Page 38 of Exposed
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. Ambroseisa 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 back to school. 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.
Imove. Step. Breathe. It’s like I’m watching myself, a puppet connected to strings, operated by an invisible force. I’m not sure what to do, who I am, or why I have this need to see my mother’s grave one last time. Maybe it’ll give me the confirmation that this is the right decision for me.
Benji, the only safe person in this world, is gone now.
At least my father is still alive.
Somehow, I get through the cemetery’s rusted black gates. Sparse lights illuminate the brown grass between the headstones. It’s quiet here. A low buzzing sensation ripples through me, a dying light’s last surge of energy. I’m completely numb.
Just keep going,I think.Step. Breathe. It’s okay, because you’re going to end this. You’re doing this for a good reason. The right reason.
I pat the knife and the pill container in my pockets, then I swallow hard, tears burning my eyes.
A week ago, seeing her gravestone would renew hope inside of me. I was close to finally getting myself back. Killing someone would obviously landme in jail, but wouldn’t it be better than being trapped in my own mind? Better than if I didn’t do it?
I stop at her grave. Her headstone rises to my knees, and yet its presence looms like a tower.Freakis written across it in jagged, faded pink letters. Below it, the dark, empty grave beckons me, a cheap coffin propped open at the bottom covered in shadows.
Benji was right. I didn’t dig up my mother’s grave, but someone did.
It was probably Dr. Ambrose.
But why would he go through such great lengths to convince Benji I had dug up my mother? Does Dr. Ambrose want methatmuch?
I shake my head. I hate that I like that idea.
