Do You Remember??

Do you remember what you did to me?

Do you remember how it all went down?

Do you remember the day when you changed everything?

You probably don’t, which is fine. Actually, I take that back, it’s not fine. Ever since you wronged me, ever since you ruined my life, my whole perspective changed.

I remember when I first met you, I was nine years old. That was a really long time ago but it sometimes feels like yesterday. I always get nostalgic thinking of this day and I’m not sure why. Nostalgia referred to happy moments and this day was far from it.

This is the day my teacher decided we were going to play a game outside instead of learning about subtracting thousands. We went out to the playground and played freeze tag. I loved freeze tag almost as much as I love my mother, and I love my mother a lot.

I was running away from the fastest kid in our class. I was running as fast as I could, but my fastest wasn’t enough. He caught up to me and just when he was about to tag me, I tripped. I don’t know what I tripped on because I was focused on something else.

I was focused on you.

I don’t know where you came from but I know that you were there.

“How could you do that?” You say to the boy as I get up.

“Do what?” the boy asks.

“You pushed him.” You say taking a step towards the boy.

“No.” I say to you, “He didn’t push me. I tripped.”

“You’re lying!” You yell. You run up to the boy and punch him right in the nose.

“Stop.” I say to you but you don’t listen. You punch him over and over again as I try to pull you back. After a few minutes the teacher comes over and separates the two of us, but it was too late.

I looked down at the poor boy but he looked lifeless.

“River,” My teacher says, putting her hands over her mouth, “What have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything. It was-” but I couldn’t finish my sentence because you disappeared.

Next thing I knew the boy was in the hospital and I was in the principal’s office with my parents. I remember trying so hard to explain what happened but no one believed me. If only you could walk through that door and tell them what really happened.

The boy ended up dead and I went to juvie for years. Luckily the judge allowed my parents to pay my way out of prison. Of course it cost us a fortune but at least my parents didn’t hate me for it.

You constantly showed up in my life at the worst times. No one ever believed me though because you always disappeared. I was expelled three other times because of you but the third time was probably the worst. You probably remember that though.

I was 16 and I was getting pretty used to taking all the blame for the bad stuff you did. All the kids at school thought I was really cool but the teachers hated me. There was this one teacher, my history teacher. She always told me that I was going to fail in life if I didn’t change. I stopped trying to convince people that you were the one doing bad things, so I always tried ignoring her comments. You, on the other hand, decided to do otherwise.

One day, she was returning back an important test that I failed. She lectured me in front of the whole class for 10 minutes about how I’m a failure. After lecturing me, she was about to pass out a bunch of papers, but she realized she didn’t print enough of them. She left the papers on her desk and went to print more. The minute she left the room, you came in.

I don’t know what happened after that, because everything went black, like I fell asleep. I ‘woke up’ in the principal’s office for the millionth time.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Really River?” My mom asks, sitting next to me.

“Mom?” I turned around and saw my dad on my other side looking disappointed. I looked around for you but like always, you weren’t there.

“What did I do wrong this time?” I asked the principal.

“According to your classmates,” the principal said, “After your teacher left, you got out of your seat and burned the papers on her desk with a lighter from your pocket. Half the classroom ended up being burned, luckily someone pulled the fire alarm.”

“Thank God no one was hurt.” My mom says.

“Wait.” I say, “I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t do this.”

No one believed me and I got expelled. That was three years ago but now it all makes sense.

You want to know why?

Because I’m currently writing a letter that you’re gonna read whenever you show up again. The doctor told me that people with Dissociative Personality Disorders write to their alters. I guess it’s one of the only ways to talk to the alter ego in your head. Apparently this is how we can communicate, if you want to.

I wonder what I would have done differently if I knew that you and I are the same person. I don’t know where you came from or why you did all those things, but I’m gonna find out. I’m gonna find out why you changed everything.

Your Alter, River