Sitting at the edge of my bed, my hair still damp from the shower, I contemplated the recent revelation that I would be starting the junior year of high school next week.
Part of me couldn’t believe it, but realistically it made sense that I had managed to lose my sense of time.
After Rue’s incident, Adrian had withdrawn into himself and dissociated from the world around him.
The few relationships he had crumbled from lack of attention, allowing Adrian to go the whole summer without exchanging so much as a text with anyone else.
For most, that kind of crippling social isolation would have sent them into a spiraling depression, and for Adrian it did.
But with his already chemically unbalanced brain, his symptoms of depression didn’t manifest normally.
Instead of experiencing low self-esteem, lethargy, random aches and pains, Adrian became more focused than ever.
The emotional void allowed him to think through his life with cut-throat efficiency and honesty.
It started the morning after Rue was taken to the hospital for an overdose; instead of visiting her in the ER, Adrian went for a run, a long one.
Despite having never run more than a mile for the annual fitness test, that day Adrian managed to run a half marathon.
It took him ten hours to do it, and he nearly passed out a couple of times, but for those ten hours Adrian was alive.
Exerting himself for that long, Adrian managed to flood his body with a heavy chemical cocktail of testosterone, adrenaline, and endorphins, a nearly identical list to the hormones released by the human brain during an orgasm.
The point was that exercise made Adrian feel good, and when nothing else did, it was easy to see why he spent the rest of the summer at the gym.
Every week he ran further, lifted more, trained longer, as his body became more and more capable of enduring strain without his brain releasing his fix.
I imagined that Adrian would eventually get to a point where he would have sought out some type of PED once his natural gains started to plateau so he could push his limits out even further.
But before Adrian reached that point, his mother was forced to go to an NA meeting, one specifically aimed at the family members and friends of addicts on how to deal with the grief of seeing the person you loved the most erode and kill themselves.
That’s where Adrian met Ali; he was a key speaker at the event, talking about his time as an addict and the unique perspective he had now as a sober man.
Much to Adrian’s surprise, Ali didn’t advocate for greater understanding or patience.
Instead, he preached about the need to set boundaries, that the person you knew didn’t exist anymore.
There might be a glimpse every now and again of who they used to be, but it would never really be the same.
After the event ended, Adrian approached Ali.
I don’t have an exact memory of what Adrian said, but after that point, Ali was a constant in my memories.
A former military man and firefighter, Ali offered to teach Adrian how to fight, and that became the basis of their relationship.
It was clear that Adrian viewed Ali as a father figure, and that sentiment was passed along to me.
Even the older part of my psyche latched onto the wise and patient man as a replacement for the memories of a violent man who liked to put out his cigarettes on people.
That made Ali one of the few people I genuinely cared about, and maybe either side of me would have trouble admitting it, but the good thing about having three personalities and being aware of them was that you got rather good at psychoanalysis.
Realizing that my mind had wandered off somewhere else, I started to focus my thoughts back on school when a call suddenly interrupted me.
The sound of my phone ringing was surprising, but I almost couldn’t believe it when I checked that it wasn’t Ali’s name on the caller ID.
For a moment, I debated not answering, but I knew there had to be a reason for the call, so I picked up.
“Hey Lexi, what’s good?”
“A-Adrian, is that you?”
“Who else would be answering?”
“Y-yeah, I know it’s just that your voice…was it always so deep?”
“What do you need Lex?
Doubt you’re just calling to say hi.”
“…It’s Rue.”
I paused for a moment, tempted to hang up right there and then before I could hear whatever news was associated with my sister’s name.
“She still breathing?”
“What?!
Oh god no, nothing like that!
B-but she did show up a couple of hours ago, and she asked me too…well…she needed clean urine.”
I recalled the argument I had overheard between Rue and my mom and let out a long, tired sigh, “Hold on a second.”
Putting my phone on mute, I walked out of my room and over to Rue’s door, knocking twice before peeking inside and seeing that it was empty.
“Hey ma!”
“Yeah Adrian!”
“Where’s Rue?
I wanna talk with her.”
“Should have been here earlier, like I told you.
She’s going to hang out at Lexi’s for the day; she’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Alright.”
Walking back into my room, I unmuted, “Just asked my mom, apparently Rue told her that she was going to sleep over at your place.”
“Rue’s not here though-”
“No shit,” I said sarcastically, interrupting Lexi, “Rue is a habitual liar like all addicts, so I need you to think about where she could be.
I doubt she’s going to score more drugs, seeing as she’s already scored for the day.”
“I don’t know…m-maybe she’s going to the party tonight.”
“Party…what party?”
“McKay’s send-off party, seems like everyone’s going to be there.”
Already I knew without a doubt that everyone, included Rue.
For every bit that Adrian was repulsed by suffocating crowds, loud music, and public indecency, Rue was drawn in like a fly to carrion.
I imagined that the same restless charge in the air that made Adrian’s skin crawl was its own kind of drug for Rue.
“Adrian?”
Moving towards my closet, I threw it open and started browsing through my options.
“I need you to send me the details of that party, Lexi.”
“Since when do you go to parties?”
“Since my little sister just got out of rehab and immediately relapsed,” I muttered, hating to admit just how much I cared, “Also Lexi-”
“Y-yeah?”
“Stop enabling my sister.”
I hung up before Lexi could respond and tossed my phone on the bed, letting me focus on picking out what I was going to wear.
While Adrian would rather have chopped his own dick off than go to a high school party, if he had to go, he wouldn’t have cared about what he was wearing.
Which is why I relied on the part of my psyche that I inherited from my other half.
Most psychopaths were manipulative and narcissistic, egocentrists with the uncanny ability to manipulate others through their lack of empathy and tendency to exploit the morality of others.
With every interaction, they adopted a role, a facade, and played it with uncanny accuracy.
Human emotions were not something felt, but tools to be studied and replicated for whatever the situation called for.
My older half fit that description to the letter; he understood the importance of appearances.
He knew that people decided whether they hated, liked, loved, or feared you at first glance.
He also knew that changing someone’s impression of you was damn near impossible after the fact.
So all he needed to do was put on the right mask, the right character, to invoke the response he wanted.
As I got dressed, I felt my mind start to shift away from Adrian’s reluctance to become involved with others.
Like a chameleon changing colors, so did my personality as I tied my hair up in a bun while leaving out two curls to drape either side of my forehead.
By the time I was lacing up my shoes, every last bit of nervous reservation about the part was gone, instead replaced by a cold thrill.
“And where are you going at this hour looking like that?”
I stood up and turned to face my mother, who was staring at me with an uncertain look in her eyes from her bedroom doorway.
“I got invited to a graduation party,” I explained, making it sound more innocent than the rager it was.
“Really?”
“I know, didn’t expect it either,” I shrugged, “I’m gonna ride my bike there.
I’ll be home later tonight.”
“Alright then, just be careful and get back safe,” My mom wished me before slipping back into her room, leaving me to step out the front door with a small smile on my face as my colors finished changing.
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