Page 9 of Devious Delusions

Search: Asher Newman

The search results are plentiful. Pages and pages filled with Asher’s accomplishments. His business has won awards and all of the articles report on his success. Success that he’s found since stepping out from under his family’s shadow and built his own name without their help. I keep reading, expecting my father’s name to be somewhere. The plan when we were younger was that Asher would create his own property business with my father’s investment. It’s all they would ever talk about, but what he has now is a tech company. The bottom of the article states that he credits his accomplishments in honor of the brother that he lost. I fall into a rabbit hole as I read each article, and in each one he credits his success to Kane. Asher, who was ruled by hisego, has changed. He’s not lying and his grief made him more compassionate.

Losing Kane made Asher better.

But me losing Kane has left me fractured and lost.

Continuing my search, I enter the address for my apartment. An old listing comes up on the fourth page and I click into it. The walls are white, and it shows that it was sold three years ago. They’d always been nicotine-stained yellow in the years I lived there, and the dates don’t align with my memory. I was only in the hospital for two weeks. No one else could have lived in the place.

Unless I’m crazy and making shit up.

But I knew the woman’s name. I can’t falsify someone who exists. I go back to the search of the diner and the call button is right in front of me. I don’t have a phone to use and open a second tab to call using the laptop. The line trills straight away and the keys clack as I rapidly press the volume button to reduce any chance of being caught.

The voice echoes off the tile as they answer. “Thank you for calling Carol’s Diner. How can I help you?”

Bringing the entire device closer to my face, I whisper into it, “Hi, this is Delilah Leroux. Is Eve there?”

The voice comes back, slower this time. “She works the morning shift. Do you know her?”

Fuck. I don’t even know how to answer. I don’t recognize the voice and check the time. With the time difference it would be my shift now. I close my eyes as I beg, “My name is Delilah Leroux. I work this shift. Is anyone there who knows me?”

Their voice is muffled, asking anyone if they know my name. There’s something rustling and then another voice takes over. It’s rougher, like they’re a heavy smoker. “What did you say your name was again?”

Thank fuck! I’m not crazy. They know who I am.

“Delilah. Leroux. I’ve worked there for six years and tak?—”

“No, sweetie, we don’t know you.”

The familiarity makes me ask, “Carol?”

“My name is Sue-Ann. We don’t have anyone named Carol here.”

I sink and lower the laptop from in front of my face as I mumble, “Oh, sorry,” then close it.

“Lilo, baby, you okay?” A soft tap hits the door at the same time as Asher’s voice, causing me to jump and drop the laptop. It misses my feet by a fraction and the corner turns black as spiderweb cracks form on the glass.

The softness leaves and wood splinters as he pushes against the door. The lock pushes through the frame and his eyes are wild when he manages to open it. He slowly looks from the broken laptop to me. The worry leaves and he slowly steps forward in only a pair of shorts. His hair is still wet, water dripping from the strands to his forehead, and he lowers his voice.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

I nod. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to break it.”

The apology works for myself too. I didn’t mean to break my own mind, but I can’t just purchase a new one. There’s no glass or broken screen to show that it’s beyond repair, that I am beyond repair.

I thought my parents were the worst jailors after they locked me away. But this is worse and shows that they were right. Everything I knew, thought I knew, is wrong, and there is something wrong with me. It may not be the same diagnosis I got from their doctor, but there is something in my mind that’s fucked up and I need it out.

4

ASHER

Delilah is inconsolable as I pick her up. She shakes against me, and I look down, seeing the tab open. The corner is fucked, and the broken pixels eat up the screen. But the name of her search is visible. Carol’s Diner.

She’s hellbent on accepting what she thinks are her memories, making this all ten times harder than it needs to be. But she clings to me and hugs me. She smells like mine, the same way she always did after sleeping in my bed all night, and there’s no hesitance as she wraps her legs around my waist. Her arms go around my neck and my strong wife breaks.

Her tears slip against my neck and make her whispers stutter. “It’s real. Asher’s real. This is real.”

I knew she’d break down, but I thought it would come later and that it would be hidden from me given her need to keep everything to herself. That she would rage and call me a liar, fight, or argue. But she’s accepting it sooner than I anticipated, given her history, and I rest my cheek on her temple as I carry her out of the bathroom. Her golden strands stick to her tear-stricken face, but they don’t slow her despair.

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