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The Real
The oldest Bobby Goren has ever felt was thirty. At forty-two, he will still never feel as old as he did on the day he turned thirty.
You see, thirty was the age that Bobby Goren knew he was real.
As a child, Bobby learned how to be invisible. He learned that skill very, very well. Being invisible was not a matter of disappearing. No, being invisible was the ability to lack distinction. A chameleon does not cease to exist. A chameleon does not lose its shape. No. A chameleon simply becomes indistinguishable from its surroundings.
He used to do it instinctively. Now, like everything else, he does it on purpose. He mimics. He changes colour, to suit his environment. He slides into mirrors of posture and movement, breath rate and speech patterns. This is how to be invisible. He understands the stances of neutral and non-threatening. He knows the rhythms of friendly tones and open expressions. He is a master of strategy.
And he learned it so very young.
On his thirtieth birthday, something inside of Bobby Goren relaxed. He let go of the instincts, and they became skills.
He has never liked the tale of Alice in Wonderland, so he keeps a copy of the book on his shelf. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer… and other such clichés. Alice is the story that once made him furious, that choked him with bitter rage when he was nine years old. It made hot tears run down his face in the dark, but the only physical manifestation of that rage that ever came was in his hands. He clenched his fists. He clenched his fists until his knuckles went white and his nails cut into his palms.
She was the one that read it to him. He hates it for the irony.
On his thirtieth birthday, Bobby Goren took that book off his shelf and read it. And then he made himself read it again. And again. This was how he spent the night of his thirtieth birthday. Alone, with a book and a bottle of wine. To celebrate, because the dream was over.
At thirty, Bobby Goren was awake.
He calls her everyday. It is to make up for the time he did not call her everyday. The dream is over now, and talking to her, seeing her, is a lot less harrowing.
He doesn't feel that sickening horror like he used to.
He is forty-two now, although no age after thirty matters to him. Sometimes he wonders if she understands what it was like for him. Other times he is certain she doesn't. She would not have read him that book. She would not have said those things. He would not have been forced to walk that fine line, while she tried so hard to drag him down.
She didn't understand. She never will. He forgives her for that. He loves her. He is well past thirty, and he is safe to love her.
When he was younger, when he was not yet thirty, he could not love her, or not love her properly. He could not be free, because he was always afraid. He is a good cop with a high solve rate because he spent thirty years questioning.
He questioned reality. Her reality, and his.
The psych classes were fun. He took them because he was compelled to. And laying open his first text book was like listening to her read to him. Down the rabbit hole we go. Look carefully. Where is the evidence? Where is the fact and what is the lie? Truth is only relative to perspective; that was what he learnt.
Those textbooks were case studies of his nightmares. They were a fix, a bad habit; a train wreck he was rubbernecking on the way to the station. They were his dirty secret and he inhaled every word. He used to wonder if he'd be in there one day. 'A police officer with high functioning intellect'.
He second-guessed. He checked his environment, his sense of reality, the reactions of those around him. He self-actualised himself in circles, looking for the clues. For the first symptoms. He yelled at her on the phone to stop, to stop and listen to herself, to take her meds and please, please stop talking. Please stop.
Bobby Goren was an only child. She had been his main caretaker. Until he was seven years old, they had hidden together in the rabbit hole, and everything was labelled eat me, drink me, and everything was the truth, at least from their perspective. He had lived inside her delusions. Played amongst her shadows. Picked up every word that fell from her mouth, and made it into his world.
When he was seven years old, Bobby Goren and his mother had climbed in the bathtub with all their clothes on, and she had slit her wrists and he had made swirls in the water with her blood.
He was nine when she got out of the hospital. She read him Alice in Wonderland, as a bedtime story, and his world had fallen in on him like a pack of cards.
At forty-two, he enjoys his job. He can separate the real from the false. He left behind the dream on the day he turned thirty.
Thirty was the age at which Bobby Goren was safe from schizophrenia.
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