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Description
As far back as he could remember, there had been two voices in his head. One was his own, his conscious, his inner thoughts. The other belonged to someone else.

In his earliest memory of the other voice, he was sitting in his playroom, surrounded by colorful blocks. He was wearing overalls and a teddy bear T-shirt. The baby sitter was laying on the couch, giggling girlishly into the phone, simultaneously twirling her hair and the phone cord. “No, Mommy! Stop it, Mommy!” When he looked around, he couldn’t locate the screaming. But it bounced around his skull, pleading for help. Confused, he pounced on the sitter, sobbing and yelling. “Help her! Help her! Make it stop!” His parents were concerned, but the doctors said he simply had trouble distinguishing reality and make-believe.

Throughout his childhood, he would hear it. Sometimes it was praying. It cried often. He could hear it playing dolls and chasing imaginary creatures through the park. Somedays it was louder, some, he couldn’t hear it at all. As he got older, he realized he was the only of his peers that had this experience. He learned not to talk about it.

As he entered middle school, he began having sudden pains with no apparent cause. His parents took him to numerous doctors, who said it must be psychosomatic. But the pain corresponded with the voice. “I didn’t take the matches, Mom! I swear I didn’t. I didn’t do it! Then burns would appear on his arms. His parents thought he’d started smoking. He was grounded for a month.

The older he got, the more intense it became. By the time he graduated high school, it was a debilitating disease. When she cried, he cried. When she got beaten, he got bruises. Every winter, she would have a bad cold for a week, and he would too. All day, he heard the voice in the background. In fact, the voice had not been “it” for a long time, the voice was now Amanda. The girl whose thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, entire life story he knew as well as his own. She liked mashed potatoes with lots of butter. She despised the men that paid her mother for the right to sleep with her. Her favorite color was turquoise. She hated her appearance. She described her hair as “mousy”, her skin as “blotchy”, her body “chubby”. But that was the only thing he didn’t know; he had never seen her.

After a while, he wondered if he could talk to her. He would lie in bed thinking her name over and over again. One day, he received a tentative reply: ”Yes?” He learned that she was as connected to him as he was to her. That she had tried not to reach out, to hopefully sever their ties and keep him from being hurt by her. He and Amanda began conversing constantly, to create a friendship that replaced their shared voyeurism. They tried to balance each other out. When they were in pain, and she got sad, he could be the optimistic voice to pull them off the ledge. But Amanda’s struggles held him back. How could he get a job, without knowing when an invisible punch would land on his cheek? He knew how often this troubled her, because he could hear her weeping in his dreams. They tried medications to dull their minds, but behind the fog their connection stayed strong.

In their shared mind space, an agreement was made. It was the only thing left to do. He snuck her out of her house, she had lived only five miles away all this time, and they ran away together. When he saw her face in the flickering fluorescent lights at the gas station that first night, he didn’t have to tell her how he felt, because she already knew. She was loved and she was beautiful. It would be okay. When their daughter kicked for the first time, he could feel it two-thousand miles away. Their friends were always amazed at how they finished each other’s sentences. Everyone said they had the perfect marriage, the perfect life. And despite their shared scars, they agreed. Their life together was unique, but never regretted, not for a second. And when, at eighty-seven, she took her very last breath, he was curled beside her in their bed, and he too died. But they were smiling.

Description
As far back as he could remember, there had been two voices in his head. One was his own, his conscious, his inner thoughts. The other belonged to someone else.

In his earliest memory of the other voice, he was sitting in his playroom, surrounded by colorful blocks. He was wearing overalls and a teddy bear T-shirt. The baby sitter was laying on the couch, giggling girlishly into the phone, simultaneously twirling her hair and the phone cord. “No, Mommy! Stop it, Mommy!” When he looked around, he couldn’t locate the screaming. But it bounced around his skull, pleading for help. Confused, he pounced on the sitter, sobbing and yelling. “Help her! Help her! Make it stop!” His parents were concerned, but the doctors said he simply had trouble distinguishing reality and make-believe.

Throughout his childhood, he would hear it. Sometimes it was praying. It cried often. He could hear it playing dolls and chasing imaginary creatures through the park. Somedays it was louder, some, he couldn’t hear it at all. As he got older, he realized he was the only of his peers that had this experience. He learned not to talk about it.

As he entered middle school, he began having sudden pains with no apparent cause. His parents took him to numerous doctors, who said it must be psychosomatic. But the pain corresponded with the voice. “I didn’t take the matches, Mom! I swear I didn’t. I didn’t do it! Then burns would appear on his arms. His parents thought he’d started smoking. He was grounded for a month.

The older he got, the more intense it became. By the time he graduated high school, it was a debilitating disease. When she cried, he cried. When she got beaten, he got bruises. Every winter, she would have a bad cold for a week, and he would too. All day, he heard the voice in the background. In fact, the voice had not been “it” for a long time, the voice was now Amanda. The girl whose thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, entire life story he knew as well as his own. She liked mashed potatoes with lots of butter. She despised the men that paid her mother for the right to sleep with her. Her favorite color was turquoise. She hated her appearance. She described her hair as “mousy”, her skin as “blotchy”, her body “chubby”. But that was the only thing he didn’t know; he had never seen her.

After a while, he wondered if he could talk to her. He would lie in bed thinking her name over and over again. One day, he received a tentative reply: ”Yes?” He learned that she was as connected to him as he was to her. That she had tried not to reach out, to hopefully sever their ties and keep him from being hurt by her. He and Amanda began conversing constantly, to create a friendship that replaced their shared voyeurism. They tried to balance each other out. When they were in pain, and she got sad, he could be the optimistic voice to pull them off the ledge. But Amanda’s struggles held him back. How could he get a job, without knowing when an invisible punch would land on his cheek? He knew how often this troubled her, because he could hear her weeping in his dreams. They tried medications to dull their minds, but behind the fog their connection stayed strong.

In their shared mind space, an agreement was made. It was the only thing left to do. He snuck her out of her house, she had lived only five miles away all this time, and they ran away together. When he saw her face in the flickering fluorescent lights at the gas station that first night, he didn’t have to tell her how he felt, because she already knew. She was loved and she was beautiful. It would be okay. When their daughter kicked for the first time, he could feel it two-thousand miles away. Their friends were always amazed at how they finished each other’s sentences. Everyone said they had the perfect marriage, the perfect life. And despite their shared scars, they agreed. Their life together was unique, but never regretted, not for a second. And when, at eighty-seven, she took her very last breath, he was curled beside her in their bed, and he too died. But they were smiling.