I couldn’t speak because my heart was breaking.
I felt his eyes on me. “Why are you quiet?”
Swallowing, I looked up at him, at the question in his eyes. “There’s no one there, Elio.”
His frown drew down slowly before he looked back to the chair in a double take.
He froze, also growing quiet.
“Elio—”
“He was just there.” He stepped forward, looking confused. “He was just here, now.”
“There was—”
“No, he was just—I saw him seconds ago…” He trailed off, shaking his head like something wasn’t adding up.
“Elio.”
“No.” He shook his head again, his breathing frantic as the seconds passed. “No, I know what I’m talking about. He was sitting here when we walked in, Zahra.” He gripped the neck of the chair. “He was here; I know what I saw.” His eyes fell to me. “You didn’t see him?”
I shook my head slowly.
“That’s impossible…” He blinked. “That’s impossible… that’s impossible,” he repeated.
Cautiously, I took a single step forward. “Elio, it’s okay—”
“No.” The confusion in his voice was evident. “No, he is always here.” He looked back at the chair, his chest heaving. “You don’t understand, Zahra. I talk to him, I always—I always come here to talk to him.” He looked back at me. “I bring food, and he eats, and—no—he’s here, maybe he—when I looked at you—the bathroom…” he said as he rushed to the other side of the room, pulling open the door and stopping dead when he found no one.
“Elio, there’s no one here,” I said softly, unable to stop my voice from shaking.
He turned sharply to me, his eyes unfocused as he walked back to where I stood, putting his hands on my shoulders, his breathing uneven, shaking like his body was. “You have to believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“No, you do not; you’re looking at me like you think I’m crazy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Elio.”
He looked intently into my eyes. “Then you saw him?”
I shook my head. “No, but I believe that you thought you did—”
“No, I faked his death, Zahra. Everyonethinkshe’s dead, but I left him alive because I had this—I had a plan; you have to believe me, he was here, he is always here, and we talk, and he talks to me—the last time, the last time I was here, I hit him, I felt him—”
“Just like you feel your mother?”
He went quiet.
“Elio, you told me that you saw your mother. You felt her touch you. She seemed real, but you knew she wasn’t there. Sometimes when people go through things like this… when the mind tries to protect itself… it creates things that feel real, even when they’re not. This isn’t the first time your mind has created things, Elio.”
He let go of me, repeatedly shaking his head as he paced the room. “No, no, that’s different. I can—I can differentiate it, I know when it’s real or not—my father—my father was—that man was real, he was here, he was the reason I started this whole thing. I wanted—he was here because I wanted him to feel how my mother and brother and sister felt in that fire, we were supposed to—we were—it was—this was—” He was breaking right before me.
“Everyone knows he had an attack,” I said softly. “A heart attack that killed him, and it was rumored that you were the only one in the room. Everyone thought you caused it…”
Tears fell from his eyes, his breathing coming out of his mouth now, loud as he shook his head and paced, recalling what I just laid out. “No, no, no, no, he was—I remember that day, we were—we were arguing, okay? And he—and he fell—he didn’t die—he didn’t die, Zahra, he didn’t die because he doesn’t get to die like that. So I faked it—right? I faked his death, and I brought him here, with me—and he’s been heresince then, and everyone thinks he’s dead and buried, but he’s not—I know—I know because I see him, I see him here, you have to believe me, please.”
“Elio, it’s okay—”
