Page 66 of Girl Like Me

Lying bitch. “I don’t remember, I thought I was going to move in with my boyfriend and they wouldn’t let me go.”

“And this is the same one who you said broke you out of here. When you were beaten and ended up in hospital?”

“Yes.”

He sits back in his chair and continues his assessment of how crazy I am.

“You never escaped from here, Bristol. You were doing really well on your new medication and we sent you home to see how you would cope, but you don’t remember any of that.”

I shake my head no adamantly. I know I can fight them on this, but it will only make them shove crap down my throat and make me believe I'm insane.

“No, I don’t remember.”

“And this new personality, I’m told her name is JD. Is that correct?”

I nod my head yes. “Why am I creating these personalities? I don’t remember ever having any.”

“That’s because JD is new, she wouldn’t know anyone else yet. As for why, we’re unsure of what triggered it to begin with, but since your brother's death, things have been worse.”

I can’t believe that they would believe this crap. He clearly hasn’t worked with me before, he makes that obvious as keeps looking down at the notes in front of him.

“So you’re saying that since my brother died, I created another personality to hide behind, and that I have been delusional about everything? That I don’t have five boyfriends?”

I almost laugh at myself, of course they’re using this angle. It sounds insane that I would have five boyfriends, since that isn’t normal to begin with.

“Yes to your first two questions and no to your last one. Can you hear how that sounds when you say it out loud?”

I nod because at least that much is true.

“Yes I do understand that it sounds crazy, but honestly it seemed so real.”

“And you believe that it wasn’t all a manifestation of your imagination.”

“Of course I do, I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I suggest when someone like me comes in here you don’t handle things the way you guys did. I mean, you didn’t even give me a chance to process something that felt so real to me before jabbing me with chemicals that made me drowsy and in a cloud of fog in my brain.”

He eyes me warily, he isn’t sure if he believes me or not and I don’t blame him since he is the one lying to me. I wonder how much he’s been paid to lie to me, to keep me locked away here. I wonder what Shandra's end game is. Is it to marry Sebastian and then she will let me out, or is it Carter and is this all his doing so I’ll marry him? There is zero chance of any of that happening now or even in this lifetime. I know that my guys will find a way to get me out of here. My father seemed like he genuinely cared, so I’m hoping that they contact him and he comes to save me.

“In our next session we can work on you finding your way back to being Bristol, but recognising that JD’s life is just in your head is a good start.”

“Is it wrong that I really liked her life? She is a nice person.”

“That is normal, she is obviously all the parts about yourself that you like. We will work through everything and we'll have you feeling like your old self soon enough.”

I nod and hope that I can play along long enough or they may start sticking me with enough drugs to tranquilize a horse.

He wraps up our session after that and a male nurse comes and escorts me to a new room. The door still locks from the outside but the setup is much nicer than the last one they had me in. A single bed -pushed up against the wall- a desk, a closet that has shelves and a small tv mounted on the wall. On the desk there is a journal and a pencil. I guess they want me to start writing down my feelings.

I lay down on the bed and use the remote to turn on the tv. There are no local channels, only Foxtel. I find an Adam Sandler movie and remember when the guys and I had a movie marathon. How can this be my life? Surely things like this only happen in movies. I can’t imagine why they would all want to be with me; they had a traumatic enough childhood and all I seem to be doing is creating more trauma. Yet, I couldn’t walk away from them even if I wanted to and maybe that alone is a sign of the old me.

Rory’s mum never comes back to the dining hall when I’m there. I’ve waited to see if she passed along my message. All of her words could have been lies, she is sick after all or she wouldn’t keep coming back here.

“Wait,” someone yells. I look up and see Lissa and Deacon coming my way. “You can’t be in here.”

“We can actually. We have a warrant for the arrest of Bristol Montgomery.” Deacon says, causing my heart to hammer in my chest. I didn’t kill anyone.

“She can’t leave. We would need to call her parents, she’s a minor.”

Lissa is pissed, her stare void of emotion. “Bristol Montgomery, you are under arrest for the murder of Milo Montgomery…”

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