The Forgotten Girl

Chapter 3

Maddie

I once spent an entire day doing research about “voices in my head.” The findings where alarming. Psychosis. Schizophrenia. Multiple Personality Disorder. I’m sure if I told Preston, he’d crack open my head and give me a diagnosis but, that would mean living with the results. I’d no longer be able to hide the insanity—I’d have to accept what was wrong with me. So I try to keep Lily locked up the best that I can, only letting her out when I know it won’t harm anyone. Like when I go to work.

After my therapy session, I go home to watch the channel nine news at 6 o’ clock, a habit of mine that started while I was in the hospital. It’s the local station and living in the small town of Grove Wyoming, not too much goes on. Fire at the old millhouse, lost bike, found bike, car accident down on 5^th Monroe and Maple drive. No injuries, just damage to the cars, which is causing traffic to back up. Alternative route suggestions. Then a quick clip on how to make pumpkin spice cake. Laughs, smiles, laughs. Yeah, get on with the good stuff, Lily whispers. The brief five minutes when the station gives a section to a more global headline, the brief insight to the grimier stuff, well usually anyway. Today ends up being a brief update on the disappearance of a girl, but there’s no details other than she’s been gone for a week and is still missing. “Keep an eye out everyone and if you have any information at all call this number.”

“Maddie, would you turn that off,” my mother shouts from the kitchen. “I hate it when you watch the news. Please, find something else to watch.” She says this every day. I’m not sure what bothers her about it, but for some reason she seems dead set on me not watching the news.

I click off the television halfway through the clip. It’s nearing five thirty, so I decide to go into my room to change into my go-to-work uniform. It’s a little early for work, but if I leave now I can make a much-needed extra stop on the way.

My room is a very stressful place. My mother decided to put up every single photo of me she could find, hoping it would spark my memory. All of them were taken before the age of thirteen because I got really camera shy when I hit my teenage years, something revealed to me in one of my mom’s stories she loves to tell about me. There are some of just me, some with her, and none with my father. Some of them are torn, like she ripped someone out of the photo. All the photos feel like pieces of paper to me, nothing more. And it makes me uncomfortable that I have to stare at multiple versions of myself every time I step in there, always feeling like I’m being watched by myself.

I turn on some music and then rummage through my dresser for something to wear, occasionally glancing over the walls and ceiling, cringing at how happy I look in most of the photos, all sunshine and rainbows, like there was no bad in the world. But there is. Just turn on the news. Just live inside my head for five minutes. Sometimes the girl in the photos doesn’t even look like me when I stare at her long enough. Like she’s just someone who shared the same face but had different thoughts and values.

After selecting an outfit, I close my dresser and start getting dressed. Slacks and a button down shirt, done up all the way to my chin. Black hair combed and gelled into place, so it’s plastered straight at the side of my defined cheekbones. Minimal makeup so my freckles are visible. No jewelry. Hideous loafers. This was how I dressed before the accident, I was told. And the dresser full of stuffy and boring attire confirmed this. That this is who I am. Maddie Ashford. Boring. Simple. Preppy. Conservative. I am Maddie and I look like a banker.

You were a good girl, Maddie.

You always did what was right.

Always followed the rules.

Never got into trouble.

I glance in the mirror, seeing the girl my mother described to me after I’d woken up and asked who I was yet at the same time not seeing. Honestly, I look confused—always do. Like I’m trapped behind a face I don’t recognize.

I am hiding behind a mask.

I’m hiding behind my amnesia.

I’m hiding.

Lost.

Lost.

Lost.

Drifting.

Part of me wishes I could be that girl she described, but most of me knows that I can’t be that person. Sighing at the thought, I pick up my discarded pants and reach into the pocket, retrieving the button I stole from Preston earlier today. I hate that I do it—in fact it makes me sick—that every time I see a stray button, I have to collect it. Not any fallen button, just one’s off people’s shirts, like some sort of strange OCD habit. It’s not a new habit either, something I discovered one day going through my old boxes of stuff. I came across a wooden box one day that was full of buttons in various colors, shapes, and sizes. I thought about asking my mother why I had it, but quite honestly, it’s something I feel like I should keep a secret. Crazy, like Lily.

Going into my closet, I stand up on my tiptoes and grab the box from the top shelf. Lifting the lid, I drop the new button into it, feeling a brief moment of gratification, but the feeling goes away the instant I put the lid on, as if I’m shutting a door closed that carries secrets to myself. After I put the box back on the shelf, I go into the kitchen, where my mom is cooking over the stove. The air smells like chocolate and cinnamon and there’s dough all over the countertops. She has her apron on, the fabric covered in melted chocolate and flour. There’s even some in her greying hair.

She has her back to me, but hears me come in and peers over her shoulder. “Oh, you’re ready early today,” she says as she skims over my outfit and gives me an approving look. “You look very nice, Maddie.” She walks up and smoothes the invisible wrinkles in my shirt.

I give her a tight smile as she brushes her hand over my head, putting some of my stray hairs into place. “Thanks.”

I sometimes wonder if she still sees her little girl when she looks at me, the one I don’t know, but who she likes to remind me once existed and that needs to be taken care of. My mom’s not a terrible person. She’s nice, caring, giving, although she worries about me way too much and is very controlling. But any faults of hers can be blamed on her twenty-one year old daughter still living with her who can’t remember anything before the age of fifteen. It’s not like I want to be living with her still, but every time I suggest moving out she says I need to act more responsibly. But I feel like I am. I have a job. I can dress myself. Make decisions. Granted maybe they’re not always the best. But I’m not incompetent and I wish she’d realize that. Although, sometimes I think she does know it and she just has issues with letting me go. I’m the only child and my father passed away when I was seven, something told to me in a very rushed story. “He died in a car accident, my mother told me when I asked her once. “That’s all you need to know.” Then she dismissed the conversation by leaving the room, I’m guessing because it’s too painful for her to talk about. So I don’t bring it up, even though Lily tries to get me to all the time.

“Did you remember to pack your scarf and gloves just in case it snows tonight and the car won’t start?” my mother says, interrupting my thoughts. She’s packing a bag of cookies for me like I’m going to school and she needs to make my lunch. “I hate that you work clear out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yes mother.” The possibility of it snowing is slim to none, but arguing with her does no good, something I’ve learned over the last few years.

“And you remembered to put your paycheck in your purse so you can deposit it right?” She hands me the bag of cookies with worry all over her weathered face.

I nod, patting my purse as I drop the bag of cookies into it, trying to resist the urge to mess around with the collar on the shirt that’s so tight I feel like I’m being strangled. “Yes, I have everything I need, so can I please go to work now?”

Her worry increases, making more lines appear on her face. I saw pictures of her a few years before my accident and there were hardly any lines at all, but six months after, wrinkles were flourishing all over. “Maddie, since you’re leaving early, can you please stop by and put that check in this time? If you keep forgetting then it’s going to expire and then it isn’t going to be any good anymore.”

“I know that.” I reach for my coat draped on the back of the kitchen chair. “And I promise I’ll put it in.” But I won’t because I’m making a stop somewhere else, the same stop I make every couple of days, the one stop that makes being two people just a little bit easier.

“I’m worried about you, Maddie,” she says. “You’ve been so irresponsible lately. With the checks. Coming home late. It’s so unlike you and it worries me that maybe something’s going on with you that you’re not telling anyone.” She stares me straight in the eyes without blinking and it wigs me out.

“Nothing’s going on.” Unlike you. Seriously? I bite down on my lip, trying to stop myself from saying it, but the urge overpowers me. “How do I know for sure if it’s unlike me,” I sputter. “I mean, are you really sure that six years ago I wasn’t irresponsible? Maybe I’m returning to my old self again.”

She either looks horrified or extremely angry—I can’t one-hundred percent tell which one, but thank God, it gets her to blink again. “Let’s get one thing straight,” she snaps. “You were never irresponsible. You never talked back. Never did anything wrong. You were the perfect daughter and never think otherwise.”

I want to drop it, but Lily is persistent. “No matter how many times you say that, it seems highly implausible. No one is perfect.” I should just stop there. She seems frazzled and usually I don’t try to push her buttons, but I’m not sure I’m really myself at the moment. Lily feels very powerful, Maddie really tired, and I’m starting to wonder if the hypnotherapy set something off. “Besides, you say all these things about me—that I was responsible, never talked back, a good girl—yet it doesn’t feel like that’s my nature.”

“Maddie Asherford.” Her tone carries a warning as she reaches to turn the oven timer off as it buzzes. “You’re a good person. You’re just confused because you can’t remember anything—all the good stuff you did.” She pauses. “Preston said you’ve been a little uncooperative the last few sessions. Is there anything you want to talk about?” she asks, reaching out and petting my head again. “Anything at all.”

Anger flares up inside me. “Preston’s not supposed to be talking to you about what goes on in therapy,” I say in a low tone that startles us both. I’m not even sure why this is bothering me so much. “It’s confidential.”

She flinches at the tone of my voice and her hand stops moving over my head, but remains there. “I asked him to tell me today if you were doing okay or not, considering you’ve been a little out of it at home.”

“You have no right!” My voice cuts through the air like a knife as I tighten my jaw and lean against the countertop.

“I have every right, Maddie, and you won’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother and everything I do is to help you, whether you can see that or not.” There’s this plea in her eyes, begging me to stop. “Please start trying to act like the daughter I used to know again. It feels like I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

I want to say a million things to her, tell her everything. How I feel. How I walk around in this world, being told what I was, how I used to act, yet no one understands that that person doesn’t exist anymore. She died the moment she woke up in the street, bloody, mangled, and a bundle of confusion. And that I don’t believe I was ever a good person considering how fucked up I am now. I think, like humans in general, she believes what she wants to believe because it helps her sleep at night and be able to get out of bed in the morning.

“Fine, mother. I’m a good girl and I’ll do what I’m told.” It’s the biggest bunch of bullshit. I can only be what I can be and right now that’s a mixture of a lost girl named Maddie, who wonders why she ran out in front of the car in the first place, and a girl named Lily who wants to believe that I chose to forget all of my memories for a reason. Someone who isn’t good and bad. Who rebels yet sometimes wants to obey. Breaks rules and follows. Craves danger and fears it. Basks in the darkness and embraces the craziness living inside her and who sometimes cries over it.

My mom looks partially convinced then hugs me and returns to the kitchen to take out the next sheet of cookies from the oven. “Call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” I say, stepping toward the door, the toe of my shoe slipping into the sunlight, me inching my way to freedom. Lily starts to stir inside me. Let me out. Let me out. I need to breathe. I take another step and then another, waiting for my mom to say anything else. When she starts to hum under her breath, picking up the spatula on the countertop to scoop the cookies up, I know that the conversation has ended and I’m dismissed. I swing open the back door and hurry outside into the frosted driveway where my car is parked. I try to keep Lily still inside me for just a few minutes longer. Try to keep myself contained. Just enough so that I can get out of the driveway and down the road to the corner. She’s restless and by the time I’m pulling into the driveway of a quaint antique shop on the corner, I’m practically hyperventilating in my seat to get out of these stuffy clothes and into something else.

The lights are off in the building, the closed sign up. I leave the engine running as I hop into the backseat, tousling my fingers through my hair, freeing my gel sustained locks. I pick out a nasty clump of it and flick onto the floor. Then I kick my shoes off, remove my pants, and unbutton the stuffy shirt, breathing the fresh air in with each button unfastened. When I shuck it off, I feel like I’ve shed off all my skin and air can finally get to my pores, only it still feels like there’s a layer of dirt on my skin, filthy, disgusting. I can breathe again. I feel both disgusted and pleased with myself for feeling this way. Confliction. It’s become my middle name.

Beneath the banker-like attire, I’m wearing a short, tight, black Metallica shirt and leather pants. I’m a biker chick today and maybe tomorrow I’ll be mod. I change my look quite frequently. Play different characters, trying to discover my true identity, feel a spark inside me that says hey, that has to be me. But as usual, I feel disconnected so I’m guessing I wasn’t a biker badass in my previous life.

After I adjust the shirt into place over the massive scar on my side, I get back into the driver’s seat. Road rash, I was told, scraped quite a few layers off my ribs and left a massive, gnarly scar about the size of my fist. It’s sort of hideous, but there are worse things in life. I also have one on the palm of my hand where I was gripping the object that cut open my skin. It kind of looks like a burn mark with these weird diamond shaped patterns attached to a long thing line that teethes out at the bottom and when I squint closely at it, I can almost make out the number fourteen in the center of it.

Once my outfit’s in place, I reach under the seat of the car and grab the duffel bag I keep hidden there. I take out my leather collar and matching bracelets, hoop earrings, and my lace-up boots. After I put them all on, I apply red lipstick and kohl eyeliner, and then grab my pack of cigarettes, feeling inner peace for the first time today, free. Glancing in the rearview mirror, the confusion in my eyes from earlier has settled as I light up my cigarette. Smoke encircles my face. I’m smiling at the same time tears are rolling down my face. I feel darkened. Sedated. Just like my soul. But as I pull away, heading to my secret spot to see my secret friend, I feel even more hope of some sort of peace for the day because where I’m going I can be anyone. Good or bad.