Page 21 of Devious Delusions

Am I crazy?

Delusional?

Or is everyone else around me refusing to see what I do?

The stones crunch under the feet of the officers as they leave the other building and I turn in the hallway. The front door blocks them from seeing me, but it doesn’t stop Asher’s conversation from coming through.

“The security system is a closed network. No one would have been able to get into it without it alerting me and I have the physical passkey to access it,” he says while the officer nods along, when it’s basically gibberish.

“And where were you?”

“I had to visit a client in New York. My flight landed around two hours before I made the call to you guys.”

He takes a deep breath and looks over his shoulder towards me. I’m about to go outside to say he’s telling the truth when he starts speaking again.

“My wife has”—he slowly shakes his head and amends his words—“is going through a lot, mentally I mean. She sometimes experiences reality differently to what’s actually happening around her.”

The officer doesn’t add anything or ask any further questions as Asher undermines everything I’ve said.

“She’s medicated for her psychosis, but she just had an episode so she’s not fully in recovery yet. I shouldn’t have left her alone.” He says the last part lower and scratches his jaw with the back of his fingers. “Sorry to waste your time.”

“How often does this sort of thing happen, son?” the officer asks.

I’m getting an insight to someone I don’t know and stand there waiting for the answer. I thought he believed me. But he sighs and shrugs.

“It’s on and off depending on how she reacts to her medication. At our last house, she thought the neighbors’ coat stand in their hallway was a figure watching her. Even after she broke into their house with a knife ready to confront the object, she kept screaming that they were watching her. They were kind enough to not press charges, but the local station had an injunction on her due to how often she would call them to report the neighbors.”

What the fuck is he saying?

A little voice tells me to trust him while my blood heats. I wouldn’t break into someone’s house because of a coat stand. Or with a knife. I’ve never broken into anywhere. He’s making mesound crazy, untrustworthy. But I stay there and listen to him recount things I vaguely remember.

“Some episodes aren’t as violent. They get worse when no one believes her. For instance, when she was eighteen, she convinced herself that she’d murdered someone and kept going to the police begging them to lock her away. The accident had already been investigated, but they reopened the case.” He runs his fingers through his hair and grips his nape. “It was a very hard time for us all when they exhumed his body, and it resulted in her parents sending her to an institution.”

Some of it makes sense. I remember arguing with my parents before they forced me to go to that hell. But it’s in pieces. Half sentences and different days mixing together that I don’t know what really happened. It’s like having twelve different jigsaws, all millions of pieces, and someone has mixed them together. It doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try, I’ll never be able to marry each edge up to create the right image. Fragments will remain hidden, and I turn to hide.

I only pick up the parting words of the officer as I try to make sense of my own mind.

“It looks like you have your hands full. We’ll keep an eye on any reports from this address. But you might want to discuss your wife’s medication because there’s no sign of a break-in, and your security cameras don’t show anyone on the property, apart from you leaving and coming back earlier this morning.”

Their conversation continues and I sit on the sofa cross-legged. Pulling the blanket folded over the armrest with me, I stare into space, trying to work out what’s going on. Tires roll over the driveway and they all leave but I don’t even blink. If it’s not real then my knees wouldn’t be scraped up, I wouldn’t be able to feel the tension in my muscles from running. I’d just be normal.

What the fuck is normal anyway?

I know what’s happening. I know how hard my heart was racing, the fear, the feeling of the freak wrapped around me when he tackled me to the ground. That is real. It has to be.

The front door closes, and I wrap the blanket around me. My eyes close as I remember how the masked man held my arms to my sides. I tighten the blanket to mimic it. As much as it was terrifying, knowing it’s real helps to ease everyone else’s opinion. A sick part of me wishes he would have hurt me so that I could show an injury as proof that I’m not crazy. If I was bleeding out on the floor with a knife in my back then no one could say I’m imagining things.

Maybe I am insane. That thought isn’t something a “normal” person would wish on themselves. No one would want to be harmed. But how else can I prove that I’m right? That this is real. My cut knees aren’t enough. No one will recognize my mental torment until they have physical evidence of it because the world is fucking stupid.

I’m gently lifted from my seat and placed between Asher’s thighs. He doesn’t force me to open my eyes, but he does stop my thoughts as he kisses my cheek.

“It’s okay, you just had a bad day.”

“It was real,” I mumble as I fall against his chest. “He was there, please believe me.”

He chooses his words carefully as he wraps both arms around me. “I believe you.” His heartbeat is steady against my back as he ruins the agreement. “I believe that it was real to you and everything you’re experiencing is real.”

Real to me. What the fuck does that even mean? Something can’t be both fact and false at the same time. But I don’t want to argue with him, so I remain silent.

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