Blurred Lines (15 page)

Perhaps love truly did overcome all things.

Not everyone on the staff at West Heights had even believed the stories that came from Lauren’s mouth. Even in a psychiatric facility, it was difficult to comprehend how a completely normally-functioning woman, educated and married, well-liked by all who knew her, could become a victim of dissociative identity disorder at twenty-nine years of age without anything leading up to it.

The fact that the alternate identity was a character from a story she had been writing was the aspect that many struggled with. Which came first, the identity that ultimately became a character or the idea of a character the resulted in another identity?

Late onset dissociative identity disorder mostly occurred in those subjected to severely traumatic events or tragedies. Michael’s death, and Lauren’s role in it, had obviously been enough to secure Sarah’s place within Lauren’s mind.

Perhaps becoming Sarah was the defense mechanism Lauren’s mind needed in order to deal with such a tragedy, or maybe it was just the weakest moment Lauren had ever experienced, giving Sarah the crack in the foundation large enough to slip through and take over.

The nurse was beginning to feel an overwhelming surge of sympathy for Lauren. Regret flooded her as well, knowing that, until finding this journal, she had been one of those people on staff at West Heights who had failed to believe Lauren’s tales and her diagnosis.

She reopened the journal, feeling certain that reading Lauren’s story in her own words was the only way to redeem herself for her disbelief.

February 16, 2015

Once again, Dean showed up here today, insistent on seeing me. He spouted his usual hopes and dreams for us, but also promised he was getting closer to having his appeal to the courts approved to have me released from this facility into his care.

I must admit, I honestly believed he was just blowing smoke in the beginning, but he is actually serious. He held my hands in his and swore he would take care of me and not let them ever lock me in a place like this again.

If I did not want the freedom so badly, I would have undoubtedly gagged at the thought of being under his surveillance all day. Dean would be constantly watching me, helping me, and spewing his ridiculous poetic terms of endearment.

There is no way I will allow that to happen, but first I have to play the game and use his determination to get me on the other side of those locked doors. If he can manage that for me, I can manage the rest. Without him.

If I can just keep Lauren and her emotions under wraps a bit longer, and keep Dean and his obsessive ways at bay, I will be free.

No more locked rooms, dinners that are far from edible, or by-the-clock pills to take. I can almost taste it. If you could see my smile right now, Lauren, you would know how badly you have lost this game.

Save the energy, the nerves, and the effort.

There was a time when you wanted to be me. Wish granted.

Have you not heard the term, be careful what you wish for?

Sarah

The nurse trembled at the shiver of fear that coursed through her. Sarah was beyond the point of being just one voice trapped within a body shared by two. She was blatantly taunting Lauren. Do not stand in the way of my freedom, she was saying. You have lost, so give up now. You have no one to blame but yourself. After all, it was you who wanted to be me, isn’t that right?

The nurse’s mind flitted to her most recent vision of Lauren, how she had looked and what hell she must have gone through in order to get there.

I am sorry
, the nurse thought to herself
. I am so sorry there was a time I did not believe you, a time when I ignored your tears at night. I wish I could have helped you.

Was there a way to help Lauren, really? Was there truly anything that any well-trained, well-educated aide, psychologist, or psychiatrist could have done to stop the rapid escalation of Sarah’s power over her?

The next entry made the nurse smile because it was signed by Lauren, and dated only two days later. Hope sparked to life in her heart at the sight of the pretty scrawl she had come to recognize. Sarah might’ve been trying hard to snuff her out, but Lauren was not gone yet. She was a fighter, and the nurse silently congratulated her for making it this far.

February 18, 2015

She is making it harder and harder for me to make it back to the forefront of my mind. I wish I knew how I managed to let her get so strong so quickly. Perhaps if I knew the cause, I could undo it. Unfortunately, there is not much time now.

Sarah has taken it all from me, everything. She has left me with only guilt and despair. Because I allowed her to help me, I have lost Michael in the most brutal way, and Michael lost his life.

I will forever despise myself and her for Michael’s loss. It is, after all, his loss that I mourn, not my own. If I could go back, I would fix everything Michael lost. I made this mess, created it with my own warped mind, and Michael is the one who paid the ultimate price for it.

That does not seem to be enough for Sarah.

Now, she yearns to take Dean and strip him of everything that is beautiful about him as well. I cringe just thinking of how she leads him on, treats him as though he is not worthy, uses him in ways that I cannot even imagine and allows him to believe it is me who would treat him that way.

When he is here and I can make it past Sarah to talk to him, to hold his hands gently in my own, those are the times with him that I cherish most, and I will take those moments with me to my grave.

I do hope he knows how much I have grown to respect him and to even love him in my own way. He has stuck by me during a time when he had every right to never want to see me again.

Dean’s thoughtfulness and generosity is the reason that I despise Sarah’s vindictiveness so much. Mostly, I hate myself for allowing something so good and something so bad to collide. Nothing good can come of it.

Thus, I must make it right. For him. For me. For Michae
l
.

The nurse swallowed the lump slowly forming in her throat. Never would she have believed that such an inner battle had been raging within Lauren. She had seen her every day, even helped to deliver her meals and administer her medications.

The thought came to her suddenly that there were no medications to date that could be prescribed to ease or cure an illness like dissociative identity disorder. Lauren’s medications were only to calm her down, not help her get away from the strength of Sarah’s hold.

For a moment, the nurse wondered if Lauren knew she would never be able to free herself from Sarah. It only took another fraction of a second for her to realize Lauren had understood this far too well. Perhaps things would have been different had there been some sort of refuge from Sarah’s grasp, but as it stood from the words on the pages in front of her, the nurse could not see how that would be possible.

She flipped through a few of the pages that followed Lauren’s entry, but they remained blank, the blue lines of each page standing out against the bright white of the background. Lauren and Sarah had kept their battle within their minds.

Maybe the answers were not meant to be known by me or anyone else after all
.

Sadness swept over her at the thought of never knowing how it all truly ended. In a sense, she did know, but that last journal entry did not seem like an ending. It was unfinished somehow.

She tossed the book onto the bed and got up, her back aching slightly from the bent-forward posture she had maintained for the past hour or so. She took a few steps around the room, once again wondering idly what Lauren, the
real
Lauren, must have thought while she did the same. Her words in the journal held only regret and despair at what had ultimately become of her, Michael, and Dean. They all had different endings to their story, but none of those endings would ever be happy.

The nurse looked up at the clock that ticked loudly on the wall. Her shift had been over for more than thirty minutes. With a sigh, she made the decision to give up trying to pack away Lauren’s belongings for today. Besides, she would be back for the morning shift tomorrow, and the odds of anyone coming in here were slim.

She took one last look at the red journal lying on the bed and turned to head for the door. As she reached for it and gripped the edge of it to swing it open, she caught sight of the calendar hanging crookedly on the wall beneath the clock. She glanced at the little block signifying yesterday’s date and saw Lauren’s writing within it. The words stared back at her with such overwhelming power they could have been written in blood.

To Michael, With Love Always, Lauren

The words said so little and yet so much at the exact same time.

The nurse blinked again, and read the words as though making sure that they were truly there. Then she whirled around and dove for the journal, flipping the pages frantically to see if she was right.

She had to be.

She scanned the dates across the top of each page to find what she was looking for. She stopped, holding her breath as her gaze fixed on the date.

She was right. On the page in front of her, just below yesterday’s date, were the same words scrawled on the calendar.

To Michael, With Love Always, Lauren

She began to read the paragraph below the dedication.

February 27, 2015

To Michael, With Love Always, Lauren

Today is the day I shall make it right.

I was beginning to fear I would not have my chance to be myself one last time. Thankfully, I woke up early this morning and was able to muster up what little strength I had left to push Sarah back in the deepest part of the mind we share.

Today is my last chance to be me, and I hope I can use that time to right at least some of the wrongs I have created. It is because of the wrongs I cannot right that I am saying my goodbyes today. I do hope my reasoning is not clouded by the act itself, or I shall have truly made my final choice in vain.

To the staff at West Heights that have put up with Sarah and I, please do not think that your efforts to be nice, tolerable, and helpful have not gone unnoticed. I saw through many of the attempts to hide the fact that most of you did not believe I was living with someone else inside me. Even as I write this, it feels like someone else’s story.

If it had been someone else going through what I have gone through, I am not sure I would have believed them myself. Therefore, I do not blame you. All I can do is thank you from the bottom of my heart for at least trying to ease the emotional upheaval I have lived through in the past year. Thank you for that. Lastly, please know that nothing I do today is your fault. I cannot be helped. I cannot be cured. No one can save me, so I must save myself the only way I know how.

To Libby, I do not hate you for what you did. Please know that. While I have not seen you since that fateful day a year ago, please know that I have thought of you often and have wondered what became of you.

As much as it hurts me to say it, it seems you and I both loved Michael in our own way, and so I suppose you do know the kind of pain I am going through, as you have lost him as well. It may be surprising and even twisted of me to say it, but I am sorry for the pain you have had to feel in that regard.

To Dean, I hope you can someday forgive me for my actions and my choices. You and I have gone through things most people shall hopefully never have to endure. In the end, however, the tragedy that has become our life together has made me grow to love you in a way that I cannot explain.

You have loved me through the times you should have just walked away, and your love for me has led you to the darkest corners life could have put you in. Prison, Dean. You went to prison because of me. You should hate me, despise me, and vow to never lay your soulful eyes on me again.

Yet, you come here. Day after day, you show up to bring the tiniest ray of sunshine into my generic-looking, four-walled prison cell. You will never know how much those short, quiet visits with you have meant to me. Although I have done you wrong in so many ways, Dean, not a day goes by that I do not thank the heavens above for the little window of time I got to share with you. It was unexpected, but you have made what should have been hell become something bearable. Forever, I will love you for that.

To Michael, my true love, my husband. If I had a penny for every time I asked myself how things between us got the way they were, I would have suffocated within this room because it would be filled to the brim. I shall never truly forgive myself for straying from you and for being someone you felt you needed to stray from.

I blame you for nothing, Michael. None of it. It was my selfishness and the consequences of my greedy actions that ended your life. To say that I am sorry for what happened to you is not enough. It will never be enough. It was me that did this to you, Michael, and for that I have to reap some kind of punishment. There must be consequences to my actions. My unfaithfulness was just the beginning, and if being confined to an inner hell with Sarah is my punishment for it, I have allowed it to go on for a year.