differences are remarkable. Indeed, like two different people. Then there’s our session here, today. I’ve always been able to reach you—to reach Beth—through hypnosis, but all I’ve reached today is a… what I can only describe as an unknown… voice… being? One which knew things about me you simply couldn’t have. And, of course, you. To be honest, it seems something extraordinary has happened here, to you. I don’t understand it, not fully, but, even so, I… I believe you.”
Her eyes widened and the breath caught in her chest, a tight hitch of surprise, and she let out a whooshing breath afterward, causing her bangs to flutter as she slumped in relief. Then she stopped, looking up at him worriedly. “I still don’t know who they were. Or what. They didn’t explain that part, really. Or not that I can remember.”
The doctor looked at her for a long time, probably more than a minute, and his expression shifted slowly from keen curiosity to something softer, something more like the kindness he had shown to Beth on previous occasions. “I understand. Don’t worry, B—” Breaking off, he tilted his head, still watching her, but not as if he thought she was Beth being broken, but as if he was trying to see her more clearly. “Well, now. If you’re not Beth, then who will you be?”
Floored, she blinked, almost wanting to cry again for a few moments, and replied in a tiny voice, “I don’t know.”
Clearing his throat, he ran his fingers over the clipboard’s label, which read ‘Sharpe, Elizabeth Ann’. An almost hopeful expression took over his face. “You’re in the same body, and—despite all our tests and interviews—I’m sorry, but I don’t think anyone else is going to believe you’re not Beth, so… what about ‘Liz’ or ‘Ann’?”
She understood, and couldn’t help smiling, a slow, hesitant smile, but it was irresistible. “I think Liz,” she said in a wavery voice. “I was always a part of Beth, a-and I think it’s important that… now she’s gone… I keep her a part of me.”
He nodded, his smile a bit sad, and scribbled through something on the clipboard before writing next to it. She leaned forward and he turned the clipboard so she could more easily see. Preferred name:
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said, meaning it completely.”
“You’re welcome, Liz.” He stressed the name a little, and she could see he was trying to look encouraging. “You have a lot to learn, I think, before we can be sure you’ll be alright in the world.”
“And you want to study me some more, too?” It wasn’t entirely a guess, but she didn’t want to upset him any more than she could help.
“True.” He chuckled, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, folding his hands beneath his chin. “So… I want to hear more about this being—these beings?—who… who helped Beth, but first; tell me about you, Liz. What do you remember and what do you think about those memories?”
Taking a deep breath, Liz wove her fingers together in her lap and began with the first thing she could remember.
Slowly, but steadily, the echoingly empty place deep inside where Beth used to be started to hurt a little less, and the parts that she—Liz—controlled spread a bit to fill in the gaps. She wasn’t a whole person yet, but it felt like she could be. She’d never even thought of something like this being possible, had no distinct words to fully describe it, and still didn’t really understand how it had happened. It was a bit frightening, but it was a bit exciting, too. The closest thing she could think of to those mixed feelings was hope.
Yes. Liz was hopeful, and it was soft and warm inside her, like the unknown presence who’d helped Beth escape and assured Liz she could do this. She could be her own person without Beth.
So, Liz decided, she would be.
~~~
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