VH1.08 - When Worlds Collide

“My wrists hurt,” I said. He’d bound them behind me with handcuffs, keeping me locked firmly in place on a chair in his apartment.

“I don’t care.” Luke abandoned the book he’d been reading on the couch and crouched down in front of me. I could see it on his face. He didn’t care.

“Her wrists hurt.” I clarified, but he still didn’t budge. “People are going to start wondering where we are.”

It’d been over a day since the funeral, over a day since we’d seen Phillip and over a day since I’d seen Jude. I wondered if he missed me, if he knew I was in danger, if he knew this crazy, prostitute-hopping freak in front of me was trying to kill me.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who cares much where you are.”

He was pissing me off. “You know, you’re pretty mouthy for a guy who killed his father. You stole from him, gave him two heart attacks, the second of which killed him, and even though his dying words to the son he actually liked were for you two to look out for each other, here you are, trying to get one over on his girlfriend. Again.”

Anger flashed in his eyes. “You want me to let you go? Why don’t you try answering some of my questions, then?”

He had questions. I had answers, but, I wasn’t interested in sharing…especially not with someone who knocked me out and dragged me back to his apartment against my will. I was right about him. I was right to keep Violet away from him, I knew I was. The way he was looking at me, as if I was a fire-breathing dragon keeping his princess locked away. He didn’t understand I was protecting her.

“Why don’t you bite me, dog face?”

He threw his hands up, and then stood, walking around me. I couldn’t see him, but I knew what he was doing. “Fine. Maybe you’ll want to talk in a few hours.” Then, he found the roll of duct tape he’d been tearing pieces from all day, stripped off a piece and started to put it over my mouth.

“Wait!” I exclaimed.

Just beyond him, I could see Violet. She was fading in and out. Even though it’d been nearly a day since he did it, the drugs I figured Luke put in my drink must have weakened me somewhat, weakened my ability to stop visions of her from manifesting, maybe even to the point that I might succumb to her if she stabilized.

“He’s trying to help us,” she said, flickering.

“He has us handcuffed to a chair. How helpful do you really think he’s being?”

Luke looked around, seeing no one in the direction I was speaking. “Who are you talking to?”

I rolled my eyes at him. Some people could be so rude. “Can’t you see I’m trying to talk to someone?” I asked, returning my attention to Violet, whose image was growing stronger by the second. “This is your fault. This is all your fault.”

“I didn’t do this!” She was standing closer to him now. How nice. They were double-teaming me, even if he didn’t know she was there.

Luke scratched his head.

“You’re the one who decided to drown your sorrows over your presumably dead relationship with Phillip by screwing his brother. The only stupid thing I did was letting your sorry ass out after you hid when you found out what we did and then letting you out again because you whined about not getting to go to Lucas‘ funeral.”

“What who did?” Luke asked.

“Shut up!” I screamed. “This doesn’t concern you.”

He was making her stronger. I could see her more solidly now, and I could feel her putting pressure on the veil between us.

“Stop it.” I told her.

“I want to talk to him.” She said.

“I want a pony but I don’t have one, now, do I?”

“Let me out!” She demanded. Who did she think she was telling me to do anything? After everything I’d done for her? More pressure. My head was killing me. I closed my eyes, trying force her back into her little area where she belonged, far, far away from consciousness.

“Damn it, Violet, you can’t handle this.”

“Violet?” Luke realized who I was talking to, what was happening. Again, he was crouching down in front of me, stroking my cheeks, talking to me calmly, encouraging her. In that moment, he reminded me of Calpresi, holding us down against our will and all the while talking so soothingly to us. “Come on, you can do this. You can come back, I know you can. Just, fight her, Violet.”

My lips quivered and I started crying, I was trying so hard to hold her off, but, I just couldn’t do it, not when he started talking to her like that and not feeling as groggy as I was. “She can’t handle this,” I whispered to him, trying to reason with him because I knew Violet was already on her way back. “You’re killing her if you let her find out about me.”

“She’s stronger than you think she is,” he said.

I laughed at his foolishness. “God, a guy sleeps with a girl’s host personality and all of a sudden he thinks he knows her or something.”

I could feel Violet. She was pushing me back now. The room was spinning and fading, my body felt numb, then like I was completely displaced from it, and the repulsion towards Luke’s touch I felt was replaced by the appreciation for it Violet had, my memories separating themselves from hers, my thoughts becoming weightless and invisible to hers.

My last words to him were, “you’re going to regret this.” And, then, the darkness came.

*******************************************

Yesterday Morning

“’Mercer Makes Bail Day After Father Drops Dead in Police Station.’ Not the most original headline I’ve ever read, but, accurate.”

I was lying atop the blue comforter on Violet’s bed, thumbing through the paper from a few days before. I’d missed the comics because Phillip was selfishly hording that section away while he holed up in his den, crying about his dead daddy and talking to relatives on the phone. Didn’t he understand that I needed my Garfield? I guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. In the days since Lucas bit it on the police station floor, Phillip had spent most every night either sleeping on the couch in the living room or on the couch in the den, and never once in bed with me, which made my nights so much more pleasant.

My days would be exponentially better, too, if I could just get rid of the damned nagging from my whinier half.

“You have to let me go.” Violet bleated, pacing about, wearing a hole in her carpet. Well, she would have been if hallucinations could wear holes in carpet.

“Why?”

“The funeral is today. He needs me!”

“Which one?” Did she have to do this while I was reading my Garfield? Some people just have no manners. She didn’t say anything. “See? You can’t even answer a simple question about which Mercer you need to support. Unless you plan on supporting them both, which, given how you show your support, could be interesting. I think I saw that once on HBO.”

Violet groaned, sitting next to me. I closed the paper. No sense in sharing the good stuff with someone who writes crap like “plucky heroine gets stranded in a cabin in the snowy Alps with a pilot after their plane is shot out of the sky by war bombers.”

“You don’t understand,” she persisted. “I’m part of that family.”

“Which makes bedding brothers even grosser.”

Violet looked in the mirror across from her bed. She didn’t like the dress I’d chosen for us to wear to the funeral, an old cocktail dress of hers, silk, strapless with a sweetheart neckline. What? It was black, therefore, appropriate for a funeral. Besides, I’d found flaunting our assets - along with our renewed relationship with Phillip - in front of Luke to be similar to and almost as fun as dangling hamburgers in front of hungry, chained bulldogs.

“I know I messed up last time you let me out.”

“Messed up is an understatement. I’m trying to condition you to be strong enough to live your life without needing someone else to live it for you. For a minute, I thought you were capable of that when you told Phillip off, but, then, you had to derail everything by…well, you know what you did. You were there.”

“Please?” She begged. Jesus. Didn’t she get that I was unresponsive to begging? And her trembling lip plus big doe eyes formula did not equal me sympathizing with her. “I loved Lucas. It’s been days since his death and I haven’t once gotten to talk to Gretchen or to hug her and tell her how sorry I am. You’ve acted like her dog died instead of her husband. She knows I‘d never be as blasé as you‘ve been.”

She did have a point. Luke had noticed I wasn’t acting like Violet would in the police station, but was distracted by Papa Mercer’s falling over dead. We’d only been around each other a handful of times since, after his bail hearing and when the family gathered to plan the funeral, but, though he didn’t say anything, he behaved as if he knew something was up by the way I was hanging all over Phillip and the things I‘d said to him.

Then, there was Jude. Gretchen had the bright idea of having Lucas’ service at St. Bartholomew’s, which, even though Jude was supposed to be out saving lost souls or whatever it was he did, meant there was a chance of Violet running into him, should I ever be stupid enough to let her out again. I wasn’t really worried about him saying something that might clue her into what was going on, but, I also wasn’t very interested in sharing him with her. He was mine, the one person who didn’t want to kill me, to send me away. I wouldn’t have her ruining that for me like she ruined everything else.

“No dice, kiddo. You know that old saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me? Well, even though you’re me and I’m you, I think that one still applies. Besides, we have a busy day today. After the funeral, we‘re going to take a little trip.”

“Please?!” She screeched.

“No!” I needed to keep my voice down, but she was making it difficult. “I can’t trust you to handle things and switching back and forth is starting to wear on my nerves. Besides, when you’re in control you admitted you do stupid things and I am not interested in letting you just use our body to do whatever you want.”

Violet batted her eyes, confused. “Why does it bother you so much that I slept with Luke?”

“Because!” Again, I had to remind myself Phillip could easily overhear. “Our body is not something you just give out to every guy who happens to be super hot and rugged and broody and stuff. I mean, you don’t see me sleeping with Jude, do you?”

“He’s a priest.”

“Like that’s ever stopped someone before.” I could hear Phillip outside the door, rummaging around in the living room. “My point is that I don’t do it. I don’t have sex with people you don’t know about, and, not just because I’m not capable of it, but because…our body is like an apartment we share. It’s not fair to me if you leave dirty plates in your half of it and ants infest my half.”

She was still confused. Then again, sometimes chewing gum and walking at the same time confused Violet. “We don’t have ants.”

“Well, we’re bound to get some if you keep eating off plates like Luke Mercer. I swear, every time I remember him with that prostitute you walked in on him with, I have flashbacks to every health department poster I’ve ever seen.”

She dropped the subject, knowing there wasn’t time to debate the unsavory partners she picked. “Iris, I know you’re just trying to protect me, but I need to go to that funeral. Everyone I know is going to be there and it’s just a matter of time before they figure things out, that you don’t walk like me or talk like me or behave like me. I would be grieving, something you don’t even seem capable of doing.”

Violet was right, as disgusting a taste as it left in my mouth saying as much. Around one or two of her loved ones, I could fake it reasonably well, but around that many people, when I was supposed to be grieving a man I didn’t care a thing in the world about, someone would notice that the to-be-daughter-in-law of the deceased looked more bored than bothered.

Phillip knocked on the door. “Darling, are you ready? The car’s here.”

I turned back to her. “Fine. But, if I even start to suspect you’re messing this up, I swear, I won’t let you back out again when I regain control.”

It was over quickly that time. Before she could even say anything, she was back in our driver’s seat, clutching a closed newspaper. Her head hurt and her ears were ringing. She closed her eyes, trying to stand, but finding herself not quite in control of how our body worked. Her legs gave and she crashed back on the bed, groggily catching another glimpse of herself in the mirror, but not really recognizing much of who was sitting there.

Where had the past few days gone? She had a literal knowledge of them, the things I’d embedded in her memory, but no actual recollection of them.

Phillip knocked on the door, again, peeking his head in. “Darling?”

She felt ill at the sight of him, ill with guilt, ill with the knowledge she‘d asked Luke to keep their night a secret, even though it would be all he needed to free himself. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

He came the rest of the way in. The black blazer he wore screamed bad-eighties-gigolo-turns-cop movie. Not that Phillip would ever be mistaken for a gigolo, not unless it was a pay-per-minute, limited income-slash-welfare type deal. He noticed how pale she was. “Are you alright?”

She sniffled, trying to stand again and finding this time that her legs did not as easily fail her. “I’m fine,” she managed.

“Are you sure?” He stepped in closer to her.

“Why? What do you mean?” She asked, recoiling when he put his hands on her arms.

“Nothing, it’s just that you’ve been acting kind of strangely lately.” Then, he did something I wished he would never ever have done. He smiled, said, “To tell you the truth, this change in you I’ve seen since we worked out our problem, I kind of like it,” and he kissed her.

Blech. Phillip lips.

****************************************

The whole wide world knew Lucas Mercer bought himself a nice, big farm, but, Mother Nature didn’t seem to really care. How else could you explain the bright, shiny sun, the clear, blue skies and the birds twittering about, singing their happy little songs? Phillip contracted a chauffeured car for them, so they’d arrive at St. Bartholomew’s in style. He claimed he was too sick with grief to drive. I called it like I saw it: a shameless show for the cameras, and there were plenty, as there always are when society page staples kick the bucket.

Gretchen was standing outside when they pulled up, hugging people I didn’t know and didn’t care to know. Most of them were family from out of state, you know the ones who don’t call and don’t write until someone dies then they come around acting all devastated just in case they’re in the will because they don’t want to look ungrateful? I’m sure she was upset, but, since she and Daisy had weekly botox dates as of late, no one knew for sure, since her face had lost all ability to move.

And, there, next to her, was my favorite hungry bulldog, just salivating when he saw his hamburger stepping out of the car in the most adorable black dress I was sure he’d ever laid his eyes on. Phillip must’ve been really stupid to not notice that Luke was looking at our body like he’d seen it naked before, or to not notice the crushed expression that overcame him when he saw her hand locked in Phillip’s.

She wanted to pull it away when she knew he saw it, but, she couldn’t.

“Mother, how are you?” Phillip asked, his tone sincere however syrupy. He broke away from Violet just long enough to embrace the Widow Mercer and Luke, who looked as disturbed by the thought of hugging his brother after what he’d done with his fiancée as he did by the thought of walking into the church burdened by the beautiful memories of his sinful night with Violet. What he had done both to and with her broke like seventy-eight different commandments. Surely men like him would get struck down by lightning.

Then again, I was no one to judge, since I still hadn’t mastered that pesky one about not killing, even if the bastard did deserve it.

Violet’s mother arrived, coming up the walkway after getting out of a car with her date. Yes, her date. Daisy Donovan takes dates to funerals, even her own husband’s, which, normally I wouldn’t have minded if this date wasn’t Jeremy Glass. What was he still doing in town?

“We should get inside,” Phillip said.

Luke helped Gretchen while Phillip put his arm around Violet, ushering her inside after quick hugs and kisses of condolences from the Donovan-Glass duo.

The funeral was pretty much what anyone would expect. Lot’s of crying and old Gummy talking about the Lord and Heaven and eulogizing and both Mercer boys going on and on about what an amazing man their father was. When Luke took the podium, he couldn’t take his eyes off Violet, every word he spoke about the brevity of life and the importance of love torturing her. When Phillip took the podium, Violet thought she couldn’t possibly feel any worse, until the doors to the church swung open and late mourners arrived.

Alison.

Alison and her guest…Cal Calpresi.

“Oh God,” she Violet’s stomach instantly started jumping and Luke, who was forced to sit next to her on the front pew, along with his mother and the rest of the immediate family, heard her.

“What’s wrong?” He whispered to her. I think he thought it was Alison. He had no way of knowing.

Meanwhile, they sat down in the back, Calpresi with this satisfied, untouchable look on his face. She glanced back over her shoulder, as if she could feel his eyes searing a hole through her and I regretted having her wear that dress. The familiar sensation of a vice grip on her head returned and her heart, she was positive it was beating so hard it’d rupture just like Lucas’ had.

“I need some air,” she said, excusing herself and rushing as quickly as she could for the nearest exit, the side door, which took her around to the side of the church.

When she was out there, she emptied her stomach into a row of decorative bushes, then parked herself on the side entrance’s steps, trying to catch her breath. If I could have gotten through to her, I would have said I told her so.

Behind her, the door opened and closed. She figured it was Phillip, done with his eulogy and wanting to see what happened to her, but it wasn’t Phillip. It wasn’t even Luke or Alison. It was worse.

It was him. Calpresi.

She stood when she realized who’d followed her, backing away from him, trying to make her way back around to the front of the church, away from the grassy annex sandwiched between the building and the gate. Then, she could run. She could get in the car and go far, far away from him, or back into the church were hopefully someone would protect her. But, every step she took fell in line with a step in the same direction from him, as he took a cigar from his pocket and pursed it between those fat, ugly lips of his. Then his hand, still wearing that ruby pinky ring, reached into his other pocket, took out a lighter and lit it, and he savored the taste, obviously enjoying it as much as he was enjoying the terrified look on Violet’s face.

“It’s good to see you again, Miss Donovan.”

She didn’t understand. She couldn’t remember meeting him, even though she knew she had before. It was like so many other things lately. She knew she’d done them, but just couldn’t remember.

“H--have we met?” She stammered, her hands snaking up and clutching her chest, beneath which was her relentlessly pounding heart.

“You don’t remember me? I’m not surprised. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken.”

Her heel caught in a soft spot in the grass and she fell, her ankle turning over as she collided with the ground. I’d been trying to make it back to her, but, I was getting shuffled around in the fear and confusion in her head. Being there, again, so low to him, looking up at him, at that face of his, was all it took and she started to remember that day.

The day I was born.

***

Violet was sitting in a chair, looking out at the hills, at Mercer Manor. Her mother had told her one day, she’d grow up and marry a Mercer man, and she might even live in that house. But, it looked so dark and spooky, she couldn’t imagine living there. It was as drab and scary as the building she was in now, Thomas’ building. She’d never been to the eighth floor before, but thought no one used the rooms there and couldn’t imagine why Thomas had brought her there to meet Mr. Calpresi.

They were by the door. Calpresi slipped a piece of paper into Thomas’ hand. When he unfolded it, she recognized it was a check. Being Daisy’s daughter, she could spot a form of money from fifty thousand miles away. Thomas examined it, nodded, and put it in the pocket of the shirt he was wearing. Then, he put his hand on the doorknob, and she heard him say to Calpresi, “do we have to do it this way?”

“She’ll be fine. You want the money, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I’ve put so much into this building, I’ve wanted to create something like this for decades. I can’t lose it now.”

Calpresi put his hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “And, you won’t. You made some bad choices, but, I helped you out. Now, you‘re just repaying your debt.”

Thomas looked back at Violet. He hadn’t told her what was going to happen, but, I think he knew she knew something was wrong, that she didn’t need to be there. And, still, he opened the door and walked out, not coming back even when she cried for him, screaming, begging him to come back and not leave her there alone.

“You’re not alone,” Calpresi said when she tried to run for the door, instead intercepting her and locking it, latching the chain that was so far out of her reach because she was so small, the click of it sliding in place as loud as bullets blasting from a gun. “You’re with me.”

“I don’t want to be here.” She said, backing away from him. “I want to go home.”

“Why’s that? I’m a friend of your father’s, remember? You took my picture when I came to your house and bought that old car of his?” His voice. He was talking to her so calmly, like he wasn’t about to do something unthinkable to her.

She kept backing away until she hit the wall. Then, she slid down it, hoping the floor would open up and swallow her and he’d stop coming towards her, but his advances didn’t stop. He only hesitated when he was standing over her, looking down at the shaking, petrified little girl, crying, pleading with him to open the door.

“Now, Violet,” he chastised her. “I thought you were more mature than this, that you were a big girl.”

She sniffled. “Please just let me go home.”

“Okay. I’ll let you go home, but, if I do, do you know what’s going to happen?” She shook her head. “Some men are going to come. They’re going to take your furniture, your dolls, your home, your cars, this building and all the other properties your father owns, and your mother, when she realizes you have nothing left, she’ll leave you and your father all alone, to fend for yourselves on the streets.”

“Why?” She asked, almost as terrified at the thought of being homeless and Daisy leaving them as she was to be alone with him.

“Because I own all of them now. Your father made a lot of dumb choices and, everything he lost, I reclaimed. I’m perfectly willing to return them to you, so you can keep your home and your family, but, you’re not acting like a big girl right now and, well, if you don’t start behaving, I might have to rethink that decision.”

She tried to stop crying, because she didn’t want what he said would happen to happen. Children. They’re always thinking in such black and white terms. He was an adult and adults always were supposed to tell the truth.

“I don’t understand why you want to be alone with me, why Daddy had to leave.” Her heart was breaking. She did understand, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself.

Calpresi bent down, stroking her hair, those braids she wore. They were the most perfect little red braids and she was wearing the most perfect little pink dress. His skin looked darker there, in the shadowy corner, and despite the thickness of the Italian accent he had, he was practically purring at her, “You‘re such a pretty little girl, Violet.” He placed his hand on her face. It was so big, so hot, palms so sweaty, and almost bigger than her head. She tried to melt into the wall, but it wouldn’t let her.

Her heart sped up when his other hand was suddenly on her calf. She try to draw her legs in closer to her, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms tightly around them, trying to hide from him, but there was no hiding. There was no running. Way up there on the unoccupied eighth floor, there was even no screaming, at least, not that anyone could hear.

And, though she protested, kicking, screaming, clawing at him and begging him not to, he picked her up and he carried her over to that monstrous bed, and he put her down on it. She tried to run again, knowing it was futile, when he went to remove the coat of that disgustingly expensive suit he was wearing, but he grabbed her. He flung her backwards, her head connecting hard against the frame of the bed. Though the skin opened and blood trickled out of the tiny cut it made, she remained conscious, although she wasn‘t sure how long she‘d be able to, or even if she wanted to, the way the room was fading in and out and the way his voice was suddenly so low and distorted to her tiny ears.

“Now, will you look what you did?”

He picked her up again, her head throbbing, and this time, she offered no protest. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t tell her legs to run, and, even if she could, there was no escaping what she knew was going to happen. Her heart rate lowered until it was almost still, and she laid there, groggily staring at the gray ceiling fading in and out, listening as he put on music, as he moved about the room, into the bathroom, where she heard the sound of his big, metal belt buckle hitting the tiled floor.

She felt someone sit down next to her, thinking it was him, but knowing as huge and fat as he was, the bed should have broken beneath him. Mustering what courage she could through the numbness she felt, she turned her head just enough to see the strangest thing she’d ever laid her eyes on.

There was another little girl sitting beside her, a girl she hadn’t seen in the room before, with red pigtails and a pink dress on. She looked just like her, and even though she knew no one else should have her face, she was unafraid of this person.

“Hi!”

“Who are you?” She asked.

I reached out and took her hand. “My name’s Iris.”

*****************************

Calpresi extended his hand to Violet, offering to help her up, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t see that it wasn’t Violet in front of him anymore. I shoved his hand away and stood up on my own, knocking the dirt off my dress.

“You keep your damn hands off of her.”

He gave that cigar another puff. “Ah, I see, you want to play this game again? Where you pretend you’re a different girl named Iris? It was cute when you were six or seven, but, you’re an adult, now. Isn’t it time to put away the imaginary friends?”

“I’m not imaginary.” I told him. “And if you think I’m going to let you anywhere near her, you’re sorely mistaken.”

He just laughed at me. “You’re so defensive.”

“Defensive?” I asked. “How do you expect me to be after what you did to me?”

He was amused. “I think deep down you liked our little meetings. I mean, why come up with that game where I call you Iris instead of Violet? Like it was just a pet name for me to call you when we were alone.”

It wasn’t a game. It was my name. It was who I was. Thanks to him, I wasn’t Violet. I wasn’t really anyone.

“Just leave us alone.” I tried to turn around, to walk off, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take him standing there, laughing at me, trying to make what happened my fault and to trivialize it, like it was as natural as breathing, which I was suddenly having a little trouble doing. But, he grabbed my arm.

I hauled off and hit him, my fist digging into the side of his jaw. “I told you not to touch her again.” Something caught my eye, a glass soda bottle that had been left behind in the shrubs, probably by some of the teenagers that attended the church. Instinctively, I reached down, grabbing it by its neck and smashing the base against the wall of the building. I started towards him. “That’s your problem. You don’t listen when people tell you not to do something. If you would have just listened to her when she told you she didn’t want you touching her the first time, I wouldn’t be like this.”

He just kept laughing, like I was some gnat flying around that he could squash at any minute, not like I was a human being, someone he hurt repeatedly, who was broken and terrified and would never be truly whole again because of what he did. I realized in that moment that there was never going to be a single second he wouldn’t enjoy tormenting me, and I should have done it. I should have shut him up, but I just couldn‘t bring myself to do it.

“Stop it!” I screamed at him. “Stop laughing at me!”

I probably should have heard the door opening and closing, but I was as deafened by the rage as I was blinded by it. I barely heard it when Luke’s voice spoke to me.

“Violet? What the hell are you doing?”

Calpresi put on his acting face. “Luke, thank God. I just came out here to have a cigar and all of a sudden this woman started running at me, screaming about me showing up with Alison. She’s been behaving like it was all some conspiracy to make Phillip jealous.”

Alison. I’d almost forgotten she’d brought him there. Had she been hoping Violet’s meltdown would have been in the middle of the church for all to see? She wasn’t getting away with this.

Luke moved off the steps, trying to take the broken bottle from my hands and I freely gave it to him. I wasn’t going to need a broken bottle for this. I shoved past him, stomping up the steps, throwing the side door open and marching into the service, which was concluding. Phillip tried to ask me where I’d gone, but I threw him out of my way, as well as anyone else standing in my path until I was in front of her.

Alison smiled, her teeth so white and shiny and perfect. “Violet, I hope you’re feeling OK.” Her voice was just dripping with sarcasm. She knew I wasn’t Violet and she knew what bringing Calpresi here would do. Again, there was the rage, if it wasn’t there, if I’d had my senses about me, I wouldn’t have been so careless, but I couldn’t think about anything else more than how much I wanted to drive that broken bottle into Calpresi’s bloated belly or how much I wanted to slap the smug off her face.

“You bitch.” I called her out.

A hush came over the church. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, but I didn’t care.

“You’ve apparently got the attention span of a goldfish. Don’t you remember me telling you what would happen if you didn’t leave us alone?”

She made sure to move herself just so that Phillip, who was walking up the aisle, could see the faux shock slathered on her face. “Violet, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just came here to pay my respects.”

“Respects? Respects? I’ll show you some damn respect.” I reached out and grabbed the ponytail behind her head, trying as hard as I could to rip every strand of that bottled blonde hair out of her scalp and coming away with a good handful.

“OW!” She screeched.

Phillip wrapped his hands around my waist, pulling me away from her. “My God, Violet, what’s gotten into you?”

I slipped out of his loose grip on me, not letting her get away when she winked and tried to be the bigger person and walk away. Instead, I grabbed her, just as Calpresi had grabbed me, and whirled her around. When she was facing me, I drew my fist back, slamming it as hard and as forcefully as I could into her nose.

Again, though, familiar arms wrapped around me and dragged me back as she reached up and touched her furiously bleeding nose, crying. When I saw it was Phillip who went to her, to check on her, I wondered whose arms it was around me. Then, I realized they belonged to probably the one person who could reel me back in, even though I had already gone so far over the deep end.

“Jude?”

He must’ve come to the service after Violet went outside. I didn’t even see him when I came back in. Was I so angry I couldn’t see the one person in the world who cared about me? I still wasn’t thinking clearly, wasn’t comprehending exactly how many people were there in the church. I’m not sure, even if I was, that would have stopped me from doing what I did. I threw my arms around him, hugging him, clinging as tightly to him as I physically could, like he was the anchor keeping me from being swept off to sea.

“Thank God.” I was breathless. “Thank God you’re here.”

I’d closed my eyes, so thankful to have him there. When I opened them again, I saw Luke staring at me, probably wondering why Violet was hugging some other man like that. I think Phillip must’ve wondered the same thing, but his curiosity was probably intensified by the knowledge that he’d heard Jude’s voice on the other end of the line when he called to tell Violet Luke was in jail.

I wasn’t thinking. Violet was right. Everyone was starting to see that I wasn’t her.

It was all falling apart.

I pulled away from Jude, who seemed strangely reluctant to let me go. Phillip left his bleeding bimbo. Even Luke and Daisy and Jeremy joined the fray. It was like they were surrounding me, like a pack of wolves zeroing in on defenseless lamb.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Phillip asked. “We’re at my father’s funeral. I get that you and Alison have issues, but, attacking her? Jesus, Violet.” Self-centered jackass probably thought Violet was attacking her over him.

I just rolled my eyes. Even with Jude there, I was outnumbered.

So, I turned, I broke through them, and I ran as hard and as fast as I could, ran like I never could in Calpresi’s room, like I was running for my life. Maybe because I was. I could hear Luke calling out after Violet, asking her to wait, but, I didn’t stop. I had to get us away from her before everything finished unraveling.

I slammed the door of the car Phillip chartered behind me, throwing down the partition and demanding that the guy behind the wheel drive. He asked where to, but, I didn’t care so long as he got me far, far away from that church.

********************

We’d been going twenty minutes before I finally got my nerves calmed down and stopped looking over my shoulder. Every time his phone rang, I told him not to answer it. I knew it was Phillip wondering where I’d gone.

“Do you see now?” I asked her when she finally came out of hiding. The only encouraging thing was that she hadn’t gone so far away I couldn’t get to her, again. She handled learning we were victims much better than knowing we were murderers. “Do you see why I do everything I can to protect you? They’re never going to leave us alone.”

She bit her lip, timidly staring out the window, watching the Vienna Heights scenery flying by. “He…he did that to me?”

“No.” I told her. “He did that to me. I stayed there and I took it every single time so you wouldn’t have to.”

“Every time?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony. “You only remember the first time, the day I was born. There were so many other days that Thomas dragged you there, and even when you couldn’t remember Calpresi hurting you like he did, you knew something bad was going to happen.”

The first time, I’d just held her hand. That was my birthing process, the labor she went through. Every time he touched her over the two hours after I appeared, I became a little more real, a little more defined, and Violet became a little more separated from herself, until he was done, until he was cleaning up the mess he’d made completely unaware there was a bigger mess left behind. Then, it was just me lying there, staring at his ugly gray ceiling. It was me Thomas came for, me who agreed to keep Calpresi a secret because I knew it’d destroy Violet’s life and me who he said he was so proud of.

And, it was me who he promised he’d never let it happen to again.

“How many times?” She asked.

I answered because she wasn’t going to remember when she became conscious again. I couldn’t let her.

“I lost count after the first few dozen. That’s only counting Calpresi.”

Violet’s eyes widened. “There were others?”

I was so cold. I think I may have been in shock. “You have no idea the things Thomas allowed us to go through when he realized how lucrative it could be. For a while, he felt guilty, but, then, he found out some ugly truths of his own that made him feel better.”

“What could possibly justify putting your daughter through that?”

“Nothing. At least, not unless you’re as sick and obsessed with money as Thomas was. Then, even the slightest little thing can rationalize all your wrongs.”

I needed a drink, so I leaned forward and told the driver to head for Sam’s.

Violet was quiet for a few minutes, so quiet I almost forgot she was there. I wondered what was going on back at the church. Was Daisy telling them all the sad, sad story about how she had to raise a daughter who was mentally insane? Was the white van and their men in white coats circling the streets looking for a hijacked limo carrying a hijacked body?

Then, she took me by surprise. She put her hand on mine just as I’d put mine on hers that day, and she whispered, “Thank you.”

I’d never expected her to thank me. “That’s why I reacted the way I did to Luke. The things I experienced for you, because you couldn’t take them, I felt that way all over again, except, instead of someone else forcing me to do those things, it was you.”

“But, there have been other guys,” she said.

“I know. They’re different. I don’t like you doing those things with anyone, but, I understand that you have to, because you don’t know what happened. You don’t remember it like I do. When I can’t take it, I give you a headache or I make you feel too sick or disinterested to go through with it. That night, though, no matter how much I tried to make you stop, you wouldn’t. I couldn’t get through to you. I was powerless.”

Powerless. That was such a horrible feeling.

“I won’t remember it, will I?” She asked.

“No. You know I can’t let you. You can’t handle it.”

She shifted, facing me. I imagined the leather seat of the car squishing as she turned, even though there wasn’t really anyone there sitting next to me. “Maybe I can. Maybe if you help me, I can learn to handle what Calpresi did.”

Violet was so sweet and innocent and positive, and such a complete and utter loss. “You’re right. I probably could help you deal with him. But, not the rest of it. Not all the other things that happened. Sometimes, I’m not even sure if I can handle it and I’m the person you created to handle those things.”

“What could possibly be worse than that?” She didn’t believe me. She had no idea that Calpresi was barely the tip of an iceberg that had already sunk what should have been an unsinkable girl.

The car pulled up outside of Sam’s. “I’m going to go have a drink.” I said to her. “After that, we have some business we need to attend to, a trip to the prison. We got a letter the other day, I’m not quite sure what it means.”

She acted like I was leaving her behind in the car, not following me, even though she could never leave me, just like I could never leave her.

When I went in, I made a beeline for the bar, waving Sam over and telling him I wanted my usual. He was out of Cheese Puffs, so, he just put a beer down in front of me and went back to the storage room when he got a minute free. The house was strangely packed to be so early in the day.

While he was gone, I heard some dark-haired girl at the pool table squeal, turned back, and saw this hairy biker type in a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped out, running his nasty, greasy hands all over her. I tried to turn away, but, then I heard her say, “I told you to stop that.”

“Oh, come on,” he groaned. “Now, if you didn’t want it, you wouldn’t dress like that.”

It must’ve just been my day for scum.

“You’re drunk,” she said, trying to push him away from her, but, he persisted, planting his hand on her ass. “I said to stop it!” She told him again.

I couldn’t take it anymore. My violent streak had already been aggravated and this was not helping matters at all. I walked over, grabbed the pool stick and hit the ugly biker upside the head with it, doing more damage to the stick than I did to him.

I shouldn’t have left my drink alone. That had to have been when he did it.

“Hey, here’s a memo for you.” I said to the biker. “When a girl tells you not to put your hands on her, don’t put your hands on her.”

He wanted to hit me back, I could tell, but Sam came up and dragged me away before a fight could start. He didn’t like me sending his customers to the emergency room.

“Whoa, Iris. A little early for beating people up, isn’t it?”

I took a drink of the beer, shoved a handful of Cheese Puffs in my mouth, and just shook my head. “Guys like that should be castrated.”

“You are in a bad mood.” He scratched a patch of acne on his cheek. “Want to talk about it?”

“Do I ever want to talk about it?” I asked. I didn’t mean to snap at him. He let me get away with beating people in his bar. I would have confused that for friendship if I didn’t know how afraid of me he was.

When I got to the bottom of the beer, I started feeling funny. At first kind of drowsy, then sick, nauseous, and the room was spinning. I tried to stand, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t see anything and all the voices and the music off the jukebox blurred together. I put my head down on the bar, trying to stop the spinning. I must’ve fallen asleep. That must’ve been when he came in and took me.

**********************

The next thing I knew, hours had passed, and I was waking up in Luke Mercer’s apartment, my hands cuffed behind me. My head was aching. I almost didn’t recognize where I was. For a minute, seeing all the black in his apartment, I thought I was back in that room at Thomas’ building again.

He was sitting nearby, reading a book. I knew this book. Jeremy Glass had written it on identity disorders, like he was some expert. How many times had I left his office pretending to be Violet and he never noticed?

“Luke?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question, now couldn’t I?”

I tried to lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Kidnapping, by the way, is against the law.”

He shrugged. “I’m not holding anyone against their will. Well, you, maybe, but according to that book I was reading, you don’t exist. I am curious though what you call yourself.”

My eyes felt heavy. I was having trouble keeping them open. “My name is Violet.”

“No, it isn’t.” He reached up, took my chin in his hand, trying to keep my attention on him. “It was all right there. I should have seen it before. The mood swings, the letters. They say alternate personalities truly want their host to understand what happened to them, so they can undergo the merging process, but that it’s often overshadowed by the inherent need to survive, so they’ll do subconscious things, like sending letters to taunt their host, to make them aware they exist.”

Was that right? Was that why I did those things to Violet? No. I knew what would happen if she found out about me. She’d try to put us back together again, then, we’d both be gone. No good would come of it.

“I’d read that book before, back when all the controversy came out about him and his unnamed case studies and the licensing board put him up for review. When I saw him with Daisy today, then you had your weird freak out on Cal and then on Alison, being so violent…the way you so easily went back to Phillip and the things you said to me, things Violet wouldn’t say or do…it all just made sense. She would never ask someone to potentially give up their freedom or to live under the reputation of a rapist just to conceal an affair.”

I laughed at that very weak game of association. “So, you have sex with someone who doesn’t want you and she has to have a split personality. Is that what you’re saying?”

“You hugged that priest like you cared about him. The book said sometimes alternate personalities will cling to people who don‘t present themselves as having a potential for a sexual relationship with them, like religious figures.”

“Maybe I have a thing for brunettes.” I spat at him.

He wasn’t giving up. He’d read a book, had his ego bruised and thought he had me figured out. “Fine.” He said, revealing to me the duct tape. “When you’re ready to tell me the truth, when you’re ready to tell me how to help Violet get through whatever made her make you, I’ll listen. Until then…”

And, he put the tape over my mouth, which was just as well, since I felt so sleepy. Whatever he’d given me must have been pretty powerful. More powerful than me.

Of course, then a day would pass, and he’d finally wear me down until she came back.

That’s when it started. These days, they’d been the good ones. The bad ones were on their way. I think he thought he was helping her, I really do. But, he put into process a chain of events that would end so many lives over the next few months.

Starting with Violet’s.