Psychological Control

Chapter 29

Eventually Chris left in the early hours of the morning, before it was light. He was even stubborn enough not to let me see him off.

But at least I knew there were no dangerous people around here, apart from the David one. The security in the small town was good too. Otherwise I wouldn't have dared to let him leave alone like that.

Unlike many pathological sociopaths, I'm not really interested in ruining the good things in the world. If Dexter is only focusing on the bad guys who got away with it because of the principles Harry Morgan laid out for him. Then I'm proud to say that I still have the moral code of a normal person inside me.

It may be a bit funny to say that a sociopath has a moral code, but after that incident with David, I really do think I'm still saved. At least not to the extent of being sick to the extent that I find myself disgusting.

And Chris? He'd experienced the same pain, darkness, and shadows that life had caused, but his psyche was cleaner than mine, which had been affected by Brian's personality traits. So clean that I couldn't bear to get any closer.

And I didn't end up lying to him. I really couldn't date a regular boyfriend because of the influence of Brian's personality, and if I were to date him now, I don't think the relationship would last long. Because right now I'm too selfish and don't care about anything, so how can I maintain a relationship between the two of them?

That kind of bad situation is something I really don't want to try.

Using Chris to try and break out of my own inner shadow made me feel unusually guilty towards him. But soon the part of me that belonged to Brian convinced me to stop caring.

I redirected my energy into my studies and the modelling work I usually received. Chris hadn't contacted me again during this time, either. It was as if he, as a person, had suddenly disappeared from my life.

Not long after, during my mid-term break in my first semester at Stanford, a letter arrived back from the Survivor crew. I had passed their preliminary audition and was still going through one more interview before I could be selected.

I bought another flight to New York, packed briefly for a few days, and set off again.

It was just after a quarter past noon, just two hours out of the New York airport, when I dropped off my bags at a small, somewhat out-of-the-way but inexpensive hotel I had seen beforehand and cleaned myself up.

The next thing I knew, it was time for my scheduled interview at 16:00 pm. I didn't have to wait long, the interviewers seemed to be notified in time slots, and only five people had arrived before it was my turn.

"Hello, please have a seat." There were four people sitting in the interview room and the only woman in the room waved her hand in an inviting gesture and spoke. "Your name is Brian is it?"

I had scanned the four people in the room with an unobtrusive gaze as I entered this room. The woman who spoke was dressed strongly and professionally, but the fact that she was the one who spoke in the first place meant that if she didn't have too much control over the whole situation, she was presiding over the scene as the lowest-ranking of the four.

The man sitting on the far left I know as the host of Survivor. He is actually also the producer of Survivor and he is very vocal about the choice of contestants. In turn, he came over to skip the woman who opened her mouth, a middle-aged man who didn't seem too interested in the interview. He was a bit blond and didn't look up at first when he saw me coming in, just flipping through the information in his hands in a bored manner.

He must be the investor's representative, I thought without moving my face. He didn't seem interested in the interview, but if he was impressed, he could probably change the minds of the others at once.