Chapter 3The Lie of Mental Illness

"Bang!"

Just as my fingers brushed against a rusted key inside the cardboard box, the door to my tiny room was violently kicked open.

Mary lunged inside. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and brutally dragged me out of the room and toward the stairs.

"Harper, you psychotic b*tch! How dare you hurt my son?!"

A tearing agony ripped across my scalp. I lost one of my slippers, my bare foot violently slamming against the wooden stairs, leaving dark purple bruises across my skin.

Chad was sitting in the living room, reviewing patient files. Hearing the screaming, he snapped his head up. His face went totally pale.

"Mary! What the hell are you doing?!"

Mary threw me onto the hardwood floor and shoved her phone directly into Chad's face. "Look! Look at what this psycho did to our son!"

On the screen was a photo of a terrified little boy. There was a glaring, red handprint across his cheek, and his tiny arms and legs were covered in jagged, bloody scratches.

Chad sucked in a sharp breath. He slowly turned his head to look at me, his face turning black with fury.

"It wasn't me!"

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, desperate. "I swear! I just saw a child pinned under the wardrobe! His little hand was reaching out, trying to scratch at the wood. His fingernails were completely peeled off..."

"Stop lying!" Mary shrieked. "You disgusting freak! You smashed the lock, broke into his playroom, and tortured my son!"

"I am going to kill you!"

Mary raised her hand and slapped me across the face again. This time, Chad didn't even try to stop her.

My cheek burned like fire. A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears.

"Harper! I bring you back to this house out of pity, and you are trying to drive us all insane?!"

The very last trace of warmth in Chad's eyes completely vanished.

Mary collapsed against the sofa, sobbing violently. "Chad, this time she just tortured him. What about next time?"

"Next time, she is going to murder all three of us in our sleep!"

"This is exactly what psychopaths do! You are a doctor, you know this better than anyone!"

Chad closed his eyes, taking a long, deep breath.

When he opened them again, there was nothing left but overwhelming disgust and total exhaustion.

"You need to go back to the hospital. You can't stay here."

"I am telling you the truth!"

I lunged forward and grabbed his forearm. "Go upstairs and look in the master bedroom! Go look under the wardrobe! That poor baby..."

"Enough!"

Chad violently threw my arm off of him. The force sent me crashing backward into the glass coffee table.

The table shattered into pieces. Jagged shards of glass sliced into the palms of my hands. Thick drops of blood fell onto the floor. Drip. Drip.

"I am done."

Chad stared at my bleeding hands. A microscopic flash of guilt crossed his eyes, but it was immediately swallowed by sheer exhaustion.

"You are never going to get better. And I... I am so incredibly tired, Harper."

His voice dropped to a cold, dead whisper. "Maybe the path your mother took is the only way you will ever find peace."

Boom.

It felt like a bomb went off inside my skull. All the blood drained from my face. It felt like every single bone in my body had just been crushed into powder.

Then, like a complete lunatic, I started to laugh.

"You don't have to call them. I will leave myself."

The man who promised to spend the rest of his life protecting me, the man who swore he would never let me end up like my mother—he was dead.

No. He had been dead for years. I was just too pathetic to realize it.

I dragged myself off the floor, walked back to the tiny storage room, and picked up the rusted key.

It was the key to my late mother's apartment. I wasn't completely homeless, despite what Chad wanted to believe.

Then, I reached into the box, pulled out the yellowing divorce agreement Chad had drafted a year ago, and signed my name.

I dragged the final stroke of the pen out long and hard, severing every last tie to my past.

When I walked back downstairs, Chad was standing at the bottom of the steps, watching me.

We stared at each other in total, suffocating silence. Neither of us said a word.

Outside, a taxi honked its horn impatiently.

It was time to go.

As I walked out the front door, he followed me all the way to the cab.

"Harper..."

Chad's eyes were a chaotic storm of emotion. Conflict. Guilt. Exhaustion.

"I can drive you."

"No."

I turned around and took one final look at the house we had shared for years. A single tear slipped down my cheek.

"Here is the key to your house. And the divorce papers are signed."

"From this second forward, we owe each other absolutely nothing."

Chad stared at the key and the papers in my hand. He didn't take them.

His voice was thick and raspy. "Just focus on getting your treatment. Once you are stabilized, we can talk about the divorce."

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid. Just go back to the ward and let them help you."

In that exact moment, a strange, suffocating sense of panic suddenly gripped Chad's chest.

"I am done with treatment." I smiled softly. "If I am crazy, then I am crazy."

"But you really should go check on the kid pinned under the wardrobe in the master bedroom."

"I know the hospital director told you I was stabilized, but consider it peace of mind."

Chad's entire body went rigid. The panic in his chest spiked, and he instinctively looked up toward the window of the master bedroom.

I turned around, opened the door of the cab, and slid into the back seat.

As the car slowly pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic, I didn't look back once.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!!!"

An agonizing, blood-curdling scream erupted from the second floor of the house.

Mary burst through the doors onto the second-floor balcony, stumbling and collapsing against the railing. Clutched in her arms was the crushed, lifeless, brutally mangled body of a small child.

"My baby... my baby... she murdered our baby!!!"

"Chad! Stop her! Harper is a murderer!"