Becoming Sarah (10 page)

“You didn’t!” Liza shrieked.

Aurelie laughed. “You little slut, you.”

I wasn’t laughing. “This is serious, you guys. I – I don’t know what to do.”

Liza patted my arm, but she couldn’t stop giggling. “Sorry.”

I jerked my arm away. “Really, I mean it. Why can’t you ever be serious?”

Aurelie made a pouting mouth as she picked up the menu. “Poor baby.”

Right now, more than anything, I wanted Maria’s sympathetic ear. She knew how to listen, really listen. When my mom was on one of her binges, Maria was always there for me, no matter what. And she didn’t just listen. She came over and helped me clean the apartment. She brought me pans of her mother’s chile rellanos. She was a real friend. These two. . . .

“And another thing,” I said, not
bothering to hide
my anger. “I don’t appreciate you giving me drugs and letting me go off with some stranger. He could have been a total psycho!”

“Nah.” Liza shrugged. “He was too hot to be
a serial killer
.”

“Besides,” Aurelie added, “you’re a big girl. I didn’t force you to take that pill.”

She was right, which only upset me more. “Still, it was a lousy thing to do. I don’t know why I hang out with you guys.”

Liza shrugged. “So don’t.”

“Maybe I won’t.” I stood up and pushed back my chair. “You know what? You aren’t really my friends. Friends don’t treat people like this.” My voice rose until half the restaurant was staring at us. “In fact, you can just both go to hell.”

Liza gave me an icy stare. “You’re no fun these days anyway. You’ve changed, Sarah, and not for the better.”

“It’s true,” Aurelie chimed in. “You’re different.”

Emotion choked me up. I cleared my throat. “You’re right. I have changed. If you ask me, it’s
about time
.
I’m tired of being a doormat. I’ve had enough of being used, and encouraged to make stupid choices.
”

Liza rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Don’t call me,” I said, as I stalked away.

“We won’t,” Aurelie yelled after me.

“God, what a bitch,” Liza said, loud enough for me to hear.

As I pushed open the front door and plunged out to the sidewalk, I heard them laughing.

So I’d burned all my bridges. Now I was really alone.

I’d lost my mother and Maria. I’d lost Sarah’s friends, her lover, and
my neighbor
Matt –
the one person in my new life I’d
actually liked. In my dreams I died again and again, while my murderer walked free. Plus, I might be pregnant by a man who wanted nothing to do with me.

As night fell, I wandered into the bathroom. I’d spent another afternoon sobbing into my pillow and eating ice cream. I peered into the mirror on the medicine cabinet. My face was puffy, my eyes red and irritated. I didn’t think I looked so beautiful anymore.

What was the point, anyway? Why go on, with nothing to look forward to?

I opened the medicine cabinet and stared at Sarah’s bottles of medication. One caught my eye. Sleeping pills. Maybe they would make me feel better.

I snapped off the cap and poured a few of the pills into my hand. I filled a glass with water and took one of them. If one helped me sleep, wouldn’t more help me sleep longer? I took another. No dreams for me tonight. Why not another? And another? I could make this all go away. I could put an end to it. I swallowed a third pill, and a fourth. I wasn’t really thinking, just trying to kill the pain in my heart. A
fifth pill, but as it went down
I retched and began to cry.

God, what was I doing? I stared at my face – Sarah’s gorgeous face – in the mirror. Tears coursed down my cheeks. How had I come to this? I really wanted to die. No, I just wanted to sleep and not wake up.

“No,” I whispered. “No, this is her. This isn’t me.”

A few weeks ago, with Ricky’s fingers on my neck, I’d wanted more than anything to go on living. Somehow, magically, I’d gotten my wish. So what was I doing now? I didn’t want this. Maybe Sarah’s body did, but not me, not Jamie.

I knelt over the toilet. I shoved a finger down my throat until I gagged. The pills came back up, and the water with it.

With shaking hands, I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Something was wrong with me. As Jamie, I’d had rough times, but I’d never seriously thought about suicide. Yet, after two weeks as Sarah, I’d nearly done myself in.

Back in the ninth grade, I’d had a science teacher who liked to ask us hard questions. He’d stalk around the classroom, his hands behind his back. “Is biology destiny?” he’d ask. “Do murderers have a murder gene? Are some people just naturally stupid, others smart?”

I remember raising my hand. “Lumley!” he thundered. “Tell us what you think.”

“No,” I said.

“No, what?”

“No, biology isn’t destiny. A murderer chooses to kill. Maybe it’s true that some people are smarter than others, but you can always study harder.”

Now I thought of that class discussion and wondered if I’d been wrong. As I changed into sweatpants and climbed up in bed, I wondered if suicide was Sarah’s biological destiny.

I curled up into a fetal position, my knees pulled against my chest. What if there was something wrong with Sarah’s body, something chemically wrong?

What if – and these words were a whisper in the back of my skull, spoken by a small voice I didn’t want to hear – what if it wasn’t Sarah’s body at all, but the terrible, wrenching thing that had happened to me, to Jamie, in an alley on the way home from work?

I pictured myself a few minutes earlier, popping pill after pill into my mouth. How had I come to that? I hadn’t been so scared since I woke up on Sarah’s bathroom floor.

It was a wake up call.

I needed to get my life together, and fast.

No sooner had I made that decision than I felt a wetness between my thighs. I sat up, turned on the light, a
nd found my underpants
stained with blood.

Not pregnant. Thank God for small favors, anyway.

The next morning, I took my problems one at a time.

First I made an appointment with a psychiatrist. Not the same one Sarah had seen -- too hard to fool -- but a new one. La
st night I'd scared myself
. This thing that was happening to me was too big to handle alone. I needed someone who could prescribe something to keep me balanced, to keep me from falling over the edge again.

I
found a recommendation for a nearby psychiatrist, Dr. Riley, on a website
. When I called her office, I said it was urgent. The receptionist said the doctor had had a last-minute cancellation and could see me that same afternoon.

Next, I rounded up all my b
ills, the ones Sarah had let build
up as well as the ones I was responsible for. In the past two weeks I'd let the finances go. I'd shopped to feel better, to forget my worries, and I'd managed to eat up a huge chunk of Sarah's monthly check. If I was careful for the next couple of weeks, I figured, I could get things under control.

After that, I went
back online
. I wanted to know what was happening in my murder case, and I could hardly call up Detective Todd to ask.

As soon as I sat down at Sarah’s computer again, I had another idea. Sarah must have had a email account. I tried Yahoo, then Gmail. If I was lucky – yes, her computer logged her on to Gmail automatically, no password needed. Her inbox was full of junk mail, ads for Viagra and dating services, but when
. I open
ed Sarah's "Sent Mail" folder there was o
ne message, a quick note to Liza: "Hey girl, can you believe I lost your new cell #? Call me."

Not very revealing.

I checked
one
last folder, called "Drafts". Bingo! A letter to a guy whose name I didn't recognize, dated three weeks ago. It thrilled me to read Sarah's actual words, to finally get a peek into her mind.

Dear Aaron,

Sorry if I freaked you out the other night. I have some crazy things going on in my life right now. I can totally understand if you don't ever want to cross my path again, but I hope you'll let me explain.

Do you ever feel like your life is spinning so badly out of control that things can never be right again? I feel like that every day. I feel like the whole world's closing in on me. I'm this person I don't even want to be. I do things and then I can't believe that was me.

I guess that doesn't really explain why I acted the way I did with you. I just wanted to say I'm sorry.

She'd signed the
email
"Yours, Sarah", but never sent it. I figured I would never know who Aaron was, or what she'd done to him. Still, her words gave me goose bumps up and down my arms. I did know the feelings she'd described. I was still feeling them. It seemed almost as though this e-mail was a message to me, a letter from beyond death.

So Sarah’s life hadn't been so perfect. Apparently being rich and beautiful wasn't enough. If I’d doubted that before, I didn’t now.

Next, I went
to Google
and searched for my own name. The Chronicle had another article on my case, just a few paragraphs. The police had cleared Otto and had no other suspects. In some ways, that was a relief. At least Otto's life could get back to normal. But it also meant that Ricky was still out there, still free after what he'd done. What he could do again. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Terrible as it was, I couldn't do anything about it. I wasn't ready to confront Ricky, not yet.

Next, I spent much too long skimming through the wall posts on the Facebook tribute page someone had set up for me. Lots of comments, some from friends and more from strangers pretending to know me. It was addictive, though. Strangely flattering.

The next task I'd set for myself wasn't going to be easy. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt -- the day was warm and bright -- and walked down one flight of stairs. I steeled myself and knocked on Matt's door.

He took his time answering, and when he did he wore boxer shorts and a t-shirt with a hole in it. He rubbed sleep from his eyes. I thought he looked adorable, but he blushed. “S-sarah, hi. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Sorry, did I wake you? I mean, I guess I did. Obviously.” Now it was my turn to feel flustered. “I just – just wanted to find out if you wanted to get some dinner tonight.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you asking me out? On a date?”

“Uh, kind of. Well, I’m feeling bad about how I acted the other night, I guess, and I wanted to make it up to you. I’d like for us to really be friends. That is, if you even want to speak to me now.”

“Sure I do. I was only teasing.” He grinned at me. “I’d love to go to dinner. Italian okay?”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Great. About eight?”

“I’ll pick you up. Not that I’ll have far to go or anything.”

I left Matt’s apartment feeling better than I had in a long while.

As I walked into Dr. Riley’s office, I surreptitiously wiped my palms on my jeans. I was sweating like crazy, more than the warm day called for. I’d never been to any kind of counseling. I wasn’t sure what I was going to tell her. Not the truth; she’d have me locked up in a padded cell. But some version of it, perhaps. Something that would make her help me.

I sat on the couch in the waiting room until it was my turn. A plump, comfortable woman in wrinkled slacks came out and glanced around; I figured she was a patient until she called my – Sarah’s – name.

“Sarah Winslow? I’m Dr. Riley.” We shook hands. She actually reminded me a little of my mother, my mother with a salon haircut and an expensive skin care regimen, but with the same warmth and slightly scatter-brained air. When we sat down together in her office, though, she was all business.

“I had Dr. Shin fax over your records, Sarah. Want to tell me why you stopped seeing him?”

I shrugged. “Things kind of. . .changed for me. My life totally fell apart, actually.”

“I see. In what way?”
“Well, I – I haven’t been feeling like myself.”

“Did something happen, Sarah?” She looked at me so intently. Her eyes were very blue. I almost felt like she could see right into me. I shifted in my seat. “Right before you started feeling this way, what happened?”

I swallowed hard. A scene flashed before my eyes: night, in the alley. Ricky pushing me down. The smell of urine, the beer on his breath. I opened my mouth to speak, but found I couldn’t.

“Go ahead, Sarah,” Dr. Riley said gently.

It all came pouring out then, all of it. Or almost. I told her how he’d raped me. How he’d wrapped his hands around my neck until I couldn’t breathe. How he’d left me for dead. “I feel like he did kill me,” I said, through tears. “I feel like I’ll never be safe again.”

I didn’t tell her I knew my attacker. I didn’t tell her how I’d woken up the next day as Sarah. But the truth of it, the core of what had happened to me, that I did tell. It was the first time I’d put it into words.