The Person Within Me

There was a loud noise- a banging- and my head hurt bad enough without it that I could only curse out loud that the noise was only making it worse. I was too confused and dizzy that I could only imagine Eva had managed to push her way into me, and as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I snapped my eyes open and looked around.

How long had passed this time?

Where was I in my last memory? I head hurt with the effort of remembering and suddenly I felt something wet hit my hand. I looked down and saw a small red drop, I gasped and stood up from my bed and ran to my bathroom. My nose was bleeding slightly, and I grabbed a piece of paper to clean it.

Was it a response to the effort I was doing at remembering?

I groaned, desperate. It was impossible for me to live my life with these problems; I wouldn’t be able to endure it. She was too much of a burden and she held such resentment to me that I had to be scared of what she would to by herself each time she broke her way through.

The party, that´s where I was supposed to be. I was talking to Tyler at the party; he was saying something about why he asked me out or something. I looked at the clock on my nightstand and cursed again. It was nine in the morning. How had the party ended?

I didn’t have much time to think it through, because the banging in my door returned, this time accompanied with the voice of my mom. “Shiloh, wake up! Hunter came to see you, he´s waiting for you in the porch.”

I frowned confused. What was Hunter doing at my house at this hour? He was supposed to have a big hangover and sleep till noon.

I changed into a pair of jean shorts and a loose T-shirt, and I walked down the stairs slowly wishing I had time to myself to think about what had happened at the party instead of having Hunter in my doorstep waiting for God knows what. I found him leaning against the railing of the stairs of the porch, sunglasses over his eyes and arms crossed across his chest.

Eva sighed happily and butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Weren’t you supposed to be the cold one? I asked her. I was supposed to be the romantic and dreamy one that got week when I saw Tyler, and now here she was urging to break through again. But I wasn’t going to let her, not so soon after she had already been in control.

Hunter looked up when the door clicked behind me. I waved awkwardly at him. “What´s up?”

“’What´s up’?” he asked and I could see his eyebrows rising above his sunglasses. “That´s what you´re going to say?”

I closed my mouth in a tight line and opened my eyes a little wider. “What…would you like me to say?”

“How about you explain me what happened last night?”

Oh my God, what did Eva do? What did you do?! I asked directly to her, but she remained conveniently silent. This was one of the moments when I most hated having her around, because sometimes she could come in handy, but I absolutely loathed the blackouts and much more than she in control when I couldn’t know what was happening.

Slowly, as the days passed by and I started to weaken by her presence, I could feel myself fade away. I could feel her eventual victory.

Hunter didn’t give my any time to sulk inside my head and he moved closer to me. “Why did you kiss me?”

I was speechless, with my heart frozen and no air inside my lungs. Kiss him? She had kissed him? I was both terrified and furious; Hunter was mine, he was my best friend not someone for her to steal and do whatever she wanted with. And what did it mean now? Did it ruin our friendship? Of course it did, unless I could find a believable excuse he wouldn’t forgive me this, not messing with his head like that.

I hate you, I spat at her. A current was traveling my veins and my fingers started to tremble slightly, I knew she wanted to lock me away, to talk to him herself about what had happened. But I pushed her away: You´ve done enough.

“I don´t-” I started to say not really believing he would buy anything I said. “I don’t remember most of last night.”

He took his sunglasses off and looked at me angrily. “Bullshit! You were not drunk, Shiloh, I know you weren’t. Don’t use that as an excuse.”

I shook my head. “I´m not lying.”

“There must be a reason why you did it. Why can´t you just tell me?” he argued. “If you regret it, that´s fine, I already knew you didn’t feel that way about me. But you must´ve known I do feel that way about you.”

“What?” I choked out. Tyler had been right. Oh shit, if I kissed Hunter last night what had happened with Tyler? What had Eva done to him?

Nothing, she said, just what you never had the balls to do. I put him in his place.

And, as if she was having mercy of the torment I was in, she displayed a review of everything she had done since I blacked out. She was past being mean, she could feel her freedom so close. She knew I was seconds away from breaking.

Hunter was oblivious to my inner battle and the almost defeat I was having, unable to keep a hold of my body for much longer. “You had to know I saw you as much more than a friend, I just never thought you could see me like that because you´ve always been so in love with Dawson. So I just want you to tell me why you kissed me? If you knew how I felt about you then why would you put me through that? And if you didn’t, then what made you do it?”

“Hunter, I don´t remember,” I told him, my hands shaking and tears pooling my unfocused eyes. “I- I swear I don’t remember.”

He looked at me, not believing. “Why can´t you just tell me?”

“There´s something wrong with me, Hunter,” I said, my voice cracking. What are you doing? Eva asked warily. “I´m going crazy.”

Don’t you dare!

“What are you talking about?” he asked, confused at my unexpected response to his simple question.

I shook my head, fighting the barrier Eva was putting out. “I hear voices- one voice. She´s driving me crazy and I can´t fight her off.”

What do you think you´re doing? She screamed enraged. We both know this isn´t going to be beneficial for either of us? They´ll destroy us both!

No. I shook my head again, this time to Eva. You´re already destroying me, I have to take a chance; I have to try to get rid of you. I ran my hands through my hair and only then I noticed how violently they were shaking, the tears in my eyes started to spill and Hunter grew worried.

“Shiloh, are you serious?” he asked concerned at how I was.

I looked at him defeated, I was acknowledging her to him, I was making her completely real. “I didn’t kiss you, the other girl did.”

“You´re being serious.” This time, it wasn’t a question.

“I didn’t want anyone to know- know that I´m crazy,” I said, my jaw shaking too. “But I can´t lie with her there; I have blackouts and I don’t remember anything she does in that time.”

He was stunned. “She?”

I nodded. “The other girl, Eva.”

He seemed speechless to the fact that I had given a name to the voice inside my head. “But… fuck, Shiloh, are you sure this is real? You can hear he?.” He didn’t want to believe me, but I was falling apart right in front of him and he could not ignore that.

“I can´t just hear her, she takes over sometimes,” I told him, a growing pain stabbing the back of my head as Eva banged enraged at my barriers. “I can´t control what she does and I can’t tune her off.”

Stop it! Eva yelled.

I closed my eyes shut trying to keep a hold of myself, but feeling the vibrations that rocked my whole body at her anger and urge to push her way through. Hunter moved closer and grabbed me by the shoulders; I opened my eyes, feeling the defeat crawl in my skin.

“What´s wrong?”

“She´s furious.” I shook my head. “She didn’t want anyone to know about her either, she thinks they´ll lock us up because no one with understand.”

He leaned back and shook his head, stunned with all the information he had not been expecting to receive. “You have to tell your parents.”

I nodded; I already knew I couldn’t tell him this and expect him to be okay with not telling my parents. “I know, but I don’t want to. They´ll send me to the psychiatric ward of the hospital.”

“They won´t, I won´t let them,” he said frowning.

He won´t be able to do anything about it, they´ll medicate us, she said desperate. We´ll both disappear.

“Promise me,” I urged walking forward. “Promise me you won´t let them lock me up, not even if they say it´s what´s best for me. I could never survive it.” He nodded. “And promise me you won´t let them tell anyone, not even Sam.”

Hunter titled his head to a side sadly. “She´s your sister, Shiloh.”

“She hates me.”

He chuckled sending me a fond smile. “She doesn’t hate you; she´s jealous.”

I opened my eyes wide unbelievingly. “Of what?”

“You have everything she wants and you don’t even do a thing to get it.” His eyes were both sad and nostalgic. “You have me and Tyler running after you and you never noticed until we said it out front. You´re so freaking innocent and blind.”

The mention of Tyler made my heart stop beating for a second. “Tyler doesn’t like me, he likes Eva.”

It seemed impossible to Hunter that Shiloh addressed the girl inside her head as a person they both knew. “And she kissed me?” he asked uneasy talking about another girl in the body of his oldest friend. “Then she…”

“She likes you,” I nodded. “She´s ruining everything; she´s tearing me apart from the inside.”

Because you can´t handle being whole!

“Then we have to get rid of her,” he said simply. “You need to talk to a doctor about this.”

I looked up at him, the way Eva was pushing my limits had me going close to insanity. “But she´s the one who reciprocates your feeling, if she´s gone-”

He didn’t let me finish. “It doesn’t matter. I prefer to have you whole and alive. I´ll survive without her.”

Eva snarled. Yes, he will. But will you?

&&

Having time to myself was something I had always taken for granted, and when Eva showed up I thought I wouldn’t be able to survive her constant presence. I thought I had it as worse as I could then, but I had no idea that the moment my parents knew about my problem, my life would become much more crowded.

As soon as I told them sent me running for a psychiatrist, and I was never alone after that. I was officially diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder and the news didn’t spread out like I thought they would, everyone kept quiet about it. Everyone had agreed that the best thing for me and my recovery was to stay at a clinic for at least a week, Eva had been right, not even Hunter had been able to convince my parents out of it.

I thought that if I wasn’t crazy by the time I had been admitted, I would definitely go crazy after the entire week there. I could never be alone, doctors wanted to monitor my behavior, hoping and waiting for the moment Eva broke through.

But she never did, she wanted to survive that week as much as I did.

After I had finally been released, I had constant appointments with my psychiatrist who wanted to see the progress I was making with the medicines they were giving me. Anti-psychotics to make of Eva a bad part of my past. But they never actually made her leave; they just pushed her down so much and pushed me to my limit so much that we were suffocating.

Her suffering was my torture, and just then I understood what she had meant when she said I might not survive her absence. She was just as big a part of me as I myself was, she was the parts I had never been able to accept, the ones that were keeping me from being whole.

Today was the first day I didn’t have to visit my psychiatrist after two weeks of having to see him daily. Today were over two weeks since I had spoken of my problem to someone else, and today was the day where I could feel a little bit at peace.

I climbed the stairs after my mother had shouted at me it was time to take my medicine, I walked into the bathroom, grabbing one of the white pills from the orange bottle and looked at myself in the mirror. Today was the day I was supposed to know what really felt to be alone. I looked at the pill in my hand and then back at my reflection, smirking slightly, letting the pill slip from my fingers and down the sink.

Then again, I was never really alone.