The Neighbor

The Truth

     I sat straight up. I'd forgotten I was going to talk to Blade. I hopped out of bed, still in my sweatpants and hoodie.

     "Blade." I whisper-yelled through the door. I knocked on it quietly, afraid to wake Smasher. An eternity later I was met with tired yellow eyes.

"Amaya?" He said, yawning. "You do realize this is booty-call hour, right?"

"Well, I hate to disappoint, but I'm here to talk." I said crossing my arms.

He nodded, "I figured you forgot earlier." He motioned me in.

I stood in the doorway, "We can go to my apartment, I don't want to wake Smasher."

    "He didn't come back yet. He wanted to stay at Nikki's." We both smiled at this. It seemed like Nikki and Smasher had really hit off. "It's just us."

    The butterflies awoke in my stomach. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. I followed him to his bedroom and stopped in the doorway. "Are you sure this is the best room to talk in?"

     He smirked. "Yeah, this is the most private room here. Smasher could come home any minute." He took my hand and pulled me in. He took me to the bed.

"Already off to a bad start." I shook my head.

He rolled his eyes. "I promise to behave."

"It's not you I'm worried about." I looked straight into his eyes. "So, teach me about you."

   "The reason I'm so close to Smasher is because I was his roommate, in the asylum." He stared at the floor as he spoke.

I remembered the people I'd seen in Clementine, he was nothing like them. "Why?" I asked.

    His eyes were distant. He had transported into some past world I wasn't apart of. "I had a lot of hallucinations. It got to a point where it became dangerous for me and anyone around me."

    Hallucinations? I would never have guessed that Blade saw or heard anything I didn't. "Is it better now? Are the hallucinations gone?"

    He laughed. "Kind of. I have a better grasp of reality now." He paused. "The thing is, I didn't need medicine. My problem is different." Something flashed behind his eyes and he turned to me. "Are you sure you want to hear all of this? It's a lot Amaya."

   "Yes, I'm positive. It's a part of you." I knew that I couldn't pick and choose which parts I wanted. If I was going to be with Blade, I was going to be with all of him. Not just the pretty parts.

     I saw a light in his eyes. He smiled. "When I was born, something in my brain was wired differently. I always knew I was different, but I pretended to be normal. It wasn't that hard then; it didn't fully develop until I was 18 years old. I turn imaginary into reality. It started out with just a very vivid imagination. I saw a million more colors and shapes than everyone around me. Then, I could see people and things that no one else could. It scared and confused me at first, but as soon as I realized that nobody else saw or heard them,  I learned not to mention anyone or anything unless I knew everyone else could hear and see them too." He took a deep breath, watching me. I did my best not to wear my emotions. I went through every emotion imaginable as he spoke. "By the time I turned 18, I was able to make everyone see the things I did. On my 18th birthday I had been thinking of having a brother, a twin brother. I had always thought it would be cool. I asked myself, "What if I had a twin brother?" Then there he was, standing in front of me. I blew it off as my imagination. He said hello and walked away. I thought for sure I had been hallucinating. Until I was being arrested for attempted homicide. I was told I had attacked a man on the street, I had a knife. That's where my nickname comes from, the blade I was accused of using that day. When they took me in for questioning, I told them that it wasn't me, it was my twin brother. They checked my records and saw I had no twin brother. I explained that he wasn't technically real, that I had conjured him in my imagination, but he had somehow got out. They said that I was psychotic and needed to go somewhere for treatment rather than jail. I begged them to give me a few days to find my twin. They agreed, they told me that for the next few days an officer would escort me on a search to find my lost twin. Each day I came back without him. So, I ended up in Clementine. I didn't know it at the time, but the things my imagination creates only last a few hours in the real world." He laughed a little, "You know it's funny, at first I thought that I made you from my imagination. When you didn't disappear, I was shocked to find you were real."