Craaven

Chapter 23: Mortemville, Montana 1986, May 2nd

Tw: Mentions of SH/grooming

My second therapy appointment was absolutely bizarre. It was going perfectly fine at first, with me avoiding talking about my trauma and Terrance sparking random conversations with me to get to know me better. However, he reminded me again (mostly because he forgot that he already mentioned it) that I look exactly like his little brother and sister. I responded by asking if they were twins because he included both when telling me and he responded in the affirmative.

"Yeah, and they also look nearly identical to their mother, it's a little freaky," he chuckled.

"Do you have a picture by any chance?" I wondered, curious as to how identical they were to me if he felt the need to mention it twice now. He nodded and pulled out his wallet; he pulled out a photo from one of the pockets and held it out for me to see. In the photo was obviously a mother and her two children, happily smiling while sitting on a large boulder while a lake shimmered in the background.

However, as intriguing as the photo was because the two children did look remarkably similar to me, my eyes were glued to the mother. It couldn't be... there's no way... I thought as I gently reached out to take the photo and look at it closer. The woman in the photo was almost uncannily familiar. Familiar in a sense that when I looked at her, she looked exactly like my own mother.

"Is everything alright, Ed...?" Terrance's voice knocked me out of my thoughts and I looked up at him.

"Uh... yeah... I think... Out of curiosity... What is your mother's name?" I wondered softly.

"Liliana. And the two gremlins are Dylan and Samantha," Terrance responded with a smile. I studied the photo again as my heart slowly sank. Liliana... my mother's name was also Liliana...

"Are you sure you're okay? You look a little startled," Terrance asked with concern lining his tone. I shakily handed the photo back to him and awkwardly cleared my throat for no other reason than to make sure my throat was clear so I could say what I wanted to him without any interference.

"This is going to sound crazy but uh... she looks exactly like my own mother who left when I was really young... she has the same name too, it's uncanny... I'm sorry, I'm sure they're completely different people, it's just... I don't know..."

Terrance looked at the photo himself and studied it for a moment. He would periodically glance up at me and then back down at the photo and I was sure he was trying to connect some dots that were vaguely there.

"You have a point, I'm not gonna lie..." he mumbled before putting the photo back in his wallet. "That's creepy," he chuckled as he put the wallet in his pocket. Despite his light-hearted attitude, I was still perturbed by it. I was hoping that his mother was a completely different woman from my own mother. I wouldn't know how to feel if they were the same person. I already have so many questions and this situation was only giving me more.

"I get what you mean though, if your mother left you when you were young, I imagine it's quite painful seeing someone who looks like her... do you know why she left?" he wondered.

"My parents were divorced... as far as I'm aware, she just left me with my father and fled for the hills..." I responded dully. Terrance wrote in his notepad.

"Did she not win custody?" he continued and I shook my head. "I'm sorry to hear that... perhaps the way you feel about your mother contributes to the way you feel about people in general?"

I rolled my eyes, "Contributes, yeah, but it's not the main reason..."

"What would be the main reason then?"