"But you don’t think I’m crazy. You think, you know, I was actually possessed," I say. I’m working on the last of my pasta now, eating it far more slowly than usual. The salt coats my tongue. I want to savor it, but something about eating right now is making me nauseous. Still, I don’t turn down free food. I can do stupid things, but none are that stupid. "Because you think possession is real."
"If I didn’t think possession was real, I wouldn’t work with a priest and a demonhunter," I say. "I’d be helping people at clinic, instead."
I nod. "So what made you think I was possessed?" I ask. "Instead of having a mental health crisis or whatever."
"You started to bleed," he says.
"What? Like from my hands and feet?"
"No," he replies. "But, from what I could tell, you were perfectly physically healthy. And then these…wounds opened all over your body, these deep cuts, and they would happen right in front of our eyes. Like something was just sinking its teeth into you and shredding you open like an envelope. It was horrifying. I have never seen anything like it, and I hope I don’t see it ever again."
He pales as I watch him. I get a bit nauseous myself.
"The worst part was that you would try to get…whatever it was, I don’t know, off you. You would stick your hands into the wounds, writhe your fingers against the cut. You were trying to tear whatever had come for you away from your body. You did that mostly in your sleep, I think. And we had to tie your hands up, which made you angry, and you would kick around, so we couldn’t do our jobs. We needed to be near you to keep you safe."
"That’s when you tied up my legs."
"Yes. We didn’t mean to scare you, but whatever was happening, I don’t know…we didn’t want to make it worse. You kept hurting yourself. It felt like we didn’t have a choice, like tying you up was our only option."
"And then you…was it Luke? Luke walked me to the bathroom, and you left me."
"No," he says, looking into my eyes. "Misha and I cleaned your apartment. Fed your cat. Did your laundry. We wanted you to feel normal when you went back to your life."
"And then what?"
"And then Luke confirmed you weren’t possessed, and we drove away, and we hoped your life got better," he says. "Just like every other person we’ve ever helped."
"Because I’m just like the rest of them."
He shakes his head. "No, of course not," he says. "You’re different, don’t you get it? If you weren’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all."