"How was your session with the sexy doctor?"
"Hello to you to, Echo." I dropped my bag on the floor of the hallway and headed straight to my room. I wasn't really in the mood to be harrassed by my roommate like I had a silly high school crush.
"What, you're just gonna ignore me? It was that bad?" She yelled from the couch.
I sighed and poked my head around the wall that separted the hallway from the very small living room. "It went okay. We talked. I lost it. She consoled me. I freaked out. I left without saying good bye."
"Wow, you're even worse with the ladies than I thought," she joked, her eyes wide as she tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth.
"Funny," is all I said, then I rolled my eyes and walked back towards my door.
"I wish you could just talk to me about it, Lexa."
I wished I could too. But I couldn't bring her into this. I needed my friends. I needed her to see me as a normal girl. Someone she could joke with and talk about crushes with. I didn't need her wondering if she was friends with a murderer.
I shut my bedroom door, completely ignoring her. Echo, whose real name is Dolly, has been one of my best friends since college. Ever since the incident where I had too much to drink and fell off of a two-story balcony at a frat party. She found me and never left my side since. Over the years I've come to believe she has a thing for me. And although I am gay, I've never seen her that way. She'd jump at the chance to be with me, but she knows it's not in the cards for us. She could have went home after graduation and lived a very comfortable life with her fiance Paul, who owned a bunch of businesses and lived in a mansion in Miami. Instead she followed me to New York and announced she was gay too. Okay, well she never announced it, but I live with the girl, and the only people she invites overnight leave in the morning, carrying high heels and blushing when they see me on the couch sipping my cheap coffee. She never had to confess to me, one day we just started talking about it like I had always known.
After a hot shower, in which I cried the entire time, I lied down in my bed and stared at the ceiling. The rain was falling hard outside my window, but it did nothing to distract me from my thoughts. Even if I was into Echo, I had built walls around my heart that were strong enough to keep anyone out that dared tried to enter. And I didn't do it to protect myself, I did it to protect them. And they would be up until I could figure out what these dreams meant. I knew I could never hurt someone like that. But everything felt so real. Every time I woke from one of these dreams, it felt as if my hands were still around their throats. I could feel the anger and the sadness and a dark energy all at once. I didn't understand it. I might not be a killer, but maybe I was crazy. Maybe I left my apartment every night, found a beautiful woman, brought her back to my place, fucked her and then strangled her to death. Then I blocked it all out. Geez, how crazy did I sound? I've imagined every way imaginable that this scenario could play out, every way imaginable that I could have phsically taken another life. It's like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone and I'm standing in a dark alley, eyes squinted, trying to make out the figure in the distance. The black silhouette. The murderer in the shadows. And I'm trying to see if it's me. If it's my face staring back at me with cold eyes and a mischievous smile. And then I see her, the girl in the dream, so beautiful and innocent and full of life... until I've squeezed it all out of her. My hands around her throat as she gasps for air.
I looked down at my hands and they were shaking. I was sobbing again. And I knew it would be another sleepless night. But maybe that's a good thing.
"I, I know it's late. But I need to see you. I can't do this anymore, I don't know how."
"Where are you, Lexa? Are you home?"
"Yeah. I'm here. It's just me."
"Do you want to meet at the diner on Jefferson again? I can meet you there in a half hour."
"I'll be there."
I set my phone down and walked into the bathroom to wash my tear-stained face. I couldn't let her see me like this even though I always end up in tears during our conversations. Part of me hoped she would just come to me, that she'd just show up at my door with pizza and beer and we could have a normal friendship. But part of me always knew that she is my therapist and a professional one at that. Meeting at the diner was breaking the rules in her book, but she knew how much my life depended on it. There was also a small part of me that thought she wouldn't meet me here even if she could because she's scared of me. Because she thinks I'm a murdrerer. No, we could never be friends like I hoped. She was my doctor, and she knew about the skeletons in my closet, my deep and dark secrets, and what kept me awake at night. So we couldn't have that kind of friendship. Friends do normal things and talk about normal things. And I, well, I'm not normal.
If you're reading this, and enjoying it so far, let me know. My imagination needs inspiration to continue.