Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 97525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“She injected me with something. I went straight there after I got in the fight with you so what—how long has it been? Twelve hours? A day?”
“Three days.”
He is silent at the news, but I can see in the tight flex of his jaw, the subtle fist of his hands, how much the timeframe angers him. This is what I am more accustomed to. Not the wild fight in the bed, but the small battle restrained inside of him.
I press harder on the gas, and zip through an intersection before the yellow light turns red. The car’s windshield is fogging in the chilly morning air, and I hit the defrost button on my steering wheel and try to think through Jillian’s next steps. "Should you call your parents? It might be best for you to speak to them before Jillian does."
I reluctantly pull my hand from his, putting both on the steering wheel before he feels the shake in my palms. I am literally shaking with anger, at myself, at Brant, at the manipulation this woman has had in our lives. "Brant, what kind of sick person ties someone down? We have to think about what else she’s capable of.”
"Maybe it was for the best.”
I let out a strangled laugh. “What? Are you kidding me?”
“What if I'm dangerous?" His voice is quiet but walks the steps of giants.
I slow the car down as we approach our private drive and jerk my gaze to him. "You're not dangerous, Brant."
"Brant isn't dangerous. But you said yourself I have other personalities, what if one of them..." He suddenly leans forward and grips the sides of his head. "Oh my God."
"What?" I pull the wheel hard and make the turn through our gates. They are open, Len standing by the guard shack and waving us through. I gun the Mercedes’s engine and careen down the long driveway and then brake hard by the front doors. Shifting into park, I undo my seat belt and twist to face him, alarmed at the grief on his face. He was breaking down on me, right there in his seat, and while I had seen him shift personalities before—this was something different. This was a cascade into a dark, negative emotion. I pull at his arm, grip his shirt, try to pull his attention to me, but his eyes are vacant, his hands still clawing at his head as he shakes it from side to side.
"December twelfth," he whispers. "Oh my God. December twelfth."
The date means nothing to me, and I turn off the car and reach for the handle, about to get out and go around to his side when suddenly he stills. I turn back to see him drop his hands into his lap, a calm settling over him as he raises his head and finally meets my eyes.
"I remember." He says softly. "I remember December twelfth."
Chapter 73 - Brant
TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO
There is not a moment when I feel the switch, when it bubbles through me and replaces one person with another. There is nothing to fight. Nothing to struggle against. I simply open my eyes to a place I don't recognize. I stare around, take in my surroundings, and then continue.
Our minds are unique in that they are like infants in their acceptance of what is shown. I don't wonder that I don't remember yesterday, because I have always had no yesterday. To me, that’s normal. That personality has never lived another way. I don't find it strange to be suddenly awake and at a restaurant and midway through a meal because that is what I know. How I know life to be. The regular world, as a species, doesn't question the fact that they close our eyes each night and eight hours passes in a millisecond. A person doesn’t question the fact that they may have said things in their sleep or they shrug over a conversation they had in the middle of the night with a spouse—a conversation they don’t remember occurring. And just as they don't question that, I never questioned the last two decades where things didn't always make sense. I blamed any gaps in memory or sudden changes in location on my medication's side effects and my understanding that this is how the world works.
But now, suddenly, I remember something. One glimpse into a day I have wondered about for twenty years.
I didn't know much about my world when I opened my eyes on December twelfth, other than a few simple facts. My name was Jenner. I was eleven. There was a girl down the street named Trish who had a pet mouse and wouldn’t let me play with it. She’d shown me the tiny, trembling figure a few weeks earlier and I had touched it. Pale white with red eyes, I had poked it too roughly and she had pushed me away. Pulled it close to her chest and screamed that I’d never touch it again.