Building A Mystery

"I loved Ricky. He was the sweetest, kindest man I have ever known. I thought the darkest day of my life was when I received that phone call from St. Mary's Hospital telling me Ricky had been in an accident. He was dead. I thought that was the darkest day of my life, but then...he came back.” Shayna looked away from the therapist. They had gone through this time and again but he never believed her. “Look Doctor, I know that you think I am insane but I’m not. Ricky came back to me. He was different but it was so nice to see him again, you have to believe that he came back to me because he loved me!”

“Shayna, we have been having our meetings for almost 5 years. In that time you have told me some outrageous stories, like the one about you finding a wiretap inside of a fly in your house and then of course there was that phantom Justin Bieber message that where you claim that he threatened to kill you if you weren’t his ‘baby’,” His use of air quotes around ‘baby’ irked his patient. She narrowed her eyes at him, her lips in a straight line. “Don’t give me that look. You have a very vivid imagination and there is a lot of guilt in your heart. Don’t you see that you just want him to be alive because then you would be absolved of the guilt that you feel.”

“For someone who is supposed to be so smart, you are a real dumbass, Doc! I know when someone comes back to me, I know a real live person when I see them. Ricky is alive and well, the accident that everyone said killed him didn’t!” Shayna stood up, and grabbed her purse. She made her way to the door but before she opened it, she looked back at the therapist.

“I don’t know why you won’t believe me. You know that I am sane, that I have my shit together. Ricky is alive and I am going to prove it.”

“Shayna, you know that this therapy is court ordered and that you cannot up and leave a session. We have discussed this; you must talk to me for the entire time. Otherwise I will be forced to tell the judge that you are refusing to cooperate, if I do that we both know that you are going to end up in jail.” The Doctor sat in his chair with a smug look on his face. “Now why don’t you be a good girl and sit back down and we can get back on track.”

“You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that.” She swung her purse at him but missed. He quickly jotted something on his note pad, and righted himself as she sat back down. He kept his eyes focused on his notebook and merely nodded to recognize that she had spoken to him at all. “I really hate you and I hate this place and I hate that the judge says I have to be here. I am not crazy; I don’t have any more problems than any other person. I am only here because the judge had a vendetta out against me.”

“Yes, of course. How silly of me to think that maybe you actually have anger issues and that you were dealing with an addiction that you couldn’t fight.” It seemed to Shayna that he was going to say more but caught himself. He flipped through his notebook and looked up at her. “Shayna why don’t we try some hypnosis today, last time we did this you had a great breakthrough. I think that it might be important to find out why you, er why Ricky came back to you. Maybe this is something that we need to figure out together. The way we did about your Uncle.”

Cold to the Touch

“Shayna, why in the world did you tell Dr. Big Mouth about me?!” Ricky screamed. She had just confessed that she had told her therapist about his reappearance in her life. His black hair fell in his face as he shook his head. “If he blabs to someone, the police will show up here and take me away from you. What I did was illegal, you know that. Maybe you want me to be gone; maybe you want them to take me away from you!”

“He has this way of making me talk, it’s not my fault! He won’t tell anyone because he doesn’t believe me; he thinks that I am crazy. He says that people don’t come back from the dead,” She turned and took a long drink from her cup. “You know that I don’t want you to be taken away from me! I couldn’t bear it if you went away again; the first time nearly killed me. I couldn’t bear it if you went away.” Shayna threw her arms around him, bringing him closer to her body. When she pulled away from him, she looked into his eyes. “Ricky, I never want to be away from you again. Please tell me how to make this right.”

“Well you said that the Doctor didn’t believe you, so let’s not worry about it. Right now all I want to do is have dinner and spend time with you,” He leaned into her and planted his lips on hers. Smile broke out on their faces, each felt the affection that was coming from the other. “It amuses me that someone of his stature didn’t believe you when you told him that I came back from the dead that I came back for you. At the very least I would think that he would be worried about a zombie apocalypse.”

“Are you a zombie?” Shayna asked tentatively. She cut her eyes around the room and into the living room. Letting go of Ricky, she lifted her glass to her lips and took another long drink from it. “I’m fine if you are and it would make sense. You feel very cold to me but then you always did. Maybe I’m just hot blooded, maybe it’s my fault.”

“Come on now, you know better than that. This is not your fault, and I am not a zombie. Zombies are not real; they are fictional creations that are used to scare people. It would be awesome if I was a zombie, I could make a killing,” Ricky cracked up at his own pun. Shayna took another drink from her cup; she set it down and noticed that it was empty. “Do you want more water? That was water right?”

“Something like that. I underwent hypnosis again today. The doctor always makes me undergo hypnotherapy because he says that I open up more when I don’t have my guards up.” Shayna turned away from Ricky and felt him staring at her. “No, I don’t think that he is molesting me or anything. If he was I’m sure that I would have figured it out by now.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to ask if you thought that perhaps, I’m not real but a memory that is implanted in your brain by the Doctor. Do you think that maybe none of this is real?” Shayna spun around to respond to Ricky but he was gone, vanished into thin air.

Where is Ricky?

Shayna woke up in the middle of the night, and felt for Ricky. Her hand hit an empty spot of the bed, so she tried again. Her eyes opened and panic set in, was Ricky playing another trick on her like he had earlier in the evening? The thought infuriated her, it was mean of him to hide under the table and play on her fears that he wasn’t really there.

“Ricky!” She called out. Throwing the covers off of her, she decided to find him and yell at him if he was playing another trick on her. The house was quiet, only sounds from the highway could be heard and those were muffled by distance. She called out for him again, hoping that he would answer her, “Ricky!”

Light flooded the living room when she turned on the lamp. The couch was empty and the TV was off. She made her way to the bathroom, and was disappointed to find the door open and the room empty. She sucked in a breath, and leaned against the door frame to steady herself. Thoughts crammed her head; she looked around to see if there was another place that Ricky could be.

In the kitchen, she took out a pitcher and poured herself a glass of the contents. After finishing the drink off in just a few gulps, she decided to go back to bed. Wherever Ricky was, he would come back to her again. He had after everyone told her that he had died, but she had held out the hope that they were all wrong and he had come back to her.

“Ricky’s not real; he has not come back to you.” The Doctors voice rang in her head, he was wrong. Everyone was wrong, Ricky was alive and he was with her. It didn’t matter to her that they had to keep his return a secret, all that mattered was that he was back with her. “Don’t you see that you just want him to be alive because then you would be absolved of the guilt that you feel.”

“I’m not real but a memory that is implanted in your brain by the Doctor.” The Doctors voice faded into Ricky’s. Shayna tried to shake the thoughts away from her but they enveloped her like a blanket. She opened the fridge and tipped the pitcher into her mouth, the liquid hit her throat and she felt refreshed. “Babe, where are you?”

Shayna stood frozen in her spot, was she actually hearing Ricky’s voice or was it all a memory. She dropped her head into her hands and let the tears flow from her eyes. Something was happening to her but she had no idea what it was, but it scared her. She looked up and found the pitcher empty, she set it in the sink. “How did I drink all of that?”

“You went through that whole bottle of vodka?” Ricky asked, ambling into the kitchen. He picked up the pitcher, the bottle that she had just put into the sink. He twirled it in his hands and showed it to her. “You went through a whole fifth of vodka in one night? Shayna that is not normal, you should get some help. Maybe you do need to go to rehab because there is no way that one person should drink that much and still be standing.”

“You sound just like the Doctor now. I do not have a drinking problem, that bottle has been in the fridge for months; it just so happened that I finished it tonight. I don’t see why in the world you guys are saying that.” Shayna stumbled out of the kitchen. Ricky followed her and put his arms around her. She fell against his chest, and rested her head there. “That trick you played earlier hurt my feelings, and then you weren’t in bed when I woke up.”

“Are you seriously complaining about a little joke that I played on you, after what you did to me? Come on Shayna, one doesn’t compare to the other.” Ricky let go her. He turned her around to look her in the face, and found that the tears had started to well in her eyes again. “No, you don’t get to cry! You have to face what you did!”

“Stop it, Ricky! You didn’t come back to torture me, you told me that you forgave me!” Shayna pushed him, her breathing shallow, her shoulders raising and falling in time with her breaths. He watched as she raised her fists. “You can’t forgive someone and then turn around and use what they did against them. You just can’t do it, it’s not right.”

“You drank a whole fifth of vodka by yourself tonight, the same thing you did on that night…” Ricky let his words hang in the air, Shayna turned away from him. “You can’t hide from the truth anymore; it’s about time that you faced what happened that night. My forgiveness won’t matter until you forgive yourself.”

“I did nothing wrong! You know what maybe you are an implanted memory from the Doctor, you are acting just like him! You are not the Ricky that I know, you are some clone or some sort of device to make me think that I am crazy and that I have a problem with alcohol!” Shayna ran to the bedroom and slammed the door shut. Falling against it, she slid down and let the tears roll down her face. It had become all too clear to her that someone was playing with her emotions and trying to make her think that she was crazy. Someone had paid the Doctor to bring Ricky out of her subconscious, to make her think that he didn’t really love her. “I don’t know why you are doing this to me but I want it to stop and I want it to stop now! If you’re not really my Ricky, the man who loved and adored me more than anything, then go away! I don’t want you here.”

“You can’t hide from the past forever, Shayne it’s time that you faced it! You need to say out loud what you did to me; you need to confess what happened the night that I had to go away from you for a while.” Ricky called, his voice was steady. The words sounded like someone else was saying them, as if someone else was feeding him the dialogue. “Come on Shayna, we both know how cathartic confession is. So just say what I know you want to say.”

Before she could respond, screeching tired outside of her house sent her to the floor with her hands over her head. She was shaking, it was happening again but this time it was her time to go. “You’ll never take me alive!”

What Happened 6 Months Ago

The rain was coming down in buckets, yet Shayna pressed on. She was on a mission to find out what Ricky was doing, he had been evasive earlier on the phone and that was bothering her. One hand on the wheel, the other was searching for the liquor bottle that she had brought with her. She took her eyes off the road, and found it on the floor. Slightly bending her body towards the passenger seat, she grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the top.

As the liquid hit the back of her throat, leaving a warm sensation in its wake, she lost control of the car. She was thrown back as the car hit something, the crunching sound was sickening. She brushed her hair out of her face and debated between getting out of the car and investigating or leaving. Both had upsides but if the cops found her at the scene of the accident, she would be arrested.

With that reasoning in mind, she put her car in reverse, shifted it into drive and pointed the car in the direction of her house. “Just get home,” She told herself. Once she was there, she would take a shower and go to bed. No one would ever be the wiser; no one would ever know what she had done. That would have been easy, but curiosity got the best of her and she stopped her car.

The rain pelted her body, as she ran to where she had been in the accident. It was just a tree, she kept telling herself. That’s all it was, there was nothing else out here. She took a deep breath and found the imprint of her tire tracks. There was a cell phone laying near the road, she bent down to pick it up but it broke into small pieces with the slightest touch.
A few more steps revealed a coat, one that was very familiar to her. It was brown suede, with a faux fur lining. The exact coat that Ricky wore, the one that he had worn when he left her house, she was almost sure that she would soon find his body. Fear took over her body, she kept praying that she was wrong about hitting him, but she knew that she had.
With only the slightest lift of her eyes, she found his body. Ricky laid with his arms open and flowers in his hands. Shayna let out a scream that she knew would draw attention. She ran back to her car. Once she was safely inside she threw the car into drive and sped away, the bottle of liquor at her lips.

As soon as she got home, Ricky’s mom was on the phone telling her about the terrible accident that had claimed his life. A flood of tears streamed down her face as she realized what had happened, and why it had happened. Her jealousy and insecurity had finally taken Ricky away from her the way he had always said it would. He had bought her flowers and she had repaid that kindness by running him over in a jealous rage. She squeezed her eyes shut, “If I just keep them closed long enough, Ricky will be alive. He’s not dead, he can’t be dead. This is all just a terrible mistake.” And she was right because in a matter of weeks, Ricky had returned to her and everything was right with the world. Until the Doctor began hypnotizing her and implanting memories in her head. She yelled to no one in particular “Go away I am not crazy!”

Red and Blue Truth

“I said go away! I am not crazy! Leave me alone!” Shayna yelled. She lifted her head from her lap and found the bedroom filled with red and blue flashing lights from outside of her house. There was another banging on the door, she covered her ears and figured that if she ignored whoever was knocking they would just go away. “Ricky, we need to talk about things. I need you to stop trying to make me think that I’m crazy or that I have some kind of drinking problem. I don’t, I am fine and you need to respect me.”

The only sound was the knocking on her door. Voices could be heard from outside of her window but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She figured that they were after one of her neighbors. They were always after one of her neighbors, she had thought about moving but Ricky had convinced her to stay with him.

Her door moved a little, sending her onto her stomach. The door opened all the way and a cop walked in and looked at her. “Ma’am have you been drinking this evening? We’ve been hearing complaints about loud noises and weird smells.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes I may have had a few drinks but I was hardly loud, and there is no odd smell in here. If you don’t mind, my boyfriend and I were trying to have a conversation before you so rudely interrupted us.” Shayna stood up, balanced herself and moved to the cop. She lightly pushed him, but he didn’t move. “Leave! Please just leave us alone?”

“I found the source of the weird smell,” Another cop called out. He poked his head into the bedroom; his face was pale as a ghost. Shayna looked at him and reality slowly dawned on her, she knew what the next words out of the second cop’s mouth were going to be. “We found the corpse of one Richard Smith, the ex-boyfriend of Miss Shayna Johnson. The body is in the kitchen and he’s not looking so good.”

“It’s true. Ricky broke up with me, and I went on a weeklong bender. For days and days I did nothing but drink. I called him trying to find out where he was at, trying to get him to date me again but he ignored my calls. Finally he answered and I heard another woman laughing on the other end, so I went out to find out where he was and who he was with.” Shayna sat on her bed, her eyes focused on the wall ahead of her. Her night stand drawer, slightly open, she pulled the drawer out even more. “I just wanted to find him and talk to him. When I hit him with my car, I had no idea it was him. I thought it was a tree. The guilt of what I did got to me, his mom was so nice to me. She had no idea that we had broken up, and I knew what I had done. One night I got the bright idea that if I dug up his body, that he would be with me again and that I could make everything better.”

Shayna choked out one last sob, as she found her gun in the drawer. The cop moved towards her but she shot off one round into the wall and he backed up. His words were lost on her as she put the barrel in her mouth and pulled the trigger again.

Now she was with Ricky again.