Page 6 of Devious Delusions

Knock.

The two words flash against the wall. A muted gray light like a laser pointer. It speeds up and the size changes. Each repetition changes the beat of my heart.

Knock.

Knock.

The corresponding words stick in my throat, and I can’t force them out. They choke me. There are only two—who’s there—but I can’t get them out.

Knock.

Knock.

I don’t blink as I stare at the patch of wall where the words were projected, waiting to see them again. There’s more discomfort without them than the fear of seeing them. If they’re real then so are my memories. If they’re real, this isn’t.

Asher isn’t. He’s really dead.

But they don’t come.

My heart leaps out of my chest, pulling a scream from me at the soft thud against the door. The room slowly illuminates as a strip of light works its way through and I scramble off the bed. In my haste to get away, I slam into the rolling table, and it trips me. A shadowed figure of a man steps through the door he’s just opened, and my senses are distorted as I continue screaming.

“Delilah, it’s me,” Asher says softly as I huddle in the corner of the room.

He holds both hands up before slowly reaching for the light switch. My eyes burn as electricity hums, and the fluorescent lights blind me. The coaxing voice continues as his steps come closer.

“Do you know who I am?”

I shake my head to get the fractured pieces of my mind to fall in the right place and whisper, “Asher?”

It comes out as a question, and I squint as my vision adjusts to the new light. It’s still blurry around the edges and distorts hisfeatures, so they’re all hard lines, and it adds tension to his jaw. Blinking it away, he’s softer again. He takes small steps forward like I’m a threat, with his voice slow and melodious.

“Yeah, Lilo, I’m Asher. Do you want to get back in bed?”

My breath stutters, and I shake my head.

“It was on the wall,” I whisper, pointing in the direction of where the words were.

Without looking over his shoulder, he asks, “What’s on the wall?”

“Knock. Knock.”

His steps don’t falter, and he’s standing in front of me. I have to look up, more than I did when we were teenagers. That out of all things makes it all real. The fact I look up after years of keeping my chin tucked to my chest because I never knew if my parents would pop out and drag me back to the institution. It’s what made me push everyone away before they could get close and why I’m fucked because there’s no one who can tell me that my memories are real.

Wrapping both arms around me, Asher pulls me into his chest, and I slam into hard muscle. A man’s body. It’s stiffer and he mechanically strokes down my back as he softly kisses the top of my head.

“We’ll change your meds, and the words will disappear again,” he says carefully.

I don’t know who he is. If he’s real or not. But I break down, despite the fact I don’t fully recognize him. I don’t recognizeme. It’s all too much and the information is drowning me, weighing me down, and pulling me beneath the surface where my own mind is fighting against me.

I want to go home but I don’t even know where home is. It would be a feeling of somewhere that would be familiar and if I don’t have the correct memories, I’ll never be able to find it.

3

DELILAH

One week of being in the hospital and I’ve managed to convince everyone I believe them.

I don’t.

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