Claire

I live my life in a series of flashes. Jumping from event to event never quite knowing how I got there. The only constant has ever been Claire. She has been there for as long as I could remember. Usually provoking me into doing things that I didn’t really want to do, but I always felt comfortable with her. Even if I wanted to, I was helpless to keep her away. When I woke up she was there lying next to me with a smirk on her face, like she knew something that I didn’t. She was always there.

I knew she was a problem, but she was my problem. I connected my identity to her. For better or worse she was part of me. I believed that until I was standing over the beaten and bloody body of a man who bumped into me in a bar. The events are sketchy. I remember not wanting to hurt him. I was happy to walk away, but Claire wouldn’t let that happen. She pushed me to do something. “Are you going to take that? You’re not a man! You don’t deserve me. Don’t be such a pussy!”

I told her it was okay, but she kept prodding. I screamed at her to leave me alone. The patrons looked at me like I was crazy, but she kept pushing. “I’ll leave if you don’t handle this. Then what will you do? You can’t live without me. Be a man.”

The security camera had to tell the rest of the story. I picked up the bottle of Allagash White that I had been drinking and brought it down on the back of this poor guys unsuspecting head spilling beer and blood on the distressed wooden floor. He crumbled. I stopped on the screen. I looked at the body and then off screen. I must have been looking at her. The bouncer lurched towards me, but I dropped with the remains of the brown glass bottle in my hand and landed it on the man’s neck just under his chin with the full weight of my body on top. Frothy pink bubbles spilled from the fresh wound as he gasped for air.

I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in an emergency room handcuffed to a hospital bed with a uniformed officer outside the room. Claire was nowhere to be seen. I was woozy and drifted off again. When I came to I saw her through the glass window in the waiting room. I half wished she hadn’t come, but I was glad she did.

She threw the officer a smile and then walked right past him and came into the room. Why would he let her come in? I had to be in some pretty serious shit. She looked me in the eyes and told me how proud of me she was. I screamed at her, “Do you realize what you did? Do you realize that we are not going to be able to be together anymore?” She laughed. The officer opened the door and barked at me to shut up. Clair mocked him. I laughed. She could always make me laugh.

A doctor came in to talk to me. Claire sat quietly in the corner. He asked me how I felt. I told him I was fine, that I wasn’t hurt. He said he knew that I wasn’t hurt. He wanted to know how I felt. Claire laughed again. I told her to be quite. The doctor asked who I was talking to. Claire introduced herself. He ignored her so I introduced her. The doctor was polite to Claire and then excused himself from the room.

When he returned he had a syringe and vial marked Haldol. Claire started to panic; I asked what the needle was for. I felt fine. All he said was that it would help. Claire was yelling, telling me not to let him give it to me. I struggled; the officer came into the room and I stopped. He gave me the injection.

Claire stopped panicking. She looked at me with depressed eyes, turned silently and opened the door to the emergency room treatment bay. She stepped through. I called after her, “Don’t go. Where are you going? I need you. Don’t leave me.”

She never looked back, she just kept walking.