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I want to turn on my heels and walk right back out the door. Maybe if I don’t listen to what she has to say none of it will be true.
I sit down on the empty chair across from Izabel.
I say nothing.
Izabel takes a thick white envelope from her purse on the table and sets it in front of her covering it with her manicured fingers.
I despise that envelope. It’s about to ruin my life and I want to set it on fire.
Tearing my eyes away from it, I look only at Izabel.
“How has she been?” she asks.
“Actually, Cassia has been perfect,” I answer, as if that fact is going to negate everything she’s going to tell me. “No signs of her remembering that she’s Seraphina. I even let her out of the basement for the first time in a year. Took her out to eat and to the movies, you can believe that—Me. At the movies.” I didn’t realize how big my smile had gotten over the short time, but I couldn’t help myself as I recalled the past few days alone with Cassia.
Izabel looks sympathetic and the smile dissolves from my face.
“Fredrik, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
I lean back against my chair and interlock my fingers across my stomach.
Izabel keeps her hands on top of the envelope and I get the feeling she doesn’t want me to see what’s inside as much as I don’t.
“Was your childhood anything like mine?”
That takes me by surprise.
I’ve never told Izabel about my past. The only two people—that I know of—other than Seraphina who know anything about it at all are Victor Faust and our ex-employer, Vo
No one knew everything but Seraphina.
“Somewhat like yours, yes.” I look at the wall behind her head.
“Victor won’t tell me much about you,” she says gently, “because it isn’t my business unless you tell me yourself. I know this and I accept it. But I wanted to ask in case you felt close enough to me to tell me.”
“What does my past have to do with what’s in that envelope, Izabel?” I still won’t look at the envelope. I see it in my peripheral vision, but I can’t force myself to look at it directly.
“It’s just a question, Fredrik.”
“No, it’s more than that,” I say and then lower my voice so the barista behind the counter won’t hear. “But yes, I was a sex slave, just like you were. Only I was one for a much longer time. And I wasn’t anyone’s favorite.”
I didn’t mean for that last part to sound resentful or harsh, but by the offended look in Izabel’s eyes, I’m assuming it came out that way.
Sighing with regret, I shut my eyes briefly and place my folded hands on the table. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”
Izabel softens her expression and nods gently. “I know.”
“But I don’t know why any of this matters,” I cut in. “What does my past have to do with Seraphina?”
“It has nothing to do with Seraphina,” she says. “I just want you to know that I’m here for you no matter what. You and me, we’re alike in many ways and I know that I was alone for a very long time because of the life I was forced to live. I had no one. Except for the girls who lived in the compound with me, but my relationships with them were always short-lived. They were either sold, committed suicide, or were murdered. I had no one, Fredrik. And I know how it feels to be alone and in a horrific life not of my choosing.”
She leans forward, sliding the envelope to the center of the small table, but not yet ready to give it to me. Her eyes are sad and filled with understanding.
“Not just recently,” she goes on, “but since the night I met you in Los Angeles, I saw in you the same loneliness and torment that was in me before I found Victor. People like you and me, we think we’re hiding our pain and darkness from the rest of the world, but we forget that we can see it plainly in each other.”
I reach for the envelope, but she’s reluctant to move her hand away. Finally, she relents. I slide it over to me and keep my hand on top of it. But I’m not ready to read the contents.
“I appreciate the heart-to-heart, Izabel, but—”
“Fredrik, I’m afraid for you.”
“Why? Because of this?” I tap the envelope with the tip of my finger without looking down at it. “I can handle it. Whatever it is I’m about to find out, I can deal with it.”
“But I just want to say that Seraphina is not the only person in this world who has ever cared about you.”
My fingers crush around the edges of the envelope.
“Maybe not,” I say, “but she’s the only person who truly understood me.”
Izabel nods pensively. “Yeah, but she doesn’t have to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I laugh suddenly. “Are we going to have a love affair?” I joke, gri
Izabel smiles and rolls her eyes a little, but trades humor for determination quickly.
“I’m just saying that I’m here for you. I would do just about anything for you. I hope you believe that.”
Finally, I look down at the envelope, then carefully pull the flap out of the inside, opening it.
“James Woodard tracked the information down on Cassia Carrington,” Izabel says as I’m unfolding the thick sheets of paper and my heart is pounding violently inside my chest. “It wasn’t hard to find.”
Looking down into the text printed on the paper, I read with an open mind and a crushing heart:
June 25th
Patient: Cassia Ana Carrington
Age: 13
Primary Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder
--
The patient shows no signs of conscious deception. It is my professional opinion that Carrington genuinely believes that a young girl her age named Seraphina Bragado, is who murdered her parents and set their house on fire. Carrington has told me in great length and with complex detail the story of how she ‘met’ her second personality, Seraphina Bragado, and each time she tells the story, it is exactly the same as before. I’ve tried to confuse her with details, but she always corrects me. She believes one hundred percent that everything she is telling me is real.
Carrington as ‘Seraphina’ confessed to me that she killed Carrington’s parents because she was trying to save Carrington, to spare her from going through with her father the same that Seraphina went through with hers: brutal physical abuse, sexual molestation and rape. This is not uncommon for patients with DID, to create a personality that is emotionally and mentally stronger than themselves, who can do the things that the primary personality is too afraid or weak to do on their own. In Carrington’s case, Seraphina became the part of her who was brave enough to face the abuse of her father and deal with her mother looking the other way and not stepping in to help her.
August 1st
Patient: Cassia Ana Carrington
Age: 13
Primary Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder
--
Evidence has concluded that the fourteen-year-old boy, Phillip Johnson, who went missing from Carrington’s neighborhood six months before Carrington murdered her parents, that Carrington was responsible for his murder as well. Johnson’s body was found in the woods behind Carrington’s house, covered by tree branches and brush. ‘Seraphina’ is who told us where to find the boy. ‘Seraphina’ claimed that Johnson tried to kiss Carrington, and so to protect Carrington, Seraphina led him into the woods and stabbed him to death.
September 21st
Patient: Cassia Ana Carrington
Age: 14
Primary Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder
--
The patient has not reverted back to her true self for quite some time. She insists that she is Seraphina Bragado and I’m begi