Lights

Lights 12☼

"...Mom?" I quietly asked, becoming slightly afraid.

"You're not my Elodie," she whispered.

"What?"

"You're not my Elodie!" She shoved me away. My mother had never put her hands on me like that. I didn't know what to do. The doctors began closing in on us.

"Elodie, please step away." The doctor instructed as he moved to calm my mother. I started backing away to return to my grandma but I couldn't take my eyes off of my mother. 

"Get her away from me!! That girl is not my daughter!!" She screamed, beginning to writhe in her hospital bed. 

"Calm down, Ms. Greaves!" The doctor shouted, trying to restrain her. Her wild arms came loose from his grip and she grabbed for the flower vase on the bedside table.

"GET OUT!!" She screamed again, hurling the vase at me. It hit my shoulder and shattered on my upper arm, ceramic shards catching in my skin. I screamed as my grandmother pulled me into the hallway. We hurried down the hallway to the waiting room, and as we ran I could hear my mother's screams growing only slightly fainter. I couldn't stop from crying. My grandma was holding me, careful not to touch my arm, and petting my hair. 

"It's alright Elodie, everything's alright..."

"Elodie." 

I looked up from the floor. Austin was still looking at me, but his gaze had softened. "Elodie, I'm sorry. I came on too harsh. Please, let me help you. I need to know what's going on." He was pleading with me. My mother lost the kindness in her eyes that day, but as I looked at his, the warmth never wavered. He cared about me. He didn't want me to get hurt.

"Austin--" I started, trying to find a way to start.

"Elodie, before you tell me 'no' again I just want you to know that everything is going to be okay. I know what you're going through and you aren't alone." I could see now that his care was coming from a place of pain. What had he been through? 

"I know," I said, trying to sound sure. "I just, I need you to bear with me if I'm going to talk to you about this. And you can't tell your dad."

"Are you kidding?!" He began to get worked up again.

"Austin, please."He looked at me again and got quiet. I knew he was ready to listen. "My mom is... mentally ill. She hits me but it's not her fault. This is gonna sound crazy but my mom thinks that I'm somebody else." His eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but when he saw my pained expression he solemnly closed it. I continued. "When I was fourteen my mom and I were in a car accident, and she suffered serious brain damage. The trauma caused her to develop this thing called Capgras Disorder, which makes her think that I'm someone pretending to be her daughter instead of me being her actual daughter. She thinks that Elodie is gone and I'm an impostor trying to trick her."

"So why do you live with her? Where's your dad?" He asked in disbelief. 

"My parents have been separated since I was a baby. It was a shotgun wedding sort of thing and it didn't last long. I used to see him sometimes when I was younger, but by the time I was eleven or twelve I never saw him and I haven't seen him since. He doesn't know anything about the accident or any of this. He just sends money every month so we can cover the bills and I've worked to make up the rest of it so he never found out."

"And other relatives?"

"My mom is an only child. I was staying with my grandma while my mom was in recovery but she passed away soon after. Child Protective Services checked in from time to time in the year following the accident, but my mom was on meds then and she was doing well. At least when they were around she was a functioning mother, but she still wasn't the same." 

"El, I know there are ways you could have gotten out of that house. She's been out to kill you for almost four years! Why haven't you tried to get out?!"

"Austin," I started, choking back some tears that threatened to return. "My mom is all that I have." He looked at me not with pity, but with sympathy. He was sad that I was hurting, and I'd forgotten what that kind of connection felt like. He sighed.

"You want to stay with her?" He asked. I nodded. "El, she nearly put you in a coma. Please think about this." He was right. My own mother knocked me down the stairs, gave me a black eye, and kicked me out into the snow. But I couldn't leave her.

"She's my mother," I cried quietly. Austin looked into my eyes and said, "Is she?" I looked up at him, dumbfounded. Of course she was, I wanted to say to him. But when I thought about the woman who was at my house, with her scrawny, nervous body and disheveled gray hair, It wasn't my mother at all. I didn't want to say he was right, but when I looked up at him to reply all that came out were sobs, and he had his answer. He pulled me to his chest and gave me a tight hug as I cried and cried.

"I won't tell my dad," he said. "But promise me you'll stay with us until you recover."

I could hear his heart pounding with my head against his chest. "Okay."