"So." Emily spoke impatiently.
"So." Sam sat in the woman's office for the tenth time in her life.
"Last time we discussed some of your more difficult memories. I realize you have a hard time connecting to some of the emotions of those memories." Emily sat cross legged, peering through her glasses with her analytic gaze.
"Well...yes. I mean I still hold some anger and sadness towards my childhood, but it wasn't really all mine, so to speak. I mean it was, but..."
Emily smiled. A comforting, warm smile. A truthful smile. Yet Sam could not discern the undertones.
"I never did ask you...how long have you 'been' Sam?"
"...I haven't been 'Alice' since I was sixteen.'
"And where is Alice?"
"Does it matter?"
She jotted something down. Sam couldn't help but to shift under the therapist's scrutinizing mannerisms.
"I take it you have an issue with this part."
"Of course I do." Sam said as though it were obvious.
"I'd like to know why."
Sam had so much she could have said. Perhaps it was because Alice was an ungrateful little cunt. Perhaps it's because Alice had a tendency towards self harm and impulsive, risky behaviors Sam couldn't justify nor approve of. Perhaps its because Alice treated Sam as though she were a band-aid, someone to deal with all the difficult things she couldn't. Perhaps it's because if Alice had simply been strong enough to endure her mother's abuse, she wouldn't be here.
"That's alright, we don't have to discuss anything until you're ready." Emily chided reassuringly. Sam nodded.
"Last week we discussed some themes from your childhood. You mentioned a lot of emotional and verbal abuse, a lot of emotional neglect, some bullying...some suspected assaults and witnessing violence, as well as..." Emily read down a list of bullet points in her note book. She was detached. Sam didn't know whether or not she cared for it yet.
"Emotional incest, parentification, and medical traumas."
"Yes." She confirmed the laundry list of traumas which were a part of her childhood history. Emily had a way of looking at Sam that unnerved her. She never knew what Emily saw, and she was too afraid to ask. For the first time in her life, someone noticed her. Sam didn't like it much.
"How close are you to your siblings?"
It was out of place, but not an unusual question to ask in therapy.
"I'm relatively close with my sister. My brother, not so much. I never really spoke to him much growing up."
"And why is that?"
"Just didn't have much to say."
Silence. Dreaded silence.
"Let's shift gears." She shut her notebook and pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil.
"I want you to describe your relationship to each of your siblings in five words, starting with your brother."
Where was this going?
"...Truth be told, Emily, I don't think I could think of even three words to describe my relationship with my brother. It's practically nonexistent."
Emily sighed in disappointment. Sam felt unpleasant.
"You have to try."
She was taken aback. Not knowing how to respond to the woman's abrasive nature, she felt inclined to leave.
"Apologies. What I meant to say was, I know it's difficult for you to connect to your childhood, in large part because Alice was present for a big portion of it instead of you. If Alice could describe her relationship with her brother, what do you think she'd say?"
"...Well, I think she'd say she wishes she'd been closer to him."
"Good." Emily muttered under her breath.
After running through a slew of questions related to her siblings and their roles in her family dynamic in her youth, Emily handed her a few worksheets Sam wouldn't be bothered to look at until she got to her car.
"Now." Emily clasped her hands tightly together, pensively staring at the younger woman before her.
Sam dreaded this part of the conversation. She was grateful to Emily, it was nice to have reprieve in relaying her nightly activities. Yet between rehashing her childhood trauma and her murders, she'd always preferred the first option.
"I haven't killed anyone in a while."
"And your...accomplice?"
"The only man she'd killed was Phillip Turner. She thought she was saving my life." The sound of a metal crowbar cracking against bone reverberated through her head. Her thumb passively flicked the ring on her wedding finger.
"And Luke?"
She'd only mentioned Luke twice in session, not enough to be notable by any means.
"...What about him?"
"Well, he is a friend of yours. I want to be sure you're benefiting from the relationships in your life as much as you're able. It's important we remain in touch with our human side."
She wanted to laugh. She knew as well as Emily that neither of them were human. They were something other, perhaps, but neither possessed the ineffable qualities that allowed one to claim the title of humanity--least of all Sam.
"I haven't seen him a while."
Emily hummed in disappointment.
"That's a shame. I think it would greatly benefit you to check in on your friends from time to time."
"...Do you know something?"
The therapist shook her head.
"How are the others?" She switched the subject, returning her focus to the pencil in her hand and the sheet of paper that remain blank before her.
"Fine, as far as I know. Penny was out Tuesday."
"Do you know what triggered it?"
"No idea. Some moms in the grocery store were talking about a yoga class. I think the social element of it pulled her to the front." She flicked her ring. More and more, the mere mentions of the alter was enough to wake her from her inactivated state.
"And how does she feel about..."
"Bad, Emily. They're not happy I'm fucking murdering people and they don't trust a therapist that would encourage their client to murder people." She scoffed, realizing the irony in any part of her being unhappy that Emily would keep her secrets.
"Are they people, though?"
Emily and Sam shared a knowing look. Emily had not mentioned too many details, but she knew she'd lost her child to a man.
"...No. No, they're men."
"Atta girl." Emily's voice lingered in Sam's mind, the compliment and encouragement filling a void in her chest she didn't know needed filling. Emily probed for details of Sam's alters and murders.
"Sometimes I feel like a fucking joke. I mean it's a little cliche, isn't it? An 'evil identity,' murdering people?" Sam chuckled, but it was a dry and humorless laugh.
"You're not evil, Sam. I happen to think the work you're doing is just. And even if it is a little cliche, you wouldn't be the first. Nicholas Godejohn had dissociative identity disorder and he killed people." Sam was familiar with Gypsy Rose's partner in crime, the boy she'd conned into killing her mother.
"Please, he was manipulated into it." Sam rolled her eyes.
"Well," Emily bargained, "It's better than being viewed in the alternative light. An attention seeking, malingering adult."
"I suppose." She huffed, sinking into the soft cushion behind her back as though the embrace of the upholstery would cure her. Sam agreed she'd rather be feared than mocked or disbelieved.
"...What was it like? Killing your first. I always thought about killing Sean when he..." The therapist didn't bother finishing the sentence. They both knew the ending to that story.
"...It was terrifying. He fought back, I thought he'd actually end me at first."
"...And then?" Emily leaned forward with an eagerness Sam had never seen in the woman before.
"Well, I...I got lucky. He was prone to public...self pleasure, and I used the time it took him to pull his pants up to stab him in the neck."
"After the initial shock wore off, what did you feel?"
"...I felt powerful, Emily. I felt like I'd taken charge of my life for the first time."
"...You know, if Sean hadn't died all those years ago I would have killed him." Emily laughed. It was a bitter laugh, a laugh that begged to go back in time to do things right.
"Why don't you turn me in?" Sam asked. She didn't feel the need to hide from Emily. She didn't hide her true voice, which differed from that of her body. She didn't hide her gaze which was different from Alice's or Penny's or any of the others, different in a fashion noticeable only to Emily.
"Women have to stick together, Sam, the work you're doing...you are the epitome of sisterhood."
She didn't like being the center of attention, she didn't like being worshipped. She didn't need gratitude because every act she partook in was aimed to serve herself and herself alone. Yet as Emily's blonde hair swung from the synthetic breeze of the fan, she noticed the wrinkles in her forehead and the circles beneath her eyes and imagined, even if just for a moment, the mother Emily could have become. She wondered if Emily viewed her as a daughter.
Sam was certainly beginning to view Emily as a mother, a mother superior to the one she'd been born to.
As the session wrapped up, Sam noticed a bad taste in her mouth.