He sighs again, then looks down at the folder in front of him, the one that carries years of notes about me. I can only imagine what they say. Difficult. Uncooperative. Confused. Childish. It makes me sick to think about, what he could possibly see inside me, if he can see underneath the steel shell I’ve created around myself, but is keeping it to himself.

After reading some of the notes over, he sighs for the third time, then closes the folder. There’s disapproval in his expression when he glances up at me. “Maddie, you’ve barely spoken today at all.” He overlaps his hands on the desk, scooting his office chair forward. “It seems like for the last couple of visits, you’ve kind of regressed, and your mother mentioned you’ve been distant and distracted at home. Is there anything going on in your life that’s been different? Or maybe your nightmares have been getting worse?”

“I hate that you talk to my mother so much,” I say, dodging the subject. Yes, my nightmares are bad, but that’s not what’s wrong with me. What’s wrong is that Lily’s been gaining more control over me, so I feel like I’m more bad than good anymore. I’m trying to fight it, but I’ve been fighting it for years and I’m starting to get tired. There’s been a few times where I’ve zoned out and I swear to God she’s taken over, but I can’t prove it yet. “I wish you’d stop. She’s not your patient. I am.”

“I know you are, but that’s not what we’re talking about at the moment,” he replies. “Please answer my question. Are your nightmares getting worse?”

I bring my foot up onto the chair, hug my knee to my chest, and rest my chin on top of it. “Maybe I don’t have anything to say anymore.” I pause, contemplatively. I need a detour from my nightmares. I don’t want to talk about how every night, late at night, and sometimes even during the day I see things that normal people never would. Blood. Screams. Fire. My hands taking the lives of others.

I open my mouth to say… well, I’m not even sure, but the darkness within me takes hold and I’m no longer just Maddie. “Or maybe it’s just your dazzling, prince charming looks that have me all distracted. Perhaps that boy band combo you got going on,” I lift my hand and gesture at his boyish good looks, blond hair, blue eyes, dimples, GQ suit, looks that I’m sure many women are drawn to, “It’s very hard to form words when I pretty much have my own Ken doll right in front of me.” I’ve actually always despised Ken dolls or at least I think I did. After the accident, my mom gave me boxes of my old stuff, full of things like toys, drawings, clay vases and sculptures. There were a few Barbie and Ken dolls in it and all the Ken dolls head’s were ripped off. I wonder what it means. What was going on through my head when I did it? Whether I popped the heads of the doll because I thought he cheated on Barbie or something or if maybe I just enjoyed the act of popping off his head.

Preston frowns as he squirms uncomfortably in his chair. “I thought we discussed that you can’t flirt or flatter me anymore. It’s wrong and I can’t allow it.” He’s been saying that for years and yet he never actually does anything about it.

“Oh, it’s not flattery, Preston,” I say, lowering my foot to the floor and leaning forward in the chair, tucking a strand of my chin-length black hair behind my ear. “Because I’m not a fan of Ken dolls.” Under no control of my own, I wink at him. Actually wink. Jesus.

He shakes his head, reaching for his pencil again. “Please stop that.”

“Sorry.” There’s a hint of sincerity in my voice. I’m so confused at this point. Who’s really in control over me. Maddie? Lily? It is nearly impossible to tell anymore.

He scratches down some notes on a piece of yellow legal paper. “You say you don’t like Ken dolls but how do you know that for sure?” he asks. I’m not quite sure if he’s using Ken doll as a metaphor or not, but regardless I find it amusing. “Is it because of something you remember? Or is it just a hunch you have?”

“A hunch that I don’t like plastic, blond haired, anatomically incorrect dolls?” I ask and when he nods, completely serious, Lily orders for me to have fun with him. Play a game with him, like cat and mouse. I’m conflicted whether to listen to her—always am—but in the end, I begrudgingly give in. “Well, I’m not sure if it’s a memory per se,” I say, tapping my finger on my chin. “So much as a dream I keep having?”

“Is it different from the dream you normally have?” he asks and I nod. Curiosity crosses his expression. “And what happens in this dream?”

“Headless dolls are walking around everywhere.”

“And are the dolls doing anything in particular as they walk around?”

“Yeah, they’re biting each other, like zombies.” I slant forward, cup my hand to the side of my mouth, and lower my voice, “And the strange part is that whenever I wake up, I have the strangest desire to go find a doll and eat it.”

He looks disgusted for the briefest seconds and then his repulsion shifts to irritation as I relax back in my chair, crossing my leg. Lily quiets down as she gets the satisfaction she desires and I can sit lighter because of it. “Relax, I’m just fucking with you, Preston.”

He frowns disapprovingly. “Maddie, you know as well as I do that every time you lie, it makes it harder for me to believe you.”

“Maybe that’s what I want.”

“No, I think it’s your way of avoiding the truth and what you’re most afraid of.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say calmly, despite the fear within me. Did he finally discover my secret?

He gives me a sympathetic look. “I know it’s hard to think about, but it has to bother you—the fact that you may never truly remember anything before the accident.”

I relax, but try to appear heartbroken on the outside because that’s what he expects me to do. “But the idea that I might scares me.” I press my hand to my heart, like it aches to speak of, when really I feel nothing at all. It’s so hard to explain what it’s like. Not knowing anything about yourself, yet I’m supposed to be at a point in my life where I’ve got it all figured out. I don’t have anything figured out. Not even my name. Sometimes, not even who I am…

He nods understandingly. “That’s an understandable fear. I’m sure anyone in your situation would probably feel the same way.”

Oh, I doubt anyone is feeling how I feel most days, except for maybe serial killers. And maybe a dominatrix. “So what do you suggest I do?” I ask, lowering my hand from my heart and sitting back in the chair. “To help calm the fear?”

“Talk about it,” he suggests, thrumming his fingers on top of the folder. “It’s what we really need to start working on during these sessions. Talking and communicating.”

“You say that all the time, yet we never get anywhere,” I mutter. Sometimes I wonder why I keep coming to these sessions, now that I’m an adult. The only reason I ever started was because my mother made me after the accident. She was worried about my heath due to the trauma I’d been through, even though I can’t even remember most of it. “But how am I supposed to talk about things with someone I don’t trust?”

“You don’t trust me?” he asks. “After all these years?”

I look at him. Eyes so full of concern. So nice. Polite. It seems perfectly reasonable that I’d like and trust him, but Lily won’t allow it. “You have to earn trust, just like you said and so far I feel like you haven’t.”

He sits up straight in the chair. “You can trust me. Anything that’s said in here is strictly confidential.” I swear it’s like he’s waiting for a confession.

“I know that.” I scratch at the back of my neck. Yeah, you say that now, but I’m sure the feeling would change the moment my real thoughts spilled out of me.

He opens his mouth to say something but his eyes skim over my face and he must see something that makes him hesitate. I wonder what it is. My facade. Lily. What does he see in me? I wish I knew. Understood. What’s living inside me? The thoughts of harming people. Killing them. The way Lily controls me at times and how sometimes I just want to give into her because fighting is physically and emotionally draining.

“How about we switch to a hypnotherapy session?” he says, setting his pen and folder aside on his desk.

“We’re really going to do that?” My expression sinks at the idea of being under and having no control over myself—over Lily. “I thought you were joking when you suggested that last time.”

“Why would I joke about that, Maddie?”

“Because it never worked when you tried a few years ago, so there’s no point in trying it again.”

“This method is a little different than then the one we used a few years ago,” he says, rolling up his sleeves like he’s preparing to fight.

“What’s your different method? Beating me up?” I joke to distract myself from what’s about to happen.

He gives me the fourth look of disappointment for the day. “No, Maddie. I’m not going to beat you up.” His voice is tolerant. “Look, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to—you don’t have to do anything in here that you don’t want to. You know that.” He pushes his chair back from his desk. “But I’d really like it if you did.”

I consider what he said with hesitancy. “You really think it might help bring my memories back?”

“Possibly. There’ve been a few recorded cases that this particular hypnotherapy has helped patients with memory loss.” He begins rummaging around in his desk drawer, digging around through countless amounts of pens and neon sticky notes until he finds an iPod.

Optimism. It’s something I don’t have when it comes to my memories returning to me. My amnesia didn’t come from just a bump to the head. I have Psychogenic Amnesia, which more than likely means there was some sort of stress factor that played a part in why I have no idea who the hell I was before the age of fifteen.

I shrug and get to my feet, being tolerant with Preston because I know if I don’t do this, he’ll just bug me until I do. It’s been done a handful of other times to me and he never can get me to go under. “If that’s what you think will help, then I’ll give it a go.” I amble toward the leather lounge chair in the corner of the room and he follows me with a notepad and pencil in hand. “But I’m a total pessimist that this—or anything else—will ever work.”

“Pessimism isn’t going to help you improve either.” He sits down in a chair and places the notepad on his lap, close enough now that I can smell cigarette smoke on him. “Let’s try to think positive.”

“Wow, you really are a Ken doll today, aren’t you. All perfect and positive,” I mutter, lying down on the lounge chair on my back. I overlap my hands on my stomach and stare up at the ceiling. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” I say in a false cheerful voice. Then I glance over at him. “Was that optimistic enough for you?”

“I guess so.” He’s getting irritated. I wonder if he gets this way with all of his patients. Leaning over to the side, he extends his arm toward a package of matches beside a candle. He strikes a match and lights each one, then moves his finger to an iPod dock on a nearby shelf. He scrolls through the list of titles then ultimately clicks on a tune that sounds like rain pitter-pattering against a surface. I hate the sound of rain, the smell of it. I think that’s why he chose this one—because it was raining that night—and I don’t appreciate him going there. I don’t like the sound of rain and everything it represents. My loss of everything.

“Can’t we listen to something else?” I squirm in the chair. “Maybe something a little less naturey?”

“Listening to this it’s an important part of the treatment.” He relaxes back in his seat, eyes on me as he puts the end of his pen up to his lips. “I’m trying to take you back to the day of the accident—to the day you lost your memories.”

“But I hate remembering that day,” I say. It’s the most vivid memory I have. I can still feel the coldness of the rain. The blood soaking my hair. The pain in my body. The way my heart thrashed in response to the fear. The car in the street; the car that hit me then took off. Everyone said I was lucky to have such minimal injuries on my body, considering I’d been hit on a highway where the speed limit is sixty-five. I don’t call it luck, because part of me doesn’t fully believe I was accidentally ran over. What happened though is a mystery. Maybe I threw myself in front of the car. Maybe I wanted to die. Maybe I’d gotten into some trouble with the strange man. Or maybe I just wanted to forget whoever I was. Maybe this disgustingness that’s inside me now was in me then and I just wanted to get rid of it.