The Forgotten Girl

The longer I try to sift through my thoughts, the more confused I get. Something snaps within me and suddenly I lose it. I start tearing the room apart, throwing clothes out of the dresser and closet, scattering papers that are in the nightstand drawers. I tear the bloody sheets off the bed, leave my fingerprints everywhere. If the cops had their suspicions about me being a killer before, I just gave them all the evidence to convict me. That is, if there’s a body.

Go. Before this gets worse.

I start to turn to leave and step on a white shirt. The pressure of my weight makes it press against the carpet and stain the innocent fabric with blood, along with the red, oval buttons, two of which are missing. I don’t even know why I do it. I’ve already left my fingerprints, DNA, and every other mark about me all over the place. Still, I pick up the shirt, let my fingers get stained with more blood as I examine it. It has to be Bella’s, but then why did I have the button in my pocket that night?

I drop the shirt to the floor like it’s made of coal. Then I take off, wanting to get the hell out of the house. But it’s still somewhat light outside and I’m covered in blood. So instead of running out the front door, I hurry into the bathroom. It’s the most sickening thing I’ve ever done. Well, maybe. Depending on what happens when I blackout. But I still do it, take a shower in Bella’s bathroom and wash the blood that might be hers off my body. Then I put on some of her clean clothes that I find in the washroom. A black skirt and a white shirt, very similar to the one I left to be forgotten in blood on the bedroom floor. I leave my damp hair down and take it one step further, finding a tube of red lipstick and mascara in the medicine cabinet. I stare at my reflection for a moment, looking for evidence that maybe the eyes staring back at me aren’t my own anymore. Who is this girl in the mirror? A sinner? A good girl who’s just gotten lost? A girl who’s lost her identity?

Suddenly I see a face appear behind me, a body of a girl that looks just like me only has long blond hair and piercings covering her face. She smiles at me through the mirror and I whirl around, only to find that she’s gone.

“Lily,” I say with my hand pressed to my racing heart as I recollect seeing her take my hand and guiding me down the hallway before I passed out. “Is that you?”

The only response I get is the quiet.

I hurry out of the bathroom and to the backdoor, ready to slip out of the house. As I’m rushing through the kitchen, I spot a piece of paper on the countertop. I’m not sure if it was there or not when I walked in, but what catches my attention is the bloody handprint on the front of it.

I pick it up and flip it over, my heart trying to escape my chest before I even see what’s on the other side. It’s like I already know what it is and when I see the picture of myself, I’m not even that surprised. I’m not even sure when it was taken, probably before the accident since in the picture; my hair is blond and long like how the detective described it. I look rougher, piercings in my lips, darkness in my eyes, and an ‘I don’t give a shit’ smirk on my face as I flip the camera off. But the real icing on the cake is scribbled in the corner is the name Lily Asherford.

“Why does Bella have this?” I mutter.

Someone over my shoulder whispers, Go.

I don’t turn around to see if anyone’s there. I just stuff the photo into my pocket and run away from the house, wishing I could run away from myself as well.

Chapter 16

Maddie

It was a project getting back into the house and I set off the alarm again, pissing my mother off even more. She starts getting edgy, nervous, as if she’s waiting for a killer to show up—or that she’s living with one. She keeps her distance from me, glad when I spend a lot of time in my room, waiting for the police to show up like a vulture waits for death. It’s all I think about; it consumes every inch of my mind. I watch the news for a discovered body. Hide the button. Throw Bella’s clothes away when I get home. I call in sick for work for the next four days, worried what I’ll find when I get there. The police. River had to have given up my alibi by now and if not, then someone had to have discovered the blood at Bella’s apartment. Bella. I’ve tried to call her, tried to make sense of the blackout and the scene I woke up to, but her cellphone’s been disconnected. Something’s wrong. If I was a good person I’d go to the police, risk myself to make sure Bella’s safe. But I’m not a good person. I’m Lily. All her.

So instead I stay home and lock myself in my room with my secrets. Nothing happens except for when I get a call from a concerned Glen asking if I’m okay on a voicemail. I’ve been sick for so long and he’s worried about my health. I’m worried about my health—my mental health.

I don’t sleep more than a few minutes a night. Too afraid to shut my eyes. I can’t take any risks. But it’s starting to affect me. I’m starting to see things that aren’t real, like Lily standing in my mirror all the time. And I’m talking to her more and more. In fact, she’s pretty much all I talk to.

To pass time, I do some research on fires nearby where my mother said I was hit, wondering if I put the pieces of my past together then perhaps somehow I can figure out the madness of the present. I find an article about a forest fire that happened in the general location. No casualties, but it did say an old building burned down. There’s a picture of it in the article. It’s faded, black and white, but it looks like an outdated hospital, one I know for a fact I’ve been to before.

Flames ignite around me. Smoke smothers my lungs. My skin feels like melting wax.

“You did this,” someone whispers. “So you might as well run.”

Run? “I can’t… not without her.”

“She’ll be fine. She did put you here after all.”

They’re right. She did put me here, made me take her place. And now it’s time to run away from it. Let myself be forgotten instead of her. So I take off running into the scorching flames, letting room fourteen slip farther away from me, feeling lighter with each step. I can almost taste the freedom. Right there in the trees, but then I hear her call my name.

“Maddie, don’t leave me. Please.”

I hate her. I love her. I don’t want to help her. But it’s not about me. It never is. It’s always about her. So instead of running away from the fire, I turn around and burn, burn, burn. All for her. Everything is.

I jerk from the memory, trembling, my veins pulsating with adrenaline as I touch my finger to the scar on my hand, tracing the faint lines of the numbers. “Room 14.” I look up at the picture of the old hospital. “Is this where I was? Was I locked up here once?”