What the Alter Wants

Instantly aware, Ashlie blinked, trying to adjust to the dim light, as her eyes darted. She lay on her side, one hand trembling beside her face, the other cradling the back of her head. A numbness blanketed her, and her mind struggled to place where she was. Inhaling deeply, she held the breath for a moment, closing her eyes again.

“Ashlie?”

The voice came from beside her. It startled her, causing her to turn her head sharply in it’s direction, her eyes still closed. The surface she lay against was soft, like a bed.

“Ashlie…”

Again the voice came from right beside her.

“Ashlie, it’s Dr. Hayz,” the voice said softly in a concerned tone. “Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

Opening her eyes slowly, Ashlie could see her therapist sitting in a chair, leaning toward her with a look of worry on her face. Gradually the recollection of where she was came over her, and as her eyes further adjusted, she was able to make out the features of her surroundings. She was in the same office she’d been coming to see the doctor at for years.

Although dreamlike, she vaguely remembered Dr. Hayz having her remove her shoes and lie down on the sofa, closing her eyes. The doctor had then spoken calmly to her for some time, having her focus on only the breath she drew, and nothing else, lulling her into a calm, quiet and trusting place.

The objective of this session, at a request made by Ashlie herself, was for Dr. Hayz to try and speak directly with Ashlie’s alternate personality. This was in hopes of getting answers as to why after years of peaceful coexistence, the alter had not only presented but had been inserting herself, sometimes rather aggressively, into Ashlie’s life.

Recalling the therapist’s voice calmly speaking to her, she could vaguely remember her body relaxing and the feeling of sinking deeper into the cushions she lay on before it felt as though she’d fallen asleep. Beyond that point she could not remember anything, until she’d come to with a start just moments before.

“I think so,” Ashlie said, raising her hand to her face and rubbing her eyes. In a moment of realization, she stopped and sat up quickly, startling the therapist.

“Ashlie?”

Dr. Hayz sounded concerned.

Ashlie stared at her in the dimmed light, wide-eyed, her hand still in front of her.

“My face is wet,” she said, a look of realization coming over her. “Why is my face wet?”

“Calm down, Ashlie. They’re tears.”

“Tears- why…” Alarmed, Ashlie looked down at her hand, and then quickly met the therapist’s gaze. “…was I crying?”

Her heart raced as she struggled to remember anything before she’s come to. Her mind was completely blank. She had no recall whatsoever. As she put her bare feet on the carpeted floor, intending to stand, Dr. Hayze touched her arm.

“Everything is all right,” the therapist told her, handing her a tissue. “Just breathe.”

“What happened? Why was I crying?” Ashlie began wiping her cheeks. She couldn’t feel any pain in her body. The only thing that she could imagine was that Christina had again physically restrained her as she’d been somehow able to do in the recent past.

“They’re not your tears…”

Ashlie paused, blinking in confusion. She looked at Dr. Hayz and shook her head, trying to process the doctor’s words.

“You’re ok, Ashlie.” Dr. Hayz wore a serious expression as she chose which words to use. “Christina was a little upset when she… stopped communicating with me. I was not able to slowly talk you back like I should have. That is why you’re confused.”

“What?” Ashlie again looked at the back of her hand, this time in wonder. She’d stopped listening after hearing that her alter had been upset

“Christina ended things rather abruptly, which didn’t allow for me to talk to you and bring you back into consciousness.” The therapist’s voice was apologetic. She shook her head as she spoke. “For that I’m so sorry.”

Ashlie barely heard the words spoken to her. From the day that she’d first presented, Christina had only ever displayed frustration, anger and contempt. As far as Ashlie knew, they were the only emotions the fragment of her psyche was capable of showing.

For a moment she sat in silence, a foreign sensation in her chest. Wondering what could have brought her alter to tears, Ashlie realized that she was feeling sympathy for her. The thought both bewildered and terrified her. Christina was quite possibly the strongest person Ashlie knew, even if she was a mere splinter of her own psyche.

Ashlie looked at the therapist, trying fruitlessly to think of anything that could have possibly changed the personality or emotions that seemed to define her alter.

“Why-?”

Dr. Hayz rose from her chair. She crossed the room to small table that the chair she’d been sitting in was usually beside. She depressed the button on the intercom unit.

“Mel,” she said, “please have some tea brought in.”

She didn’t wait for the reply from her receptionist before returning to her seat beside the sofa Ashlie sat on.

“I’m not sure where to begin.”

“What do you mean? Is something wrong? I can’t believe I’m asking this, but is Christina ok?”

“That is a bit of a difficult question to answer.” Dr. Hayz looked perplexed as she thought about how to answer. Her gaze rested on Ashlie, but it was clear that she was not looking at her patient. “Christina is changing.”

“What does that mean?” Ashlie asked. “Changing what? How?”

“She is evolving, Ashlie.” The doctor nodded, pursing her lips. Her expression was thoughtful but also said that what she’d just spoken was the correct way to have said it. “If that makes any sense.”

Shaking her head, Ashlie turned to look at the older woman.

“As much as Christina is a part of you, she is in many ways also her own entity.”

“I don’t understand. She is… she’s in my mind, right? She’s not a person; she’s not real.”

Dr. Hayz sighed.

“Well, it is correct to say that Christina is not a person per se, but still, she does show signs of adapting, if you will.”

“Adapting to what?” Ashlie stammered.

“It may be difficult to grasp,” the therapist told her. “Christina is the part of your consciousness that years ago, broke away in order to deal with the physical abuse you experienced at the hands of the other children in the home you grew up in. I still remember when you told me about the first time she presented. From that day forward, she took on the role of your watcher and protector.”

Ashlie nodded. The alter had presented many times during her childhood and teen years to thwart the bullying and often physical attacks from the children resided with. Strangely, although Christina had started off protecting her from children that saw her as different and weak, she’d ended up also shielding her from those who had heard that when confronted, Ashlie could sometimes become physically violent, and wanted to witness that reaction firsthand.

“I spoke with her for some time today,” Dr. Hayz continued, “and as I said, it seems that your alter is evolving. She is changing in adaptation to her surroundings, if you will.”

At a loss for words, Ashlie tried to make sense of what she’d just heard. She understood each of the words individually, but when put together in the order they’d been spoken, she could not comprehend their meaning. Christina’s surroundings were Ashlie. It was her mind. What could the alter possibly need to adapt to?

There was a quiet tap at the door, followed by it being opened. The young lady from behind the desk at reception smiled as she entered, pulling a small-wheeled teacart behind her. She brought it to a stop between Dr. Hayz and Ashlie, and began pouring the tea into the two cups on it.

Receiving a nod from the therapist, the young lady exited the room, leaving the teacart to act as a table, and softly closed the door behind her as she left the room.

Dr. Hayz lifted the saucer nearest Ashlie, handing her a cup of hot tea, before sitting back into her own chair to wait until her assistant had exited the room.

“Christina has been watching your life through your eyes for nearly fourteen years.” She paused to look at her patient. “She has seen everything that you have seen and felt everything that you’ve felt for a long time.”

Ashlie again shook her head, unsure of what the therapist was getting at. Her stomach turned, as for the first time she really thought about the fact that her alter had literally seen everything that had happened in her life for the past fourteen years. Feeling slightly sick and violated, she exhaled slowly.

“Her job had always been to protect you from physical harm, and despite her personality. And despite the way that she is, it’s a role that she’s always taken very seriously. It is actually a strong and, you must admit admirable quality.”

The knot in Ashlie’s stomach tightened as she listened to the therapist’s words.

“But nothing has changed,” she said uncertainly, “has it?”

The doctor’s pursed lips thinned and she looked as though she were searching for the right words to say next.

“Actually, there was. There was a change in your life, and a rather significant one.”

“M- My job?” Ashlie stammered. It was the only thing she could think of.

She felt a small pang of alarm that slowly started to grow within her. She loved her job at the library and couldn’t imagine anything about it being cause for problem. It was possibly the calmest and most quite public place she’d ever been. The career change had been, in her opinion, the best thing that she’d been able to do for herself in quite some time. The thought of her therapist telling her that it may have caused some sort of strife suddenly filled her with anxiety.

“No Ashlie. This goes back even further than your getting a new job.”

Looking down at the cup she held on her lap, Ashlie’s mind raced as she tried again to think of what could have possibly brought on her alter’s recent behavior. She’d worked hard to make sure that she established and stuck to routine. Her main focus was to make sure that nothing changed.

Sipping her tea, Dr. Hayz watched her silently for a moment, waiting for her patient to look up again.

“Five years ago, you came to me and asked me to mediate between Christina and yourself,” she began. “You asked me to help you communicate with her so that you could come to a mutually beneficial agreement. Do you remember that?”

Slowly, Ashlie nodded, remembering how she’d approached the doctor in a state of depression. She had been released from the children’s home when she turned eighteen and had been trying to assimilate herself into a life she’d had very little experience with.

She’d struggled with finding a place of employment due to her difficulty with human interaction and her tendency to avoid it. On top of that, she’d had an uptick in the amount of interaction she had with the alternate personality, ranging from a haunted feeling, as if there was always someone just behind her, to the almost debilitating fear that she may lose time and come to only to find that her alter had done something, or worse, hurt someone because she had misinterpreted Ashlie’s emotional responses.

The therapist had spent the better part of fourteen hours calming her patient enough to initiate a dialogue between herself and her alter. She then had to help Ashlie get past her fear of Christina herself, so that the two of them could speak to one another.

She’d had to intervene several times, as Christina had a tendency to run roughshod over her host, often belittling her or making mean and snide comments. It was almost to the point where the therapist was ready to give up on the endeavor when she’d finally gotten the two of them to communicate in a way that was beneficial.

Ashlie had pled with her alter to step back and let her try and make a life for herself by herself. Christina was rigidly resistant to the idea until the therapist suggested that she continue to be vigilant in her watch over Ashlie, but only present if Ashlie were in some physical distress, and not when she was only afraid or anxious.

In the end, Christina reluctantly agreed that being away from the home she’d grown up in, Ashlie was less likely to need the protection that she provided. She agreed that while she would always watch, she would not interfere until needed.

“I had hoped that over time, and with the medication I prescribed you, that you might ‘outgrow’ your alter, or that she would possible fade away, like as was the case with the alter that formed the night of your parents murder. It has happened other patients as well… but this was not the case here.” Dr. Hayz shook her head. “For the past five years, Christina has kept her word and only watched, with, you must admit, minimal interaction in your life. I do believe that your medication and adherence to the schedule you’ve set out for yourself have been a big part of that.”

“But that was five years ago,” Ashlie said softly, feeling lost. She hadn’t thought about Beck in a long time. Except for what she’d been told, she had know knowledge or recollection of the alter at all.

“Yes, it was.”

“Then why now? I was- I was finally to the point that I felt like I was living a normal life. I was- I was happy… What happened?”

“I did ask her the reason behind her recent actions and what incited her actions.” The doctor adjusted her glasses, looking away for a moment. “And I must apologize to you. I’m afraid I may have played a part in all this.”

“What?” Ashlie again couldn’t comprehend what it was she was being told.

“Ashlie, at our session I congratulated you on the achievement of getting and holding a new job and living on your own. I encouraged you to celebrate…” Dr. Hayz’s words trailed off and she sighed. “I encouraged you to do something different. And I believe that it was the change in your routine that caused this.

“I don’t understand.”

“That day, you went to a concert. After all the work you’d put into it, you changed the way you did things,” the therapist said, “and according to Christina, there was a rather belligerent man in the seat beside you, who at one point must have knocked you down when he lost his footing or something.”

Ashlie inhaled sharply. She felt the blood drain from her face, and the memory of that night came rushing back to her.

She had purchased a seat far enough away from the stage as she thought that she would be less likely to have people around her, but unfortunately a small group of people had taken the seats right next to her. They were loud and had obviously been drinking before coming to the venue and continued to drink during the show.

Ashlie had ignored them for the most part and done her best to enjoy getting to see one of her favorite bands live for the first time in her life.

At the mid-point in the show the band announced a brief intermission and began to leave the stage. At the same time Ashlie stood to go to the concession stand for some refreshment, the group beside her was also getting to their feet. As she turned to make her way up the aisle, she flinched as the was a shriek behind her followed by something, most likely one of the intoxicated persons in the group, landing forcefully against her back, causing her to fall to the floor between the stadium style rows of seats.

Closing her eyes as she fell, the only thing Ashlie could remember was trying to turn her body in such a way as not to fall against the seat beside her. Her next recollection was waking on the sofa in her flat the next day with one of the worst headaches of her life.

“Christina has been watching, just like she agreed to. She see’s everything you do, and everywhere you go,” Dr. Hayz said.

Ashlie cringed as the words were spoken.

“She felt it when you were frightened, and when you were shoved to the ground, it triggered her. That is why she presented.”

Ashlie knew from her subsequent interactions with the alter, in the days that followed, that something had happened, but she’d not been told exactly what.

“But- but why isn’t she just watching again?” she asked. “What does she want?”

Dr. Hayz sighed wearily.

“From what I could gather during our talk today, it seems that Christina wants what any sixteen year old girl wants.” The therapist met Ashlie’s questioning gaze. “She wants to live a life of her own.”

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