The nurses told me to leave. They said that Liu was going to be restricted until he 'could better control himself'. I knew what that meant. They were going to drown him in pills until the life was nearly sucked out of him. There was no running from the truth anymore, Liu was trapped in some asylum and there's no way I can get to him. It felt so wrong. Who knows how long he would be stuck in there. For years? Maybe until he goes crazy and hangs himself with torn up bed sheets. It always seems to happen that way. But why Liu? This couldn't just be another tragic ending to his story. This wasn't even his fault in the first place. By now, pictures of Jeff's face was on every newspaper in our town, and while there were plenty of people looking for him, nobody really seemed to care about what was becoming of Liu.
I was in the backseat of my parents' car. Nobody said a word, we just sat there listening to a light pitter-patter of rain on the windows. A few times my mother glanced up at the rearview mirror with sympathetic eyes. I wasn't crying and I wasn't as upset as I was confused. Whatever happened in there changed my perspective on the situation. For now, I didn't know if I could bring myself to explain what had happened in that room. Whatever Liu had witnessed in that house made something inside him snap and now he was a new person. Not different just new. In fact, it was more like there was someone else inside him the whole time. Like somehow, it wasn't just Liu, he was split.
By the time we got home, the awkward late-summertime rain had settled down a little, but the sun was still hidden behind the foggy clouds. I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was so similar to when I was young and I knew that I did something that I wasn't supposed to. Like the feeling of guilt, but mixed in with sadness, anger, and confusion. I sat down on my bedroom floor with my back against the door, trying my best to process what could've happened to Liu. Maybe some online research could help? I wanted to talk to my mother about what had happened, but I knew that would lower the chances of me ever seeing him again if there even were any. I mean, I wasn't born yesterday, and I knew that that situation had something to do with some split-personality disorder. I guess at this point it was less about figuring out what was wrong with him, and more about figuring out how to help him.
God, I missed him so much. It was like the look in his eyes when I saw him for the first time just stuck with me. Who knows what's going to happen to him at that place. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he was the only living witness of Jeff's crimes. Not only is he obviously damaged, but they're going to end up wanted information from him, and he's not fit to be in that environment. I didn't matter to me. He was Liu and I loved him so much more than I thought I did.
At that moment I decided to forget about figuring out what was wrong with you, I just needed to know what happened to him.
