Dirty Secrets

Part 63

Fractured thoughts, raging emotions, terrifying images, and splintered memories splashed and meshed as they whipped around Lyla's mind with the furious velocity of fruit in a blender.

Doctor Haden said dissociation from reality is the brain's protective mechanism. The mind can only handle so much.

Keenan's death was a momentary relief, but everything that followed had been a nightmare, one trauma layered on top of another. And another. And another.

Self-doubt crept in. Maybe she'd made fatal mistakes. She'd been delusional to believe that she knew better than the doctors and so she refused to take the gray and pink pill. Maybe that's why the vivid hallucinations had occurred with greater frequency. Her strategy for getting released from the hospital was to "play the game." What did that even mean? Harboring even more secrets? Telling even more lies? How could the doctors possibly help her if she wasn't being honest? Honesty was a virtue that Lyla had buried along with the remains of the girl she used to be.

The mind can only take so much before...

But wait. Hold up. What about the ring? Jack saw it. Darcy saw it.

And Geno and Clover back from the dead. Jack saw them, too.

And the O's gouged into Packer's car and Jack's car. They saw them.

Those couldn't be hallucinations. Not all of them, anyway. He's gaslighting you. Making you doubt everything you think you believe.

She focused on her laptop lying on the floor.

But that thing. Whatever it was. That horrible creature. Real? Not real?

She placed her phone next to the bowl of salt on her desk, abandoned her computer lying on the rug, and hurried out the door to the bathroom.

At the sink, she washed her jittery hands, then splashed water on her face. She heard her dad's voice so she shut off the faucet, groping for a towel with her eyes closed.

"You want this spaghetti or don't you?" he called from the kitchen.

"I'll be right down." She took a deep breath then slowly emptied her lungs. 

Not real. Can't be real.

As she galloped down the stairs she heard the beep, beep, beep of the microwave. She rounded the corner into the kitchen just as Ryan set the plate onto the table. The aromatic smell of spaghetti sauce triggered a stomach rumble.

She raised a single finger and said, "Cheese," then opened the refrigerator door. She plopped down into her chair with the container of grated parmesan in hand then sprinkled a heavy dose onto her pasta. She looked up at her dad and caught him smiling at her.

"What?"

"You reminded me of your mother. Just then. The way you said "cheese." He raised one finger to imitate her.

"I don't remember mom doing that."

He nodded with a grin.

She swirled the spaghetti onto her fork and said, "Tomatoes," then shoved the pasta into her mouth.

"What?"

"Tomatoes. The smell of summer tomatoes always makes me think of Mom." Another swirl, another forkful.

Ryan nodded. "She sure loved her tomatoes."

"Remember the time she bought all those tomato plants at the farm?" she said around a mouthful of food.

He laughed at the memory.

"Then left them in the car while she went into the mall."

"Never could get that tomato plant smell out of the car," he said.

"And she got so mad when we teased her about it."

"She sure did." He cracked up.

It had been a long time since they shared a laugh. Just as she hadn't realized how hungry she was, she didn't appreciate how much she needed to reminisce with her dad.