What’s wrong with me?
“I’m not done,” I cry. “I have to go back.”
Benji narrows his gaze at me, but water glosses the bottom of his eyes; there’s pain in his expression, like he’s about to break too. He looks away.
He must think I’m choosing Dr. Ambrose over him.
I am though… Aren’t I?
There’s a better chance of me finding out who I am if I put off my revenge plan for a little while longer. If Dr. Ambrose helps me explore my desires, then maybe I’ll see how similar and different I am to my mother and father. Maybe my life will finally make sense, and I’ll be able to move on.
“I have to do this,” I whisper.
“What is ‘this’ exactly?” Benji’s shoulders quiver. “Do you even want to kill him anymore?”
My bottom lip trembles. I can’t speak.
Benji sighs. He turns the car around, the tires rolling softly against the dirt.
On the road, he nods to the glove compartment. I take out an orange prescription bottle with a ripped label and blue capsules.
“I can’t save you anymore, but you can still take those with you,” he says. “Find your answers, and then get rid of the motherfucker.”
His words spear me. I keep holding onto this idea that Dr. Ambrose may not be my father, but inside, I know Dr. Ambrose is a motherfucker.
My heart breaks, not for Benji, but for the old me. The girl who was told her biological parents chose drugs over her. The girl who faked her orgasms. The girl who had a job, who was planning to go to college. The girl who had a life before this. I mourn the girl I was before I found out who my mother was. I can’t bring my mother back from the dead. I can’t make Dr. Ambrose love me like a father should. And I can’t let Benji save me anymore.
I want closure, to be able to control my thoughts again. It’d be so much easier if I had normal desires and I loved Benji, but that’s not my life.
More than anything, I want to be loved unconditionally.
My dead mother will never give me that.
My ex never gave me that.
Benji will never give me that.
But Dr. Ambrose? I burned him with acid, and he still wants me.
Benji parks outside of our apartment, this time in an actual parking space. He sulks inside, clutching the cut on his arm.
The neighboring apartments are lit up, shadowed figures pacing across their windows. Our apartment stays dark, as if Benji collapsed as soon as he closed the door.
Dr. Ambrose said I won’t be wearing clothes when I’m at the asylum, so why pack my bags? I have the knife and the poison pills in the car with me. I should go back to the asylum now.
An urge wells inside of me, pushing me out of the car. My feet take me to the road. With the knife and the pills in my pockets, I head toward the nearby cemetery.
It’s dark now, but I want to see my mother’s empty grave for myself.
Going to the cemetery is like asking Dr. Ambrose to come find me, to chase me down, to prove he’ll never let me go, to make him care for me indefinitely.
To be honest, I don’t want Dr. Ambrose to let me go either.
We’re alike that way.
Chapter 17
Violet
