I'm sitting on the floor in my loose white uniform, watching my hands move, playing a little xylophone. It's like I'm watching somebody else - a concert - and the music washes over me in tiny waves. My hands move, and my lungs expand, and that's all. It's nice.
The door opens and closes. I don't have to look up to know that it's me. (The other me.) I'm the only one who ever visits.
I keep playing as she approaches, standing over me. She's quiet for a while before she says, "I hear you didn't go to church today."
"Nope." My hands keep playing. "I couldn't go."
"Why not?"
"I'm sick."
"You've been sick for a long time."
"I'm worse today."
Her silence is skeptical. I know she will ask what's wrong, but I have nothing to tell her. It can't be explained.
Sighing, she sits on the floor beside me. I still don't look at her. "Jessica," she says, wearily, "have you been taking your medicine?"
"Yes!" It comes out defensive, and I hit the wrong key on the xylophone.
"Have you been eating?"
I pause, trying to regain my rhythm. ". . . yes. Some."
The concern in her voice is grating somehow. "Have you been going outside? Getting any exercise? Socializing?"
Silence as I watch my hands bounce the mallets.
She groans. "Jessica, don't you want to get better?" Her voice grows impatient, frustrated as I don't answer. "Are you listening to me? This is serious! You can't just give up!" She grabs my arm to get my attention.
I yelp in pain, wincing away and struggling to pull free. She's much stronger than I. "Jessica, look at me!" she demands, reaching over to turn my face toward her. When our eyes meet, she freezes. I am shaking.
She moves her hand, motioning gently toward my black eye, bruised and swollen. "How did this happen?" she whispers. I look away from her. Cool air touches the skin of my arm as she pulls my sleeves back to see the bruises and cuts there. I can feel her inspecting them, and my teeth clench. "Who did this to you?" she gasps, horrified.
I can't stop shaking. The music has stopped and my hands twitch uselessly in my lap. "Who did this to you?" she asks again, more forcibly.
Closing my eyes, I answer.
"You did."
A quiet moment passes.
"What?" she says.
"You did." I am shaking so I think I'll fall to pieces, but I turn to look at her. She has my face, my body, but without the scars, as if they were conveniently forgotten. "You were here last night," I tell her, "yelling and screeching at me for messing everything up, for being useless and weak and stupid. You told me I'd never be anything more than a disappointment." It feels like I'm crying, but my eyes are dry. Where are my tears when I need them? "And then you started hitting me."
My other face is backing up, half-smiling as if this is a joke. "No," she says, "you're lying. I would never do that." Her worried eyes search mine, identical shades of blue. "I'd never hurt you. I love you. I am you!"
Feeling exhausted, I push my sleeves back down over my sins. "I know," I say, softly. "But then why is there blood under your fingernails?"
Her face transforms with horror, and it is my horror, and my eyes that look down at hands with reddened tips and sore knuckles. I am the one whose memory rips through me, flashing images of violence and abuse. And when I stumble back against the wall I realize there is no one here - that I am alone in a room with a little toy xylophone - and terrified tears finally spill over my swollen eye.
There was never anyone here but me.
