Every One Of Me (4 page)

"I told you it wasn't a good idea, man. She isn't the
same girl she used to be and I don't think she ever will be," Trevor said
quietly.

"I know that, Trevor," I replied. "I just
didn't think she would treat me like a total stranger. You know how close we
were. I just couldn't
not
come over."

He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and rested
his chin in his hands. "She was telling us what was going on when you
showed up."

I snapped my head up to look at him. "And?"

He looked over at his mother and back to me before shaking
his head. "I'm not sure what would be appropriate to tell you, man."

Sarah stood quickly and walked into the kitchen. She looked
like she was about to be sick and I wanted to follow after her. Over the years,
she had become a second mother to me. Well, technically she was the only mother
to me. Mine had remarried and taken off to Europe to spend the rest of her life
traveling and being oblivious to the life she left behind. Tess and Trevor's
mom had made sure I was a part of the family. After Tess left and Trevor went
back to college, she needed someone to take care of and I was here every day
for months.

I scrubbed a hand down my face and tried to wipe away the
memory of those few days where we had no idea what had happened to Tess. Sarah
was a mess and Trevor was furious with me. He thought I was the reason she took
off, that I had hurt her in some way.

Tess and I had been best friends since the 5th grade when
Michael Stower had knocked her down and dumped a bucket of sand on her head at
the playground during recess. I kicked his legs out from under him, shoved his
face in the sand, and told him if he touched her again I would make sure he ate
nothing but sand every day for the rest of the year. I helped her clean the
sand out of her hair and she hugged me and said thank you. She had the
prettiest voice out of all the girls in school and I had always wanted to talk
to her, but was too shy. After that, we spent every recess together and I made
sure no one messed with her. I was a scrawny kid, but I could fight if I needed
to.

We were inseparable all the way through high school and even
though it tortured me to watch her go on dates with other guys and hear about
who she thought was cute, I always answered the phone and listened to her
excited voice tell me all about them. Senior year was different. Her summer
boyfriend broke up with her the day before school started because he didn't
want to be 'tied down' when he could be having fun and going out with other
girls. She came over to my house in tears and I held her for hours while she
told me all the things she had liked about him and kept asking why no one
wanted to be with her.

I made it my goal that year to show her how much she meant
to me. I had been in love with her since I first saw her at recess in the 4th
grade when I had been the new kid who had just moved into the neighborhood. She
was playing hop scotch with her friends and her long braid bounced up and down
on her back, hypnotizing me. I attempted to talk to her several times, but
there was always someone who got to her first. Until the day I saved her from
Michael.

Senior year, I didn't go out with any other girls, not that
there were a lot of girls that really wanted to go out with me. I had only ever
been on three dates and those were girls from church whose mothers were friends
with my mother and talked me into taking them to a dance. I wasn't the guy I
was now. I was shy and reserved, only really opening up whenever it was just
Tess and me.

When Sarah got the call from Tess after she had disappeared,
Trevor had to hold me back from snatching the phone away. He ended up punching
me in the face and sitting on my chest to keep me down. He had broken my nose,
but I hadn't noticed all the blood. His mom hung up the phone in tears and told
me that there was nothing any of us could do to get her back. We had to let her
go.

I don't think I had ever cried before that day and I know I
hadn't cried since. That was the day my heart was ripped out of my chest and
nothing but a gaping hole was left. I lived for the monthly post cards and the
only reason I woke up every day was the hope that she had sent one early and it
would say where she was so I could find her.

I begged Sarah to let me talk to her that first Mother's Day
that she called, but she wouldn't let me. That's when she told me that she had
made Tess a promise to never speak of me. She would stop sending post cards if
I was ever brought up and Sarah couldn't stand the thought of not knowing if
she was okay. I stopped asking anything about her after that, only finding out
she was safe when a new card would come in the mail. I started fighting then,
doing mixed martial arts and competing underground and buried myself in my
training. I stayed busy, traveling around the country for fights but always
came back. Trevor graduated and moved back to be close to his mother and help
take care of her.

I started taking care of both of them when I won my first
championship. Sarah never asked for anything, but I sent her a check on the
first day of every month no matter where I was and made sure she cashed it. She
really didn't have a choice. She would lose the house and everything else
without my help.

"Don't take it too personal, Charlie," Trevor
said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Tess is back. That's what
matters. There's time to fix things."

I nodded reluctantly and looked into the kitchen. Sarah was
sitting at the dining table with her head in her hands. "What do I need to
do?" I asked him.

"I don't know. Give her some time. She's been on her
own now for years and I don't think she has really accepted what is going on
with her," he replied.

Ellie scoffed, "How could anyone accept that? She's
unpredictable and shouldn't be anywhere but in a mental hospital."

I stood abruptly and couldn't stop the words coming out of
my mouth if I tried. "Don't you dare speak about her that way. You have no
idea who she is and you have no right to--"

"That's enough!" Sarah shouted from the kitchen.

Ellie started talking as if nothing had happened,
"Forgive me for being cautious about being in the same room as a freaking
psychopath!"

A crash sounded from the kitchen just before Sarah appeared
in the doorway looking more menacing than I had ever seen her. "Get out of
my house!"

Trevor snatched Ellie up by her arm and dragged her to the
door. "This is a shock for all of us, Mom. Ellie just isn't used to drama
like this. I'll take her home and be back in a while, give us all a chance to
cool down."

I shook my head as he walked out the door. The man was
dense. Never in a million years would I marry someone who spoke about my sister
that way, if I had ever had a sister. Something had to be done about that, but
right now, the focus was Tess. We watched them leave and I forced my feet to
stay where they were and not let them take me up the stairs to Tess.

"Charlie, come here, sweetie." Sarah tilted her
head to the kitchen and went back in to sit down. I took the seat across from
her and sat silently. "How was the fight, dear?"

I had gotten back into town two days ago and distracted
myself with training, so I didn't get a chance to call yet. "I won. Got
another coming up next month in New York."

"Congratulations, you don't look like he got in any
punches." She smiled and studied my face, checking for the usual scrape or
bruise.

"Not this time," I said. "New guy who was too
cocky. I knocked him out 45 seconds into the first round." I cracked my
knuckles and stretched my fingers, feeling the stiffness from a day of training
on the bags. I had been working harder than ever for the last couple weeks
knowing that Tess was planning on coming back, I just didn't know
exactly
when.

"You were cocky once," she chuckled. "Your
first fight sent you to the hospital. I don't think I have ever seen so many
bruises on one person before." She had come straight to the hospital after
Trevor told her what had happened. She started yelling at me the second the
doctor walked out of the room. I couldn't help but laugh when she said she
would do twice the damage if I ever let another one of those 'big lugs' take me
down like that again.

"I'm less cocky now."

Her smile faded and I had to look away. She was such a
strong woman and was there for me when I needed her. She needed me now and so
did Tess.

"She needs you, Charlie. More now than ever
before," she said gently. "Just be patient."

I sighed and nodded in agreement. "I've been patient
for 5 years, Sarah. I would wait for her for the rest of my life. I won't let
her go again. You know that."

"Yes, I know." She took a sip of her tea and
closed her eyes. "When you first realized something was wrong… what was it
that told you she…?"

I rubbed the back of my neck and peered down at the old
table that had been in this kitchen since before I was born. It was worn down
and scratched, much like we all had been over the last few years. Tess had been
wearing thin before any of us really knew something was wrong.

"I chalked up the first episode to her being drunk. We
were sophomores and had gone to Danny Danko's birthday party. You remember
that? We told you we were staying with friends overnight at the lake, but we
really were just too drunk to come home."

She shook her head in amusement. "I knew you were drunk
when you called me and told me she had already fallen asleep. You were slurring
your words so badly, I could barely understand you."

"Serious? And you never said anything?"

She chuckled, "No, Charlie. I knew you wouldn't let
anything happen to her. And how was I supposed to stop you. You both were
already drunk and I had no vehicle to come and get you. Trevor had taken the
car to that same party."

"Yeah, well, we thought we had you fooled. Tess was
terrified of disappointing you, though, and swore never to do that again. I
never saw her drink anything with alcohol after that night. Especially after
she woke up the next morning and couldn't remember anything. We thought it was
because of the drinking, but after what happened that summer, I realized it was
more than that."

She hadn't even remembered going to the party in the first
place. She was freaking out when she woke up in the back of my station wagon
next to me instead of her own bed. I told her what had happened and she
couldn't remember anything at all. Didn't even know we had gone to the party in
the first place.

"I really knew something was wrong when later that
summer we had gone to the lake together and she hadn't remembered even going
with me," I added quietly.

"Yes, I remember that. I noticed something was off
earlier that week. She was acting so strange. Not her usual relaxed self. She
was so jittery and loud. I remember her pointing things out that she would have
never pointed out before, like a zit that Trevor had or a shirt that didn't
look good on me. I finally had to tell her she couldn't go out until she fixed
her attitude." Her brow furrowed as she remembered.

"What's going on, Sarah?" I couldn't take the
mystery anymore. I couldn't do anything until I knew what was happening with
Tess.

She took a deep breath and said, "She'll probably kill
me for telling you, but she is too stubborn to do it herself." She stood
and walked to the sink to rinse out her mug, then braced herself on the counter
and stared out the window. "She has dissociative identity disorder,
Charlie. Multiple personalities. I don't even know how to help her. I'm her
mother and I can't help her."

I didn't know what to say and I couldn't wrap my head around
what I had just been told. I just sat and listened as Sarah told me what she
knew.

Trevor walked in about 30 minutes later and apologized for
what Ellie had said. "She's not really familiar with any of this stuff so
she didn't know what she was saying," he said.

I was starting to believe Sarah's suggestion that he really
was brain washed. That or he just didn't think he deserved anyone better. I was
there when he and Ellie first started dating. She wasn't so bad at first. They
had known each other back in high school, but were in different groups and
never really spoke to each other until he came back from college and saw her in
town. They went out a few times and we all hung out occasionally without any
problems. It was when I brought them out to L.A. for one of my fights that I
noticed she was putting on a show for him.

Trevor had gone to sleep in the extra room of the suite we
were staying in and she came out into the living room where I was settling up
some of the schedule with my team. We all got to talking and she said some
things about Trevor that surprised me. Things a woman shouldn't tell her man's
best friend. When my team left, she tried to convince me to have a drink with
her. When I refused, she started coming on to me and tried to kiss me. I shoved
her away and let her know exactly what I thought of her before heading into my
room and locking the door. The next morning, she had already gotten to Trevor
and tried to convince him that I had tried to get her to have sex with me. The
only problem with that plan was that she didn't know about Tess.

I had been with a few women over the years. I was in a
career that gave ample opportunity for me to be with someone with no strings
attached. After my first win, I had discovered how easy it was to find a woman
to help distract me from what I really wanted, but couldn't have. Trevor had
previously been with me on one of those occasions that I was especially
ignorant about who I was taking back to my room. He stopped me and dragged me
back home to his mother who then told me that she had spoken to Tess a week
before and she knew where she was. I broke down and finally said out loud what
they had known all along. I was in love with Tess.