Page 88 of Eat Me Alive
“Good, if that’s the case, you would not be opposed to listening to a recording, right?”
Something heavy drops to my stomach. “What recording?”
“Why don’t you listen first then I’ll explain.” She takes out a small rectangular thing, touching play.
“Don’t look at me like that.”It’s my voice followed by scratching silence.“Like you’re in love with me.”
My eyes water, remembering this exact moment. It’s that time when his eyes turned pink when he looked at me. The same time Datu might have fallen for me.
“A safe place where it’s all mine, no one can pry it away from my dead hands.”Something twists inside me as I listen more.“Yes. With plants, preferrably. Somewhere I can nurture life in. Somewhere to belong in.”
The doctor hits stop, continuing, “So you do see how wanting things like this can manifest in your mind, right?”
Closing my eyes, I shake my head. “I wasn’t hallucinating.”
“You weren’t. This was you sleep-talking, Xiaoyu.”
Something breaks inside me. “What?”
“You have never gone on a trip with Moriarty Organics. You’ve been dosed with some chemicals that made you comatose for over two years. Your friend, Crystal, said you went with a strange man offering you a job. You called your mother saying something highly uncharacteristic. The same day, she found your body on the floor of your home. You wouldn’t wake up.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“We’ve been looking after you. When you started talking, we recorded it. Full-on one-sided, incoherent conversations. But this one stands out because it makes sense.”
I hug my knees on the chair, terrified of my mind. No. Everything that happened had been real. I know it, I see it inside my skin. Seehiminside my skin.
“It makes sense you would create a world you would want the most while you were unconscious.”
“I know the difference between right and wrong, real and fantasy. This was real.” But my mind is desperately trying to hold on for dear life. I can’t imagine how life would be if what I went through had all been a dream.
Mother visits me everyday in the facility. Ever since the incident, she claims she has become a changed person. She doesn’t apologize for anything, just sweeps things under the rug. Pretend like nothing had happened. Pretend like we are not in the middle of a psychiatric facility cafeteria having lunch.
At the way she picks atmyfood, no. She is still the same. She can’t come to terms that she hasn’t. Shecan’t.
With her chopsticks, she sets aside the prawns from my plate. “Not too much now. You know what happens when you eat too much.”
My eyes find the fish sauce she has brought. It’s one of my favorites. Before everything went to hell, it had been my dad’s sauce of choice. He used to put it on everything. The taste reminds me of a time when Mother had been happy. When my siblings were still little and innocent and had not cut ties with Mother.
“That’s just one prawn.”
“One can become two, two can become five. Control yourself, Xiaoyu.”
She slaps my hand with a stick. It doesn’t hurt, but it is all that I need for me to break. She always makes me feel like a disobedientdog. With unreasonable force, I stab the prawn with a stick and I swallow it whole.
“I’ll eat whatever the hell I want. In fact, I’m going to get more food.”
She watches me, horrified, as I basically inhale everything in the canteen. My hands squeeze, break the food before I stuff them into my mouth. It goes down easier that way.
“My god, have some decency!” She pulls at me, but I shove her away. I hate the feel of her touch.
“What decency do you mean?!” I know I’m yelling, but this has been almost thirty years worth of bottled-up emotions. “You didn’t even have the decency to comfort yourdaughter—”I’m pointing, tapping my chest madly. “—your flesh and blood told you she was afraid. Thatyourhusband,mystepfather, had been coming into her room at night when she was a child.”
Her eyes had started tearing up, but she swallows, tilting her chin like what I said did not matter. LikeIdid not matter at all.
“Is this the reason why you had him killed, Xiaoyu? Who did you tell?”
This is breaking me all over again. And, maybe, it’s for the best. “Ma, I was eight years old.”
