I love to plan silly anecdotes, daydreams or plans about unimportant shit to romanticise my pretty boring life. Occupied with my thoughts, I barely even realise I am walking up the stairs of my apartment, finding the cold rusty keys in my bag and trying to unlock my door.
The door is unlocked. The door of my fucking apartment is unlocked. A month after my ex boyfriend was brutally murdered, I come home at three on a Friday and the door of my apartment is unlocked. What am I supposed to do? I feel scared to my core but still apparently don’t possess a decent amount of survival skills, so I decide to open the door and come into my apartment. If somebody's going to kill me, they will find a way anyway – if not today, then tomorrow. I also have to pee and would prefer doing so in my bathroom. I open the door and very carefully ask if someone’s there. Nothing. I ask once again, then look around my apartment and everything seems perfectly fine. It’s in the same messy condition as I left it, so I throw the bag in the corner on the left next to my boots and turn around to close the door.
My heart drops. On the inside of the door, there is a picture. A picture taken on the same day as the ones at his funeral. He is wearing the same clothes and the date on it is the day he was murdered. In the picture I can see the third "mysterious” person who was cut off from the photos in Travis’s casket.
That person is me. I see myself in the photo, smiling in the ugly way only I can, when you can see the wrinkles under my eyes and my double chin showing. In the photo I am wearing a shirt I haven’t found in a while – my high school dark red sophomore shirt – and Travis’s pyjama pants. What the fuck is going on? Who put that there? That is not me?! I don’t remember visiting Travis or taking those pictures, having a threesome with a random man and then running off just before someone killed Travis. I feel sick to my stomach and lean on my door so I don’t collapse. There is only one thing I know I should do, so I grab the bag out of her corner, take the glued picture off my wall, and drive to the detective.
I have never driven crazier in my life. The stop signs fly by me and the honking of the cars doesn’t bother me at all. I need to see the detective to release the weight of this picture from my stomach. I park halfway on the road and halfway on the parking spot, I don’t know if I have locked my car or not, I just grab the picture and run. When I open the door of the police station I shout at the receptionist that it is an emergency and run into the detective’s office.
A month goes by and the case starts to slip my mind, since I have so many other things to work on and to worry about. Just when I’m in the middle of filling out some bureaucracy, there’s three heavy knocks at my door and, without even waiting for my answer, a lady just bursts in. But it’s not just any lady, it’s Jodi. Honestly, I didn’t think I would ever see her again and I didn’t particularly want to either, but, even so, here she is. She looks hysterical. That’s the only word I can describe her with. She’s hyperventilating, her hair is all messed up and she’s got this crazy look in her eyes. All she can muster is a breathy "hi” and then she throws something on my desk. Well, throws isn’t the best way to describe it. She tries to throw it, but I guess it’s something made out of paper, because it glides on the air, making little twists and turns, taking it’s sweet time, mesmerising us both, before landing on the table. And then my heart drops. Because I can immediately recognise the surroundings of the photograph. It’s the exact same background as in the photographs from the case of Travis Alexander. But one side is raggedy. And it isn’t Alexander in the picture, but the very woman standing right in front of me.
But the thing is, she seems just as shocked as I am. She tells me the whole story and it seems like someone was trying to make her take the blame for the murder. But still, when I keep looking at the photographs they seem so real. The only thing different is the look in her eyes. It’s straight up disturbing. I’m feeling really overwhelmed because of everything, and I know you shouldn’t do that anymore since "it’s not good for other people’s health” or something, but I decide to light a cigarette right then and there, in my office, with Jodi shaking in a chair, to try and calm my nerves.
I really hate the smell of cigarettes. Have I mentioned that? It’s as if the smoke wraps around my throat and makes me cough uncontrollably. I can’t help myself even now when the smoke starts reaching me. I put my hand over my mouth and let out a few coughs, which somehow hurt more than usually. Slowly but fiercely, my entire chest starts to hurt. But then I see it on my hand. Blood. The cold, metallic taste on my lips. Blood. And the more I stare at it, the less sense it’s making. I haven’t smoked in years. Right? My lungs should be just fine if I haven’t smoked in so long. "Should I put it out? The cigarette? It looks like it’s disturbing you,” a voice startles me from across the room. Slowly, I start to look up. I notice the weird floor and walls around me, which are white like ghosts. I start to feel that the chair I’m sitting on is disturbingly uncomfortable. And the paint on the gray table in front of me is starting to peel off at the edges. I notice an ashtray close to an edge and a hand that is taking its time to surely smash every piece of the cigarette. A man’s hand. The bitten down cuticles around the nails indicate stress. Maybe work overload. Maybe a divorce. Rolled up sleeves, sweat around the armpits, opened buttons around the neck collar.
A face. Time since the last shave: 3 days. Bags under the eyes – didn’t sleep much. Blue eyes, glasses, no acne. I have absolutely no idea who he is or where I happen to be. Calculating my surroundings and this man in front of me, I suppose I only have two options for where I could be: prison or the police. But something else on the table catches my eye that I haven’t noticed before. The ripped part of the pictures. On the table in front of the policeman. I’m sure now. It has to be a policeman. The same policeman that dropped my case – Travis’s case – months ago. "So let’s revise. You say you have no idea how these pictures got into your apartment. You claim someone broke in, left your door unlocked, and taped these pictures onto the door. Even though it’s you who is in the photos, you decided to come straight to me and hand them over. You do realize these photos would mean that there was a third person included in the sexual acts performed between Travis and Jonas?” the man says to me, not blinking once. What the hell is he rambling about? I didn't bring those pictures here. And yes, I am very much aware of how me being in the pictures looks like. It gives me a horrible-looking motive. That's why I made sure to rip every part of me out of them before putting them in the freaking casket. "What the fuck are you talking about?” I say to him, and the expression on his face is priceless. There’s something he’s not figuring out, not piecing together.
"Well, it does give you motive, that’s what I’m talking about. Why bring the photos here if you know you’re in them?” he tells me. "I said what the fuck are you talking about, I didn’t bring these photos here. Is this some kind of manipulation? Are you trying to put words into my mouth, make it look like I’m the criminal here? I’m not crazy, I see exactly what you’re trying to do. You’re so desperate to find the person who killed Travis that you’re trying to make me believe I brought these photos here, and what, just confess to killing him?” I half yell at him.
He begins to stand up, moving away from the table. He first looks at me from the right angle and then from the left one too, eyeing me slowly up and down while running a hand through his hair. His eyes are focused on something in front of him, pressing his lips together, he looks lost in thoughts. The man has nothing to say. What a pity. He carefully parts his lips and starts muttering something to himself. He’s saying something like "the name, they give themselves different names...”. And I almost ask him what he is going on about for the third time, but that’s when he looks me directly in the eyes. "You never told me your name,” he stutters. "Likewise,” is the only thing I bother to answer.
I ignore the fact that he looks more and more confused with every single thing I say, and wait for his reply. "Everyone calls me Stephens,” he says. "Well, my name is Liz,” I tell him. And that hits him like a bullet. I can almost see his pupils dilate, his head slowly nodding to himself, and a smile appearing at the corners of his lips. "I wish I’d figured that out sooner. Of course, Jodi couldn’t have done this with her sweet smile and pure heart. She can’t even curse in front of people, there is no way in the world she could even kill a fly, let alone her ex. But you, on the other hand, with your aloofness and the constant need to be better than everybody, you would be the right profile. You wouldn’t think twice when the idea of killing Travis popped into your head. You would go right ahead and stab him, multiple times, even. You’re impulsive and angry, what better way than to relieve all of your feelings by murdering an innocent man?” he explains enthusiastically. I don’t know who this Jodi person is, and how on earth did he just figure out what I did, when only two minutes ago he had no clue about anything.
"Who is Jodi?” is all I get out of myself.
"Thought as much,” he says, pulling out his phone. "I’ll google it for you.”
I hear the click of every letter as he’s typing something into the browser. And then he turns his phone to me and rests it on the table.
In front of me there are three words, all capital, all bold.
And they read out: MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER
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