“He told Molly…”
“You, Milly. What did he say to you? You were playing house with your dolls. Did he come into your room?”
“Yeah,” I say. “He…”
I try to go through everything step by step, but it doesn’t make sense. “Milly. What did he say?”
“He…” I start to say, but choke on tears. “You ruined everything. Why are you so tempting?”
“What happened next?” Grayson pushes. “What did he say next?”
“No one can know. I’m sorry. No one can know,” I say tearfully. I press the buttons down when the memories start to untangle, and the devices hum in my hands. The vibrations are distracting, but they help. I focus on how it makes my hands tingle, and I can focus again.
“What can’t they know, Milly? What is he apologizing for?” Grayson asks.
“I… I don’t know,” I admit. “He said it can’t live. It…”
“Keep going.”
“He’s screaming and pacing. I’m on the bed. My belly hurts,” I say quietly.
“Back up, Milly. What happened to your belly?” Grayson asks. “He said it can’t live… What can’t live?”
“Me? Molly? I don’t know… He kicked me… It hurt…”
Thinking about this pain drags my brain back into that harrowing day when the entire course of my life changed.
“Daddy!” I scream through tears. His foot hits me in the belly, and I scream again. “Ow. Please!”
“I have to get rid of it. If it’s gone, they won’t know. They can’t know. Why did you do this to me, Milly? This is your fault,” he screams at me. I scream once more when he grabs me by the hair and drags me onto my bed. He’s going to do it again. I hate when he does this. It hurts, but he tells me that that’s how little girls show their love…
But he doesn’t do it… Why does he have a gun? I’m crying so hard that I can’t breathe. He presses it to my belly, and he’s screaming something at me, but everything goes quiet when a loud pop makes my ears ring.
I stare at my favorite spot on the ceiling and wonder when Mommy will be home. Am I dying? He said if anyone ever found out how much he loves me, we would die. Maybe someone found out, and now he is sad.
“Milly!” Mommy screams. I force my eyes open and see Mommy. She screams something at Daddy, but then he puts the end of the gun in his mouth. Why is he…
One by one, the memories stab through me. I don’t believe it, but I don’t have a choice. It’s the truth.
“Milly? Milly, listen to me. Listen to my voice, honey,” I hear Grayson call out to me. I am stuck in that room with a man without half of his face. Everything is bloodied and mangled. My belly hurts. Mom is crying on the phone.
Molly isn’t here.
She never was.
Greg wasn’t abusing my sister, because I don’t have one. If she never existed… Then it was me. I am the one he lies on top of most nights. I am the one he leaves a sticky mess on when he is done. I told Mom over and over that Molly was the one Greg was raping. Of course, she didn’t believe me. Molly isn’t fucking real. The girl who kept me company at night when the world got too heavy… She was never there. I was always alone, and now I don’t even have her.
“I don’t know what to do. She won’t survive inpatient care,” I hear Grayson say.
“Fuck the rules, Grayson. Hold her,” Adam says.
Grayson scoops me into his arms and wraps me in a tight hug as my sobs come out as screams. He keeps me tight against his chest with my face buried as he rocks me. I hear the soft melody of his voice, and it cuts through the grief and pain. He continues to sing softly, and I slowly calm down. I can’t focus on the words, but the vibration of his deep voice rumbles in his chest. I focus on the vibrations and let it lull me into silence. Eventually, the tears fade away, and my heart stops feeling like it’s going to explode.
On my own, I sit up and wipe my face. Grayson rubs my back, but doesn’t say a word. After a few minutes, I move to sit cross-legged on the couch and look down at my hands.
“Molly doesn’t exist, does she?” I ask quietly.
“No,” Grayson says softly. “Milly, you have a dissociative disorder. You went through something horrific as a child, and as a way to protect yourself, you created Molly to put the pain on. This way, you weren’t the one being hurt; Molly was. The brain has a way of trying to cope, so you blocked out a lot, but you also created Molly as a way to shield yourself from the painful reality. The truth is, your biological father was assaulting you. When you were ten, the rapes led to you becoming pregnant. He panicked and decided the only way out was to kill you and the baby, and then himself. Your mother got home and heard him shoot you, but shot himself when she got into the room. She went on to marry Greg six months later.”